Chapter 8 Facility and Work Design

Operations and Supply
Chain Management, 2e
Chapter 8: Facility & Work Design

(Collier & Evans, 2021)
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Explain how to design product layouts using assembly-line balancing.

2. Compute From-to charts to determine appropriate process layouts.
3. Describe issues related to workplace design.
4. Describe the various facility and work design layouts for efficient operations of
manufacturing and service firms.
8.1: Facility Layout
◎ Facility layout refers to the specific arrangement of physical facilities. Studies are
necessary when:
○ New facility is constructed.
○ Significant change in demand or throughput volume is observed.
○ New good or service is introduced to the customer benefit package.
○ Different processes, equipment, and/or technology are installed.
◎ The objectives of layout studies are:

○ Minimize delays in materials handling and customer movement
○ Maintain flexibility
○ Use labor and space effectively
○ Promote high employee morale and customer satisfaction
○ Minimize energy use and environmental impact
○ Provide for good housekeeping and maintenance
○ Enhance sales as appropriate in manufacturing and service facilities
8.1: Facility Layout
◎ Four major layout patterns are commonly used in configuring facilities:
8.1a: Product Layout
◎ A product layout is an arrangement based on the sequence operations performed
during the manufacture of goods or delivery of services. Exhibit 8.1 (in slide 7)
shows a typical product layout used in wine-making.
◎ Supports a smooth and logical flow of goods or services from one process stage to
the next, using the same sequence of work tasks and activities. For example, have
you seen a product layout if you have ever eaten at Subway or Chipotle; the
ingredients are arranged in a specific order as you build your sandwich or burrito.
Other examples include credit card processing, insurance policy processing and
automobile assembly.
◎ The jobs in a product-layout facility, such as those on a mass-production line, may
provide little job satisfaction. This is primarily because of the high-level of division
of labor often required, which usually results in monotony.
8.1a: Product Layout
Exhibit 8.1: Product Layout for Wine Manufacturer
8.1b: Process Layout
A process group consists of a functional grouping of equipment or activities that do
similar work. For example, all drill presses or fax machines may be grouped together in
one department, and all milling or data entry machines in another. Depending on the
processing they require, tasks may be moved in different sequences among
departments (in Exhibit 8.2). Job shops are an example of facilities that use process
layouts because they typically handle a wide variety of customized orders. Hospitals
also follow a process layout.
8.1b: Process Layout
◎ Advantages:
○ More flexibility and generally require a lower investment in equipment
○ Quicker response to quality problems
○ Increased worker satisfaction
○ More efficient use of floor space
◎ Disadvantages:
○ High material-handling costs
○ Complicated planning and control systems
○ Higher worker skill requirements
Exhibit 8.2: Process Layout for a Machine Shop
8.1c: Cellular Layout
◎ In a cellular layout, the design is not according to the functional characteristics of equipment,
but rather based on self-contained groups of equipment (cells) needed for producing a particular
set of goods or services. The cellular concept was developed at the Toyota Motor Company
◎ An example of a manufacturing cell is shown in Exhibit 8.3. In this exhibit we see a U-shaped
arrangement of machines that is typical of cellular manufacturing. The cell looks similar to a
product layout but operates differently.
◎ Within the cell, materials move clockwise or counterclockwise from one operation to the next.
The cell is designated to operate with one, two, or three employees, depending on the needed
output during the day (Exhibit 8.3 shows how three operators might be assigned to machines).
Each operator is responsible for loading the parts on the individual machine, performing the
processing operations, unloading the parts, and moving them to the next operation.
◎ Facilitates the processing of families of parts with similar processing requirements. The
procedure of classifying parts into such families is called group technology.
Exhibit 8.3: Cellular Manufacturing Layout
8.1c: Cellular Layout
◎ Advantages:
○ Workflow is standardized and centrally located therefore materials-handling
requirements are reduced, enabling workers to concentrate on production rather
than on moving parts between machines.
○ Entire system is not affected if a piece of equipment fails
○ Increased worker satisfaction
◎ Disadvantages:
○ Duplication of equipment among cells, greater worker skills requirements
8.1d: Fixed-Position Layout
◎ A fixed-position layout consolidates the necessary resources to manufacture a good
or deliver a service, such as people, materials, and in one physical location.
◎ Rather than moving work-in-process from one work center to another, it remains
stationary. The production of large items such as heavy machine tools, airplanes,
buildings, locomotives, and ships. Service-providing examples include major hardware
and software installations, sporting events, and concerts.
◎ Fixed-position layouts usually require a high level of planning and control compared
with other types of layouts.
◎ Advantages:
○ Work remains stationary
◎ Disadvantages:
○ High level of planning and control required.
8.1d: Fixed-Position Layout
◎ Exhibit 8.4 summarizes the relative features of product, process, cellular, and
fixed-position layouts. It is clear that the basic trade-off in selecting among these
layout types is flexibility versus productivity.
Characteristic Product Layout Process Layout Cellular Layout Fixed-Position Layout

