DESIGNING PROCESS
LAYOUTS
INTRODUCTION
• Process layout objective: Minimize material handling costs.
• In designing a process layout, we want to minimize movement or
material handling cost.
• It is a function of the amount of material moved times the distance it is
moved.
• Two techniques used to design process layouts:-
1. Block diagramming
2. Relationship diagramming
Minimizing Transportation Costs or Distances
BLOCK DIAGRAMMING
• We begin with data on historical or predicted movement of material
between departments in the existing or proposed facility.
• This information is typically provided in the form of a from/to chart,
or load summary chart.
• The chart gives the average number of unit loads transported between
the departments over a given period of time.
• Unit load: the quantity in which material is normally moved
Unit loads
• unit load can be a single unit, a pallet of material, a bin of material, or
a crate of material—however material is normally moved from
location to location.
• In automobile manufacturing, a single car represents a unit load.
• For a ball-bearing producer, a unit load might consist of a bin of 100
or 1000 ball bearings, depending on their size.
Continued….
• The next step in designing the layout is to calculate the composite
movements between departments.
• Rank them from most movement to least movement.
• Composite movement, represented by a two-headed arrow, refers to
the back-and-forth movement between each pair of departments.
• Block diagramming tries to minimize nonadjacent loads
Example
• Barko, Inc. makes bark scalpers, processing equipment that strips the
bark off trees and turns it into nuggets or mulch for gardens.
• The facility that makes bark scalpers is a small-job shop that employs 50
workers and is arranged into five departments: (1) bar stock cutting, (2)
sheet metal, (3) machining, (4) painting, and (5) assembly. The average
number of loads transported between the five departments per month is
given in the accompanying load summary chart. The current layout of the
facility is shown schematically on the 2*3 grid. Notice that there is quite
a bit of flexibility in the facility, as indicated by the six possible locations
(i.e., intersections) available for five departments. In addition, the forklift
used in the facility is very flexible, allowing horizontal, vertical, and
diagonal movement of material.
Barko management anticipates that a new bark scalper plant will soon be necessary and
would like to know if a similar layout should be used or if a better layout can be designed.
You are asked to evaluate the current layout in terms of nonadjacent loads, and if needed,
propose a new layout on a 2*3 grid that will minimize the number of nonadjacent loads.
Sol.
Continued…
• The adjacent moves are marked with a solid line.
• Nonadjacent moves are shown with a curved dashed line to highlight
the fact that material is moved farther than we would like, that is,
across more than one square.
• Following our composite movement list, 2 3 and 2 4 are adjacent
moves, but 1 3 is not.
• Our nonadjacent score starts with 110 loads of material from 1 3.
• Continuing down our list, all moves are adjacent and are marked with
solid lines until 3 4. Movement 3 4 is nonadjacent, so we
designate it as such and add 40 loads to our nonadjacent score. The
remaining movements have zero loads.
• Thus, our score for this layout is 110 + 40 =150 nonadjacent loads.
The layout solution in Grid 2 represents the relative position of each
department.
The next step in the layout design is to add information about the space
required for each department.
A block diagram can be created by “blocking in” the work areas around the
departments on the grid.
The final block diagram adjusts the block diagram for the desired or
proposed shape of the building.
Block Diagrams
RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAMMING
• The preceding solution procedure is appropriate for designing process
layouts when quantitative data are available.
• However, in situations for which quantitative data are difficult to
obtain or do not adequately address the layout problem.
• The load summary chart can be replaced with subjective input from
analysts or managers.
• “Richard Muther” developed a format for displaying manager
preferences for departmental locations, known as Muther’s grid
The preference information is
Muther’s Grid coded into six categories
associated with the five vowels,
A, E, I, O, and U, plus the letter
X.
it is okay if the offices are located next
to production, absolutely necessary that
the stockroom be located next to
production,
important that shipping and receiving
be located next to production, especially
important
that the locker room be located next to
production, and absolutely necessary
that the toolroom be located next to
production.
Continued…
• The information from Muther’s grid can be used to construct a
relationship diagram that evaluates existing or proposed layouts
• Relationship diagram: a schematic diagram that uses weighted lines
to denote location preference.
Muther’s Grid
Relationship Diagrams
Problem
• Assign nine automobile service departments to bays in a 3 * 3 grid so
that the closeness ratings Problem 2 in the following matrix are
satisfied. (The unimportant and ordinary-importance ratings have
been omitted to simplify the example.) The location of department 4
must be in the upper right-hand corner of the grid to satisfy a town
ordinance.
Note that department 1 has many A ratings, making it a
strong candidate for the center position in the grid.
We can form a cluster of departments that should be close
together:
These departments should be spaced around the perimeter of the
grid.
After a bit of trial and error, the final grid shown below emerged.
Check it against the rating matrix to see if it satisfies the ratings.