Facilities Planning Third Year Production

FLOW, SPACE, AND ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIP

Flow, Space, and Activity Relationship

In determining the requirement of a facility, three important considerations are flow, space, and activity relationships.

Flow

Flow depends on
lot sizes Unit load sizes Material handling equipment and strategies Layout arrangements Building configuration

Space

Space is a function of;

Lot sizes Storage system Production equipment type and size Layout arrangement Building configuration Material handling equipment Housekeeping and organization policies Office, cafeteria, and restrooms design.

Activity Relationships

Are defined by;

Material or personnel flow Environmental considerations Organizational structure Continuous improvement methodology Process requirement

Issues to consider in the facilities planning

The facilities planning team needs to interact with top management to identify alternative issues and strategies to consider in the analysis i.e.
Lot sizes Storage handling strategies Office design Organizational structure Environmental policies

Planning Departments
Can involve production, support, administrative, and service areas. Production planning departments are collection of workstations to be grouped together during the facilities layout process.

Planning Departments
As a general rule planning departments maybe determined by combining workstations that perform like functions. like could be similar products or similar processes

Process Flow Structures

Job shop (custom products) Batch shop (furniture manufacturing) Assembly Line (car industry) Continuous Flow (ex: petroleum, flour, sugar, etc.)

Low Volume, One of a Kind

I. Job Shop II. Batch III. Assembly Line IV. Continuous Flow

Few High Multiple Major Volume, Products, Products, High Low Higher StandardVolume Volume ization
Flexibility (High) Unit Cost (High)

Commercial Printer Custom bikes Trek CAT Automobile Assembly Burger King Sugar Refinery

These are the major stages of product and process life cycles
Flexibility (Low) Unit Cost (Low)

Copyright 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Volume-Variety Layout Classification

Depending on product volume-variety, production planning departments can be classified as product, fixed material production, product family (or group technology), and process planning departments.

Volume-variety layout classification

Volume
Product Planning Department Product Layout Product Family Planning Department Group Technology Layout Fixed Location Layout Low Fixed Materials Location Planning Department Low Medium Process Layout Process Planning Department High High

Medium

Variety

Basic Layout Types

Product layouts

Process layouts
Fixed-Position layout

Combination layouts

6-13

Product Layout
A Lathe S T O R E S Lathe Lathe Drill Mill Drill Press Bend Drill Drill Grind Drill S S E M B

L
Y

Product Layout
Product Layout (sequential)
Work Station 1 Work Station 2 Work Station 3

Used for Repetitive Processing Repetitive or Continuous Processes

6-17

Advantages of Product Layout

High rate of output Low unit cost Labor specialization Low material handling cost High utilization of labor and equipment Established routing and scheduling Fairly routine accounting and purchasing

6-18

Disadvantages of Product Layout

Creates dull, repetitive jobs Poorly skilled workers may not maintain equipment or quality of output Fairly inflexible to changes in volume Highly susceptible to shutdowns Needs preventive maintenance Individual incentive plans are impractical

6-19

Process Layout
W

Lathe
S

Lathe

Drill

Weld

Weld

A
R Lathe Lathe Drill Paint Paint E H o U S Mill

T
O R Mill E S Mill Grind Assembly

Mill

Grind

Assembly

Advantages of Process Layouts

Can handle a variety of processing requirements Not particularly vulnerable to equipment failures Equipment used is less costly Possible to use individual incentive plans

6-21

Disadvantages of Process Layouts

In-process inventory costs can be high Challenging routing and scheduling Equipment utilization rates are low Material handling slow and inefficient Complexities often reduce span of supervision Special attention for each product or customer Accounting and purchasing are more involved

6-22

Fixed Location Layout

A S Press T O R Lathe Grind S E M B Weld Paint Assembly S

E
S

L
Y

Group Technology Layout

W
Lathe Drill Grind Assembly A R Mill Assembly Weld Paint E H

S
T O R E S Press Lathe Drill Press Assembly

o
U
S

Grind

Drill

Assembly

Drill

Grind

Group technology

Group Technology benefits manufacturing in many ways. It reduces the number and variety of parts. Process planning for the remaining parts is easier and more consistent. Group Technology cells reduce throughput time and Work-In-Process. They simplify schedules, reduce transportation and ease supervision.

Cellular Manufacturing
Involves the use of manufacturing cells, which can be formed in a variety of ways, with most popular involving grouping of machines, employees, materials, tooling and material handling and storage equipment to produce families of parts.

Cellular Manufacturing
Cellular manufacturing became quite popular in the late 1900s and is often associated with Just-In-Time (JIT), Total Quality Management (TQM) and Lean Manufacturing Techniques.

Work Cell

A logical and productive grouping of machinery, tooling, and personnel which produces a family of similar products. Each cell has a leader who manages the work flow, and is responsible for maintaining optimal quality and productivity

Cellular Manufacturing & Just-InTime (JIT)

Because of the free flow of materials in cellular manufacturing, it has the ability to produce products just in time. This means that every unit processed at one station will get processed in the next station. As such, no inventories that have already undergone processing at one station will be left unprocessed in another station. Process issues are immediately detected by just-intime production, since defective products are seen earlier than if products are manufactured in large batches and queued.

Cellular flow manufacturing

Line Balancing
It is not enough to simply arrange different equipment in sequence to make cellular manufacturing really work. Bottlenecks along the single process flow must be eliminated, usually by balancing the equipment capacities with each other. If bottlenecks exist, then the highercapacity equipment within the line will be underutilized.

Just-in-time (JIT) Production Systems/Kanban and CM

are closely related, as a cellular production layout is typically a prerequisite for achieving just-in-time production. JIT leverages the cellular manufacturing layout to significantly reduce inventory and work-in-process (WIP). JIT enables a company to produce the products its customers want, when they want them, in the amount they want.

Activity Relationship

Provide the basis for many decisions in the facilities planning process, the relationships considered are;
1. Organizational relationships 2. Flow relationship, including people, materials, equipment, information 3. Control relationships, including centralized vs. decentralized materials, real time vs. batch inventory control.

Activity Relationship
Environmental relationship 5. Process relationships Some relationships are expressed qualitatively and others must be expressed quantitatively; e.g. flow relationships are expressed in terms of moves per hour , the quantity moved per shiftetc
4.

Functional vs. Cellular Layouts

Dimension
Number of moves between departments
Travel distances Travel paths Job waiting times Throughput time Amount of work in process Supervision difficulty Scheduling complexity Equipment utilization
6-37

Functional
many
longer variable greater higher higher higher higher lower

Cellular
few
shorter fixed shorter lower lower lower lower higher

Flow Patterns
Flow within workstations Motion studies and ergonomics considerations 2. Flow within departments Layout design is one of the most critical tasks of production management. It affects the factory efficiency, quality and costs. If the layout is wrong, it can lead to Confused Flow patterns, inventories, long process times, inflexible operations and high cost.
1.

Flow within product departments

(a) End to end

(b) Back to back

(c) Front to front

(d) Circular

(e) Odd angle

Flow within process departments

Parallel

Aisles

Diagonal Aisles Aisles

Perpendicular

Aisles

Aisles

Flow in cell manufacturing

Steps of understanding manufacturing strategies

1. 2.

Consider volume-variety characteristics of the operation. The next decision or consideration that needs to be made is the process type. Largely, this is influenced by the volumevariety characteristics of the operation. Process types, e.g.
Jobbing process

1.

Batch process
Mass production process Continuous process

3. Select basic layout. This is the general type of arrangement of the facilities or plant of the factory, e.g.
Process layout Cell layout Product layout Mixed layout