Demand volume High Low Moderate Very Low
Equipment utilization High Low High Moderate
Automation potential High Moderate High Moderate
Setup/changeover High Moderate Low High
requirements
Flexibility Low High Moderate Moderate
Type of equipment Highly specialized General purpose Moderate specialization Moderate specialization
Exhibit 8.4: Comparison of Basic Layout Patterns

8.1e: Facility Layout in Service Organizations
◎ Service organizations use product, process, cellular, and fixed-position layouts to
organize different types of work.
◎ In service organizations, the basic trade-off between product and process layouts
concerns the degree of specialization vs flexibility. Services must consider the
volume of demand, range of the types of services offered, degree of
personalization of the service, skills of employees and cost.
◎ Determined by the degree of specialization versus flexibility of services
○ Organizations that need the ability to provide a wide variety of services to
customers use process layouts
○ Organizations that provide highly standardized services tend to use product
layouts
8.1e: Facility Layout in Service Organizations
◎ Service organizations that provide highly standardized services tend to use
product layouts. For example, Exhibit 8.5 (next slide) shows the layout of the
kitchen at a small pizza restaurant that has both dine-in and delivery.
Exhibit 8.5: Product Layout
for a Pizza Kitchen
8.2: Designing Product Layouts
◎ Product layouts in flow shops generally consist of a fixed sequence of workstations.
Workstations are generally separated by buffers (queues of work in-process) to store
work waiting for processing and are often linked by gravity conveyers (which causes
parts to simply roll to the end and stop) to allow easy transfer of work. An example is
shown in Exhibit 8.6 (next slide).
◎ Such product layouts, however, can suffer from 2 sources of delays:
○ Flow-Blocking Delay (or blocking delay): Occurs when a work center
completes a unit but cannot release it because the in-process storage at the next
stage is full. The worker must remain idle until storage space becomes available.
○ Lack-of-work delay (starving): Occurs when one stage completes work and no
units from the previous stage are awaiting processing. Lack-of-work-delay is
often described as “starving the immediate successor workstation
Exhibit 8.6: A Typical Manufacturing Workstation Layout
8.2: Designing Product Layouts
◎ These sources of delay can be minimized by attempting to “balance” the process
by designing the appropriate level of capacity at each workstation. This is often
done by adding additional workstations in parallel. Product layouts might have
workstations in series, in parallel, or in a combination of both.
◎ An important type of product layout is an assembly line. An assembly line is a
product layout dedicated to combining the components of a good or service that
has been created previously. Assembly lines were pioneered by Henry Ford and are
vital to economic prosperity. It helps lower costs and makes goods and services
affordable to mass markets.
8.2a: Assembly-Line Balancing
◎ The sequence of tasks required to assemble a product is generally dictated by its
physical design. However, for many assemblies that consist of a large number of
tasks, there are many ways to group tasks together into individual workstations
while still ensuring the proper sequence of work.
◎ Assembly-line balancing is a technique that helps distribute the same amount of
