INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL

ENGINEERING - IE 1000

FACILITY LAYOUT

Circe Niezen
L-257
cniezen@pupr.edu
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understand how production processes are

typically organized and the trade-off between
efficiency and flexibility offered by each
design.
2. Gain experience with the basic tools used to
design work-centers, assembly lines, and
manufacturing cells.
3. Recognize typical retail and office layout
designs.
LAYOUT DECISIONS

 Facility layout: the process of

determining placement of departments,
workgroups within departments,
workstations, machines, and stock-
holding points within a facility
LAYOUT DECISIONS

 This process requires the following

inputs:
1. Specification of the objectives used to
evaluate the design
2. Estimates of product or service demand
3. Processing requirements
4. Space requirements for the elements
5. Space availability within the facility
BASIC PRODUCTION LAYOUT FORMATS

 Work-center (job-shop or functional layout)

 Similar equipment are grouped together
 Assembly Line (flow-shop layout)
 Work processes are arranged according to the steps
by which the product is made
 Manufacturing cell
 Groups dissimilar machines to work on similar
products
 Project layout
 Product remains at one location
WORK-CENTER

A laboratory to test samples received in a

hospital facility is normally organized
following a functional layout. You will see
similar equipment-tools-materials grouped
together in the same space (rooms): testing of
blood samples in one room or area, testing of
special samples in a separate room or area.
 Can you think of possible advantages and
limitations of this type of layout?
WORK-CENTER

Swissturn-USA. Swissturn/USA is a Swiss screw machine job

shop.
ASSEMBLY LINE

 Automobiles are mostly manufactured using

assembly lines. Textile industries use
assembly line, too.
 Do you think a Boing 757 is manufactured
using an assembly line?
 Assembly lines require high demand for
standardized products in order to be practical
and efficient (Why?).
ASSEMBLY LINE

Manufacturing assembly line in China to make electronic

products.
MANUFACTURING CELL

 Manufacturing cells are well-known models to

assemble items that require increase flexibility
because the production items might require
higher levels of customization (i.e, computers
with different configurations).
 Manufacturing cells are known to provide
more challenging environments to operators
and usually are designed so much less external
supervision is imposed to the group of
operators working in this type of layouts.
MANUFACTURING CELL

 Manufacturing cells are also known as Cell

Layout or Group-Technology Layout. In the
late 90’s, Dell made significant efficiency
and cost impact to the desktop and laptop
production using manufacturing cell
layouts.
 Dell made possible to order a laptop online
and be able to select the configuration from
multiple options to fit your need. The
computer could be at your door within 1 to 2
weeks. That was a real innovation to the
business model back then.
MANUFACTURING CELL

 Compare figures 1 and 2 below:

Figure 1. Current Layout: assembly line

MANUFACTURING CELL

 Compare figures 1 and 2 below:

Figure 2. Improved Layout: manufacturing cell or

Group Technology
MANUFACTURING CELL

 Compare figures 3 and 4 below:

Figure 3. Current Layout using Cell Layout

MANUFACTURING CELL

 Compare figures 3 and 4 below:

Figure 4. Improved Layout: using Cell Layout

PROJECT LAYOUT

 Project layouts are also known as fixed-

location layout (can you think why is that?).
Project or Fixed location layout will be used
where the item being manufactured can
become bulky and difficult or costly to move
from one station to the other.
 Can you think of big items being manufactured
today?
PROJECT LAYOUT

 Airplanes,

 boats,

 buses,

 train vagons
 Could be production items that will require
crews, equipment and tools to move to the item
instead of the item moving through several
workstations or a production line.
PROJECT LAYOUT

Boeing Manufacturing Plant

PROJECT LAYOUT

 Let’s provide additional thinking on the

Project Layout and the airline
manufacturing industry.
 The following video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dwqu7p
RqGg from Boeing can help you grasp how
the above four type of layouts are evolving
and probably you might never find a facility
where you can only have one single type of
layout.
LAYOUT BOEING 737

 In the Boeing 737 video provided at Boeing

Lean Manufacturing, you will find an
interesting perspective that the layout
being used by Boeing is more focused on the
lean thinking to provide continuous flow at
the lowest cost while maintaining little
inventory.
 The Lean manufacturing principles and
tools are applied to improve the
productivity of the whole system by key
lean practices:
LAYOUT BOEING 737

1. Parts, equipment and kits are staged at

the point of use.
2. Airplanes are actually flowing in a huge
manufacturing line and the pace of the
line is regulated by customer demand. The
line moves at a speed of 2 inches per
minute.
LAYOUT BOEING 737

3. Specialized equipment is staged or located

near the point of use. Go check the
material handling equipment and
operators assembling and attaching the
turbine to the airplane.
4. Pitch marks indicate progress relative to
schedule.
LAYOUT BOEING 737

5. Car kits contain the parts, standards,

tools, chemicals, and standard work
instructions required for a specific job.
Employees looking for material and kits
can make sure to travel less while
reducing the effort. Kits are then
delivered to the point of use “Just In
Time”.
6. Team members inform team leaders of
problems more easily.
LAYOUT BOEING 737

7. There is an “andon system” to indicate of

problems and make sure there is a follow-
up to the resolution (Andon is
a manufacturing term referring to a
system to notify management,
maintenance, and other workers of a
quality or process problem).
8. There are clear team roles and
responsibilities as jobs must be
synchronized making sure “things flow at
a precise pace”.
LAYOUT BOEING 737

