Business & Finance Productions and Operations Assignment

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FacilityandWorkDesignPart1ProductandProcessLayouts.pdf

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Facility and Work Design

Part One

Prof. Fiyinfoluwa Abioye

Bowie State University

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Content

• Facility Layout

One problem that warehouses face periodically is the need to redo the location and capacity. Continuous changes in demand and product necessitate a new warehouse design every few years. Once processes are selected and designed, organizations must design the infrastructure to implement these processes. This is accomplished through the design of the physical facilities and work tasks that must be performed. The physical design of a factory needs to support operations as efficiently as possible.

Facility and work design are important elements of an organization’s infrastructure and key strategic decisions that affect cost, productivity, responsiveness, and agility. In both goods- producing and service-providing organizations, facility layout and work design influence the ability to meet customer wants and needs, enhance sustainability, and provide value.

A poorly designed facility can lock management into a noncompetitive situation and be very costly to correct. For many service organizations, the physical facility and workplace are vital parts of service design. It can also play a significant role in creating a satisfying customer experience, particularly when customer contact is high. Facility design must be integrated with process design and support job design.

Facility Layout

Facility Layout refers to the specific arrangement of physical facilities. Facility layout studies are necessary whenever

1. A new facility is constructed

2. There is a significant change in demand or throughput volume

3. A new good or service is introduced to the customer benefit package

4. Different processes, equipment, and/or technology are installed

The objectives of layout studies include minimizing delays in materials handling and customer movement, maintaining flexibility, using labor and space effectively, promoting high employee morale, and enhancing sales. A good layout should support the ability of operations to accomplish its mission. Four major layout patterns are commonly used in configuring facilities: product layout, process layout, cellular layout, and fixed-position layout.

Product Layout

A product layout is an arrangement based on the sequence of operations that is performed during the manufacturing of a good or delivery of a service. Fig. 1 shows a typical product layout used in wine-making. Product layouts support a smooth and logical flow where all goods or services move in a continuous path from one process stage to the next, using the same sequence of work tasks and activities.

Fig. 1. Product Layout for Wine Manufacturer

Advantages of product layouts include higher output rates, lower work-in-process inventories, less materials handling, higher labor and equipment utilization, and simple planning and control systems. However, several disadvantages are associated with product layouts. For instance, a breakdown of one piece of equipment can cause the entire process to shut down. In addition, because the layout is determined by the good or service, a change in product design or the introduction of new products may require major changes in the layout; thus, flexibility can be limited. Therefore, product layouts are less flexible and expensive to change.

They also usually require more costly, specialized equipment. Finally, and perhaps most important, 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, leading to monotony. However, this can be avoided by cross- training and frequently rotating job responsibilities.

Process Layout

A process layout 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 (see Fig. 2). Job shops are an example of facilities that use process layouts because they typically handle a wide variety of customized orders. Legal offices, shoe manufacturing, jet engine turbines blades, and hospitals also use process layouts.

Fig. 2. Process Layout for a Machine Shop

Compared to product layouts, process layouts provide more flexibility and generally require a lower investment in equipment. If a piece of equipment fails, it generally does not affect the entire system. Also, the diversity of jobs, inherent in a process layout can lead to increased worker satisfaction. Some of the limitations of process layouts are low equipment utilization, high materials-handling costs, more complicated planning and control systems, and higher worker skill requirements.

Cellular Layout

In a cellular layout, the design is not according to the functional characteristics of equipment but rather is based on self-contained groups of equipment (called cells) needed for producing a particular set of goods or services. Fig. 3. shows a manufacturing cell. The cell is designed to operate with up to three employees depending on the needed output during the day.

Fig. 3. Cellular Manufacturing Layout

Cellular layouts facilitate the processing of families of parts with similar processing requirements. The procedure of classifying parts into such families is called group technology. Because the workflow is standardized and centrally located in a cellular layout, materials- handling requirements, enabling workers to concentrate on production rather than on moving parts between machines. Quicker response to quality problems within cells can improve the overall level of quality.

Because machines are closely linked within a cell, additional floor space becomes available for other productive uses. Because workers have greater responsibility in a cellular manufacturing system, they become more aware of their contribution to the final product; this increases their morale and satisfaction and, ultimately, quality and productivity.

Fixed-Position Layout

A fixed-position layout consolidates the resources necessary to manufacture a good or deliver a service, such as people, materials, and equipment, 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, and buildings is usually accomplished in a fixed-position layout. Service-providing firms also use fixed-position layouts.

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 versus 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.

Service organizations that need the ability to provide a wide variety of services to customers with differing requirements usually use a process layout. Service organizations that provide highly standardized services tend to use product layouts.

Slide 1: Facility and Work Design Part One
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