tasks among workstations. In other words, each workstation has the same
amount of work.
◎ To begin, we need to know three types of information to balance an assembly line:
1. Set of tasks to be performed and time required to perform each task
2. Sequence in which the tasks must be performed
3. Desired output rate or forecast of demand for the assembly line
8.2a: Assembly-Line Balancing – An Example
◎ To illustrate the issues associated with assembly-line balancing, let us consider an
activity consisting of 3 tasks, as shown in Exhibit 8.7 (next slide). Task A is first,
takes 0.5 minutes, and must be completed before Task B can be performed. After
Task B, which takes 0.3 minutes, is finished, Task C can be performed; it takes 0.2
minutes. Because all 3 tasks must be performed to complete one part, the total
time required to complete one part is 0.5+0.3+0.2 = 1 minute.
◎ Suppose that one worker performs all three tasks in sequence. In an 8-hour shift,
he or she could produce (1 part/1.0 minute) *(60 minutes/hour) * (8 hours/day) =
480 parts/day. Hence, the capacity of the process is 480 parts/day.
◎ Alternatively, suppose that three workers are assigned to the line, each performing
one of the three tasks. The first operator can produce 120 parts/hour, as his or her
task time is 0.5 minutes. Thus, a total of (1 part/0.5 min) * (60 min/hour) * (8
hours/day) = 960 parts/day could be sent to operator 2.
Exhibit 8.7: A Three-Task Assembly Line
8.2a: Assembly-Line Balancing – An Example
◎ Because the time Operator 2 needs for his or her operation is only 0.3 minutes, je or
she could produce (1 part/0.3 min) *(60 min/hour) * (8 hours/day) = 1600 parts/day.
However, Operator 2 cannot do so because Operator 1 has a lower production rate.
Operator 2 will be idle some of the time waiting on components to arrive. Even
though Operator 3 can produce (1 part/0.2 min) * (60 min/hour) * (8 hours/day) =
2400 parts/day, we see that the maximum output of this three-operator assembly
line is 960 parts/day. Therefore, workstation 1 performing Task A is the bottleneck
of the process.
◎ A third alternative is to use two workstations. The first operator could perform
Operation A while the second performs operations B and C. Because each operator
needs 0.5 minutes to perform the assigned duties, the line is in perfect balance,
and 960 parts per day can be produced. We can achieve the same output rate with
two operators as we can with three, thus saving labor costs.
8.2a: Assembly-Line Balancing – Cycle Time (CT)
• Cycle time is a calculation that comes from the world of lean manufacturing. The
cycle time is the amount of time it takes to complete a specific task from start to
finish. You can think of it as the time it takes to produce one unit or item from
beginning to end. It is also the interval between successive outputs coming off an
assembly line.
• In the three-operation example shown previously in Exhibit 8.7, if we use only one
workstation (one person managing all three operations), the cycle time is 1 minute;
that is one completed assembly is produced every minute.
• If two workstations are used (two operators), the cycle time is 0.5 minutes/unit.
• If three workstations are used, the cycle time is still 0.5 minute/unit, because Task A is
the bottleneck, or slowest operation. The line can produce only one assembly every
0.5 min.
• The following equations provide additional information about the performance of an
assembly line
Solved Problem 8.1: Computing Assembly Line Performance Measures
