Essay on "Conceiving Optimal Facility Layout"

Essay 6 pages (1628 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Conceiving Optimal Facility Layout for a Continuous Process Industry

To understand what an optimal facility layout is, it will be beneficial to first understand a general facility layout. For instance, for a large manufacturing facility producing a product 'A', the general facility layout refers to the interrelated and physical, existing or proposed arrangements. These arrangements can be of the workstations, departments, common areas and storage areas in such a manner as to permit a synchronous movement of materials, workforce and transportation of raw materials, semi-finished goods and finished goods, apart from tools and consumables within the facility in a smooth and efficient manner. Most layout decisions are highly labor and logistics centric, endeavoring to enhance worker efficiency, production methods and to introduce automation, which is the order of the day. An important requirement is the measurement of the response system and adjusting one's design, production volume and product mix to obtain the best results. In addition, it caters to an overview of the idle time, bottlenecks and material handling issues, including equipment and general increase in production (Maniya, K.D. et al. 2011), Sule. 1994).

For starters, it will be useful to consider how an optimal facility layout is conceived for a continuous process industry. A half way method of experience-based techniques for problem solving (semi heuristic) along with a step-by-step method of arriving at calculations based on existing effective methods (algorithms) are deployed for designing the Optimal facility layout. An intelligent blend of CRAFT with a Hungarian assignment algorithm provides efficient results in terms of computer CPU usage time and seems to give a faster turnout than the purely experience-based CRAFT algorithm (Khoshnevisan, M., et al., 2003).

Technically speaking CRAFT is a digitalized algorithm on heuristic lines, which accumulates the entire load from inter-departmental transaction costs of operations of the company, and saves it as a block layout which can either be an existing or arbitrary one. The fresh data and the load matrix are now stored in the RAM after the algorithm has exhausted every possible combination that its software can accommodate, and saved for posterity. All CRAFT developments adhere to the heuristic patterns and are consequently, CPU intensive (Khoshnevisan, M., et al. 2003).

The optimal facility layout is a fundamental problem of optimization faced by diverse manufacturing and service organizations. The problem actually, considers the relocation of Areas/facilities to bring in cost effectiveness by minimizing the expenses involved in rationalization of the movement of products or services in the available area of the facility. In other words, the space and work stage area is planned to reduce the cost of logistics to the minimum (Mallette, a.J. et al., 1972).

While conceiving the optimal facility layout, the following factors must be considered seriously.

Optimal Facility Layout and its Strategic Importance

An optimal facility layout may involve one or several features, including employee safety and morale, uninterrupted flow of material and data, optimal utilization of space, machine and people and most importantly, customer satisfaction, and total flexibility in approach.

Optimal facility layouts are categorized into the following types, i.e. fixed-position layout, office layout, retail layout, process-oriented layout, warehouse layout and product-oriented layout (Heizer et al., 2001).

Summary of Facility Layout and Location Planning

Facility Layout

This part of operation management talks about Process Selection and Facility Layout. While process selection talks about the organization of goods and services, including capacity planning, facility layout and the Equipment and Design affiliate to the work systems, process strategy is all about equipment and labor, flexibility and adjustment to changes. The process types are divided into Job, Batch, repetitive and continuous based, in that order, and the volume of production. Automation is also conceived in terms of fixed and programmable basis, aptly supported by robots and computer integrated manufacturing facilities (Stevenson, W.J. 2012).

Facilities Layout refers to the placement and configuration of the various entities of the plant, including equipments, work centers and flow of material and man power. Conceiving a layout is important from the point-of-view of investments, long-term commitments and its considerable bearing on the efficiency/cost ratio for short-term application. Normally, layout changes are necessitated by expensive bottlenecks, environmental issues, change in production volume or mix, morale problems or a prospective change in manufacturing methods and equipments. Layout plans normally follow the product process, fixed position or combination layout types. Among these, product layout takes prominence because of diverse advantages like speed, low cost, and its high utilization of man and machine hours. However, this system does not seem to be very flexible to change. Additionally, a process of line balancing is introduced to distribute the work load equally to the workstations. Process layouts can handle diverse processing demands without much culpability to failures and can sustain with cheaper equipments and individual incentive plans. Fixed position layout involves the movements of materials and manpower while the product and workstation remains fixed. Cellular Layouts involve the formation of a machine cell where components with similar operations could be processed easily.

