Chapter 3

Plant Design
• Criteria or principle for a good plant layout
• Objectives of Good Plant Layout
• Types of Plant Layout
• Techniques Used in Plant Layout.
• Ergonomics and Industrial Safety

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Introduction
Plant layout refers to the physical arrangement of production facilities.
It is the configuration of departments, work centers and equipment in
the conversion process.
It is a floor plan of the physical facilities, which are used in production.
It is the arrangement of physical facilities such as machines,
equipment, tools, furniture etc. in such a manner so as to have
quickest flow of material at the lowest cost and with the least
amount of handling in processing the product from the receipt of raw
material to the delivery of the final product.

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Optimizing the Layout of a Plant can improve productivity, safety
and quality of Products.
Un-necessary efforts of materials handling can be avoided when
the Plant Layout is optimized.
Plant layout techniques apply to the case where several physical
means have to be located in a certain area, either industrial
processes or services.

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 Criteria for a good plant layout

Maximum flexibility: A good layout will be one which can be

rapidly modified to meet changing circumstances
Maximum co-ordination: Entry into, and disposal from, any
department or functional area should be in such manner
that it is must convenient to the issuing or receiving
departments.
Maximum use of volume: Facilities should be considered as
cubic devices and maximum use made of the volume available.
This principle is particularly useful in stores.

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Maximum visibility: All the people and materials should be readily
observable at all the time; there should be no ‘hidden places’ into which
goods or information can get mislaid
Maximum accessibility: All servicing and maintenance points should be
readily accessible. For example, equipment should not be placed against
a wall in such a manner that necessary maintenance cannot easily be
carried out.
Minimum distance: All movements should be both necessary and
direct. Handling work adds to cost but does not increase value;
consequently any unnecessary or indirect movements should be
avoided
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Minimum handling: The best handling of material and information is no
handling, but where it is unavoidable it should be reduced to a minimum by the
use of whatever devices are most appropriate.
Minimum discomfort: poor lighting, excessive sunlight, heat, noise, vibration
and smells should be minimized and if possible counteracted.
Inherent safety: the major principle is to remove the hazard altogether. The
best method to achieve this is to reduce the inventory of hazardous substances
such that a major hazard is no longer presented
Maximum security A good layout is one that gives due consideration to workers
safety and satisfaction and safeguards the plant and machinery against fire,
theft, etc.
Efficient process flow
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 Advantages of a good layout

The overall process time and cost will be minimized by reducing

unnecessary handling and movement,
Supervision and control will be simplified by the elimination of ‘hidden
corners,

Changes in the programmers will be most readily accommodated’

Total output from a given facility will be as high as possible by making

the maximum effective use of available space and resources
A feeling of unity among employees will be encouraged by avoiding
unnecessary segregation.,

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• Quality of the products or service will be sustained by safer and more
effective methods of operation.
A well designed plant layout is one that can be beneficial in
achieving the following objectives:
Proper and efficient utilization of available floor spaces,
Transportation of work from one point to another point without
any delay,

Proper utilization of production capacity,

Reduce material handling costs,

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Utilize labor efficiently,

Reduce accidents,

Provide for volume and product flexibility,

Provide ease of supervision and control,

Provide for employee safety and health,

Allow easy maintenance of machines and plant,

Improve productivity.
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 Types of Plant Layout

Process layout
Product layout
Cellular layout
Fixed position layout
Hybrid (mixed) layout

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 1. Process Layout

Process Layout
• Used when the operations system must handle a wide
variety of products in relatively small volumes (i.e.,
flexibility is necessary).
• Designed to facilitate processing items or providing
services that present a variety of processing requirements.
• The layouts include departments or other functional
groupings in which similar kinds of activities are
performed.
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A manufacturing example of a process layout is the
machine shop, which has separate departments for milling,
grinding, drilling, and so on.
is a format in which similar equipment or functions are
grouped together, such as all lathes in one area and all
stamping machines in another.
Process layout is normally used when the production
volume is not sufficient to justify a product layout.
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 Process layout is recommended for batch production.
All machines performing similar type of operations are grouped
at one location in the process layout e.g., all lathes, milling
machines, etc. are grouped in the shop will be clustered in like
groups.
Process layout is normally used when the production volume is
not sufficient to justify a product layout.