Bass Fishing Inc. assembles fishing reels in an assembly line using six workstations.
Management wants an output rate of 300 reels per day (with a 7.5-hour workday). The
sum of the task times is eight minutes/reel. Find the cycle time, total time available,
total idle time, assembly line efficiency, and balance delay.
Cycle Time= CT= A/R = [7.5 hours/day)*(60 minutes/hour)]/ (300 reels/day) = 450/ 300
= 1.5 minutes/reel
8.2b: Line Line-Balancing Approaches
• Balancing the three-task example in the previous section was quite easy to do by
inspection. With a large number of tasks, the number of possible workstation
configurations can be very large, making the balancing problem very complex.
• Decision rules, or heuristics, are used to assign tasks to workstations. Because
heuristics cannot guarantee the best solution, one often applies a variety of different
rules in an attempt to find a very good solution among several alternatives. For
example, assigning the longest task time first to a workstation if the cycle time would
not be exceeded.
8.2b: Line Line-Balancing Approaches – An Example
• To illustrate a simple, yet effective, approach to balancing an assembly line, suppose
that we are producing an in-line skate, as shown in Exhibit 8.8 (next slide). The target
output rate is 360 units per week. The effective workday (assuming one shift) is 7.2
hours, considering breaks and lunch periods. We will assume that the facility operates
five days per week.
• Eight tasks are required to assemble the individual parts. These, along with task
times, are:
1. Assemble wheels, bearings, and axle hardware (2.0 min).
2. Assemble brake housing and pad (0.2 min).
3. Complete wheel assembly (1.5 min).
4. Inspect wheel assembly (0.5 min).
5. Assemble boot (3.5 min).
6. Join boot and wheel subassemblies (1.0 min).
7. Add line and final assembly (0.2 min).
8. Perform final inspection (0.5 min).
Exhibit 8.8: A Typical In-Line Skate
• We can use the task times to compute a range of feasible cycle times. This is done by
assuming that (1) only one workstation is used for the entire assembly, and (2) each
task is assigned to a unique workstation. For instance, if we use only one workstation
for the entire assembly and assign all tasks to it, the cycle time is 9.4 minutes.
Alternatively, if each task is assigned to a unique workstation, the cycle time is 3.5, the
largest task time. Thus, feasible cycle times must be between 3.5 and 9.4 minutes.
• For a target output rate, we can use Equations 8.2 and 8.3 to find the theoretical
minimum number of workstations needed for balancing the assembly line. Solved
Problem 8.2 shows how to do this.
Solved Problem 8.2
• The eight tasks need not be performed in this exact order; however, it is important to
ensure that certain precedence restrictions are met. For example, you cannot perform
the wheel assembly (task 3) until both tasks 1 and 2 have been completed, but it does
not matter whether task 1 or task 2 is performed first because they are independent of
each other. These types of relationships are usually developed through an
engineering analysis of the product.
• We can represent them by an arrow diagram, shown in Exhibit 8.9 (next slide). The
arrows indicate what tasks must precede others. Thus, the arrow pointing from tasks
1 and 2 to task 3 indicate that tasks 1 and 2 must be completed before task 3 is
performed; similarly, task 3 must precede task 4. The numbers next to each task
represent the task times.
• This precedence network helps visually determine whether a workstation assignment