9. The enterprise information system (Pacer

System) monitor constantly the progress
again schedule.
10. There are standard operating procedures
that must be in the right place at the right
time in order to ensure mechanics and
other support functions perform their job
in a timely manner.
FLEXIBLE LAYOUTS
WORKCENTERS
 Given
 The flow (number of moves) to and from all
departments
 The cost of moving from one department to
another
 The existing or planned physical layout of the
plant
 Determine
 The “best” locations for each department,
where best means maximizing flow, which
minimizing costs
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Let’s work to help a Toy Factory facility to
determine the “best” locations for each
production departments, where best
means maximizing flow, while minimizing
costs.
 Initially, the facility is empty.
 You are moving to this new facility that
measures 160 x 80 ft.
 In order to facilitate this analysis, we will
think that each department will be
assigned the same physical space.
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Remember, right now you have 8 empty
spaces using numbers 1 through 8. There
is no department assigned to any space,
yet.
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 We have the following 8 departments:
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 You need to understand the flow between
the 8 production departments:
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Let’s read the table above:
1. There are 175 units of flow between
departments 1 and 2. Remember not to
confuse units of flow with the traveled
distance between departments 1 and 2.
2. Actually, what is the distance between
departments 1 and 2? Answer: there is no
distance right now because departments
are not yet located into the facility. The
facility is empty. Remember!
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Let’s read the table above:
1. How many units of flow are there between
departments 3 and 7? Can you tell?
Answer:
2. Practice a little more: how many units of
flow are there between departments 2-
Plastic Molding and 7-Painting?
Answer:
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Another very useful way to get visual and
see the units of flow between departments
is by using the flow graph named Inter-
Workcenter Flow Graph:
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Reflection with the Inter-Workcenter Flow
Graph:
 Why there is no line connecting department
1 and 4? Why there is no number? What are
the names of departments 1 and 4?
 What two departments in your home have
the highest flow between them?
 What will be a department at your home?
 Does it make sense to refer as departments
at your home or refer to them as rooms?
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 DO NOT GET CONFUSED WITH THE
INTERWORKCENTER FLOW GRAPH.
 Remember that the departments are not
yet located or assigned to any location of
the layout.
 The interworkcenter flow graph is a
representation of the current units of flow
between departments.
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Forthis case, the visual location used in
the interworkcenter flow is equal to the
empty department locations in the current
available space:

Empty space representation of Units of flow representation

the facility and locations between departments
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM

Empty space representation of the facility. Therefore, any departments

could be located in any area of the empty facility. The numbers above are
just imaginary lines to illustrate our space availability for each
department.
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Let’sdescribe a specific objective and a
cost analysis related to the movement of
materials (describe the relationship
between cost and distance: larger distance
will equate to larger or smaller costs?)
 Wish to arrange eight workcenters to
minimize interdepartmental handling cost
 Assume all workcenters have same space
and fit in the empty building
 All material is transported in standard
crates by forklift
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Transportation
costs are $1 to move
between adjacent workcenters
 $1 Extra for each workcenter in between
 Using
the transportation costs above,
answer the following questions:
 What is the transportation cost between
departments 1 and 3?
 What is the transportation cost between
departments 1 and 5?
A SIMPLE APPROACH TO ANALYZE THE
LAYOUT PROBLEM
 Using
the transportation costs above,
answer the following questions:
 What is the transportation cost between
departments 1 and 6?

 What is the transportation cost between

departments 1 and 4?
COST MATRIX
COST MATRIX
 Therefore, using this cost information and
rationale, let’s validate the following cost
matrix.
 The cost matrix will be a result of
multiplying the units of flow between two
departments by its cost:

 𝑳𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 = 𝐿 = 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡 × 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤

 𝑳𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 = 𝐿 = 𝐶 × 𝐹

COST MATRIX
 You need to decide the appropriate
locations of departments or workcenters.
 Remember that you have an empty
facility.
 What do you think is the correct answer 1,
2 or 3 from the following reflection?
COST MATRIX
 Reflection:One basic thinking regarding
the location of departments is that:
1. We want departments with higher flows
near each other
2. We want departments with higher flows far
from each other
3. The units of flows between two
departments should not affect our decision-
making process of where to locate
departments.
COST MATRIX
 Now, you can proceed to develop a cost
matrix.
 You need to decide the exact location of
each department to the empty facility.
 In order to proceed and develop a simple
first cost matrix (an initial one), you will
assume that you maintain the exact
location of each department as it is
visually represented by the
INTERWORKCENTER FLOW GRAPH
show before.
COST MATRIX
 That is, you will keep departments in the
exact location as visually represented by
the flow graph (how convenient!):
COST MATRIX
 Ifwe do that, we can start calculating the L
function as:
 For departments 1 and 3 = 𝑳𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 =
𝐿 = 𝐶 × 𝐹 = $1 × 50 = $50
For departments 1 and 2 =
𝑳𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 = 𝐿 = 𝐶 × 𝐹 = $1 × 175 = $175

 Continue, calculating:
 For departments 1 and 5 =
𝑳𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒖𝒏𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 = 𝐿 = 𝐶 × 𝐹 = $2 × 30 = $60
COST MATRIX
 Please,fill in the yellow thick line with the
appropriate calculation for L (layout cost
function):
COST MATRIX