Linear programming refers to a progression of operations that will culminate in an optimal solution (if it exists). The steps in linear programming include a) following a mathematical format to set up an objective function and limitations, B) plotting the limitations, C) identifying feasibility solutions, D) plotting the objective function and E) concluding the optimal solution.

Location Planning

Location planning is an important aspect in the strategy for growth of any company wanting to excel in its business. Location planning techniques deal with expanding current facilities at the same location or changing to a new location, creating additional locations or keeping status quo. Several factors like identification of the nation, region community and site, prove to be important in decision making.

Then again, factors that affect the selection of location, like near availability of raw materials and the convenience of a nearby-market, the climate and culture are concluded by using the center gravity model, factor rating and the transportation model to evaluate its suitability for the purpose on hand (Stevenson, W.J. 2012).

Analysis

Here, various factors play a major role in your decision to shift your location or acquiring a new one, like the geography, culture transportation. These are decided by a process of cost profit volume analysis.

Johnson and Johnson Experience

The case of Johnson and Johnson in their health care utilization scheme makes for interesting reading. A program was conceived much on the same platform as optimal facility layout, but for health care. This program was intended to focus all how expenditure in health care could be brought down by systematic education of employees some 4 to 5 years before and after implementing the program using the same principles. This program succeeded reducing the Medicare expenses of each employee by nearly $244.66 per annum (Ronald, J.O et al., 2002).

Conclusions about facility layout and plant location

Conceiving a facility layout is important from the perspective of attracting investments, long-term commitments and its considerable bearing on the efficiency/cost ratio for short-term application. In a nutshell, plant location decisions are greatly affected by regional, site related and community dynamics, which in turn depend on the various attributes of the community like quality of life utilities and support. As location is a vital component of growth, a decision in this regard should weigh and balance all the options very judiciously (Stevenson, W.J. 2012).

Descriptions of Two Key Concepts

Optimal Facility Layout Design Alternative

An optimal facility layout design alternative is a repetitive process dealing with the cross relationship between the diverse sections of the organizations. These call for an innovative and inclusive designer who can effectively search out an optimal layout (Chakraborty et al.,. 2007), for which various research methodologies based on complex mathematical orders are considered with examples of empirical research and case studies (Khoshnevisan, M., 2003)

Multi-objective Facility Layout

The multi-objective facility… READ MORE

How to Reference "Conceiving Optimal Facility Layout" Essay in a Bibliography

Related Essays:

Sales Promotion Techniques Used in the Clothing Retail Industry in India and Challenges Ahead Term Paper

Sales Promotion Techniques Used in the Clothing Retail Industry in India and Challenges Ahead

The Nature of Competition

Buyer-Seller Relationships for Promotional Support in the Clothing Sector

Long-Term Impact of… read more

Term Paper 44 pages (12044 words) Sources: 0 Topic: Fashion / Designers / Beauty

---

Manufacturing and Supply Chain Term Paper

E-Manufacturing - a New Link in the Supply Chain

Research Question and/or Hypothesis

Benefits of the Study

Industry/Organizational Perspectives/Implications

Conceptual Framework

Definitions/Operationalization of Terms

Research/Sampling Design

Research Variables/Measurement

Summary, Conclusions,… read more

Term Paper 60 pages (22785 words) Sources: 1+ Topic: Business / Corporations / E-commerce

---

Aviation Accidents & Situational Awareness Dissertation

The increasing traffic has made the task even more reliant on the SA capabilities of the ATC personnel. The job of safety becomes even more complex given the 3D nature… read more

Dissertation 82 pages (24100 words) Sources: 188 Style: Harvard Topic: Physics / Quantum Theory

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>