is feasible—that is, meets the precedence restrictions. For example, in Exhibit 8.9 we
might assign tasks 1, 2, 3, and 4 to one workstation, and tasks 5, 6, 7, and 8 to a
second workstation, as illustrated by the shading. This is feasible because all tasks
assigned to workstation 1 are completed before those assigned to workstation 2.
However, we could not assign tasks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 to workstation, 1, and tasks 5, 7,
and 8 to workstation 2, because operation 5 must precede operation 6.
• The problem is to assign the eight work activities to workstations without violating
precedence or exceeding the cycle time of 6.0. Different rules may be used to assign
tasks to workstations.
Exhibit 8.9: Precedence Network and Workstation Assignment
8.4: Work Measurement
◎ Work measurement is a systematic procedure for the analysis of work, and

determination of standard times required to perform key tasks in a process.
◎ A standard time is a reasonable estimate of the amount of time needed to perform
a task based on an analysis of the work by a trained industrial engineer or other
operations expert.
◎ Work measurement is used for:
○ estimating work-force and equipment capacity,
○ identifying task times for assembly line balancing
○ establishing budgets,
○ determining what new work procedures will cost,
○ evaluating time and cost tradeoffs among process design alternatives,
○ establishing wage-incentive systems,
○ monitoring and evaluating employee performance and productivity, and
○ providing accurate information for scheduling and sequencing.
◎ Work measurement relies on time studies.
◎ A time study is the development of a standard time by observing a task with the use
of a stopwatch and analyzing the data. A time study consists of the following steps:
1. Define each task that comprises a job or work activity. Often, small tasks are grouped
together.
2. Measure and record the time needed to perform each task for multiple samples. A
trained observer with a stopwatch usually does this. Multiple observations are used
to smooth out variations in performing the tasks. Sample sizes can be determined
statistically.
3. Rate the employee’s performance of each task. This means determining if a worker
is performing a task at a normal pace – one that can be consistently performed by
an average employee without undue fatigue – or faster or slower than normal. This
is measured by a performance rating factor (PRF). A PRF of 100% (or 1.0) is a
normal pace.
4. Compute the normal time for each task. Normal time is the expected time required
to perform some work activity at a normal pace, under normal operating
conditions, and using a prescribed method.
5. Determine allowances for fatigue, personal time, unavoidable delays, and so on.
6. Determine the standard time by adjusting for the allowance.
Effective Workplace Design
◎ Allows for maximum efficiency and effectiveness to perform a work task

or activity
◎ Needs to facilitate service management skills in high-contact, front-office
environments
Job Design, Part 1
◎ Involves determining:
○ Specific job tasks and responsibilities
○ Work environment
○ Methods by which tasks will be carried out to meet the goals of
operations and competitive priorities
Job Design, Part 2
◎ Helps make jobs safe, satisfying, and motivating

○ Job enlargement: Horizontal expansion of job duties to give a
worker more variety
○ Job enrichment: Vertical expansion of job duties to give workers
more responsibility
◉ Involves the use of teams, such as natural work teams, virtual
teams, and self-managed teams (SMTs)
Safety
◎ Function of the job, the person performing the job, and the surrounding
environment
○ U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) was enacted in
1970 to ensure workplace safety
◎ Involves:
○ Designing injury-proof working environments
○ Educating employees about the proper use of equipment and
methods
Ergonomics
◎ Considers the physical capabilities of people of while designing jobs to

improve the productivity and safety.
○ Helps reduce fatigue, cost of training, human errors, cost of doing a
job, and energy requirements.
○ Increases accuracy, speed, reliability, and flexibility
Workforce Ethics
◎ Involves improving working the conditions of employees

◎ Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)
○ Alliance of companies, trade unions, and nongovernmental
organizations promoting respect for workers’ rights globally
SUMMARY
• Product, process, cellular, and fixed-position are the different types of

layout patterns
• Assembly-line balancing helps distribute the same amount of tasks among
workstations
• Designing process layouts involves arranging departments to reduce costs
• To improve productivity, safety, ergonomics, and ethics need to be
considered while designing a workplace
Reference
• Collier, D. A., & Evans, J. R. (2021). Operations and Supply Chain Management. Cengage.
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Chapter 8 Facility and Work Design

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Operations and Supply

Chapter 8: Facility & Work Design

1. Explain how to design product layouts using assembly-line balancing.

◎ The objectives of layout studies are:

Characteristic Product Layout Process Layout Cellular Layout Fixed-Position Layout

Exhibit 8.4: Comparison of Basic Layout Patterns

• This precedence network helps visually determine whether a workstation assignment

◎ Work measurement is a systematic procedure for the analysis of work, and

Effective Workplace Design

◎ Allows for maximum efficiency and effectiveness to perform a work task

Job Design, Part 1

Job Design, Part 2

◎ Helps make jobs safe, satisfying, and motivating

◎ Considers the physical capabilities of people of while designing jobs to

◎ Involves improving working the conditions of employees

• Product, process, cellular, and fixed-position are the different types of

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