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Characteristics of Process Layout
General-purpose equipment is used
Changeover is rapid
Material handling equipment is flexible
Operators are highly skilled
Technical supervision is required
Planning, scheduling and controlling functions are
challenging
Production time is relatively long
In-process inventory is relatively high

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 • An example of a process layout in a library
showing the path of just one customer

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Advantages
In process layout machines are better utilized and fewer machines are required.
Flexibility of equipment and personnel is possible in process layout.
Lower investment on account of comparatively less number of machines and
lower cost of general purpose machines.
Higher utilization of production facilities.
A high degree of flexibility with regards to work distribution to machineries and
workers.
The diversity of tasks and variety of job makes the job challenging and
interesting.
Supervisors will become highly knowledgeable about the functions under their
department

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Limitations
Backtracking and long movements may occur in the handling of
materials thus, reducing material handling efficiency.
Material handling cannot be mechanized which adds to cost.
Process time is prolonged which reduce the inventory turnover and
increases the in-process inventory.
Lowered productivity due to number of set-ups.
Throughput (time gap between in and out in the process) time is longer.
Space and capital are tied up by work-in-process.

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 2. Product layout

Product (Assembly Line) Layout

Product layouts are used to achieve a smooth and rapid flow of large
volumes of products or customers through a system.
A job is divided into a series of standardized tasks, permitting
specialization of both labor and equipment.

The large volumes handled by these systems usually make it

economical to invest huge amount of money in equipment and job
design.

Operations are arranged in the sequence required to make the product.

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For instance, if a portion of a manufacturing operation required the
sequence of cutting, polishing, and painting, the appropriate pieces of
equipment would be arranged in that sequence.
Product layouts achieve a high degree of labor and equipment
utilization.
In a product layout, the transformed resource flow a long a line of
processes that has been prearranged.
Flow is clear, predictable and easy to control.
equipment or work processes are arranged according to the progressive
steps by which the product is made.
The path for each part is, in effect, a straight line.
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 Production lines for shoes, chemical plants, and car washes are all
product layouts.
The product layout is selected when the volume of production of a
product is high such that a separate production line to manufacture it can
be justified. In a strict product layout, machines are not shared by
different products.

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Characteristics of Product Layouts
Changeover is expensive and lengthy
Special-purpose equipment are used
Material flow is continuous
Material handling equipment is fixed
Little direct supervision is required
Planning, scheduling and controlling functions are relatively
straight-forward

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Advantages
The flow of product will be smooth and logical in flow lines.

In-process inventory is less.

Throughput time is less.

Minimum material handling cost.

Simplified production, planning and control systems are possible.

Less space is occupied by work transit and for temporary storage

Reduced material handling cost due to mechanized handling systems

and straight flow.

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 Perfect line balancing which eliminates bottlenecks and idle capacity.
Manufacturing cycle is short due to uninterrupted flow of materials.
Small amount of work-in-process inventory.
Unskilled workers can learn and manage the production
Limitations
A breakdown of one machine in a product line may cause stoppages of
machines in the downstream of the line.
A change in product design may require major alterations in the layout.
The line output is decided by the bottleneck machine.
Comparatively high investment in equipment's is required.

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 3. Cellular Layout

Cellular Layout
• Cellular manufacturing is a type of layout in which machines are grouped into
what is referred to as a cell.
Groupings are determined by the operations needed to perform work for a set
of similar items, or part families that require similar processing
Cellular layout provides faster processing time, less material handling, less
work-in-process inventory, and reduced setup time.
Used when the operations system must handle a moderate variety of products
in moderate volumes
Every cell contains a group of machines which are dedicated to the production
of a family of parts.

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One of the problems is to identify a family parts that require the
same group of machines.
These layouts are also called as group technology layouts.
Group technology (GT) is the analysis and comparisons of items
to group them into families with similar characteristics.
GT can be used to develop a hybrid between pure process layout
and pure flow line (product) layout. This technique is very useful
for companies that produce variety of parts in small batches to
enable them to take advantage and economics of flow line layout.

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The application of group technology involves two basic steps;
first step is to determine component families or groups.
The second step in applying group technology is to arrange the plants
equipment used to process a particular family of components.
This represents small plants within the plants.
The group technology reduces production planning time for jobs. It
reduces the set-up time
The basic aim of a group technology layout is to identify families of
components that require similar of satisfying all the requirements of
the machines are grouped into cells.

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Each cell is capable of satisfying all the requirements of the
component family assigned to it.
The layout design process considers mostly a single objective while
designing layouts.
In process layout, the objective is to minimize the total cost of
materials handling. Because of the nature of the layout, the cost of
equipment's will be the minimum in this type of layout.
In product layout, the cost of materials handling will be at the absolute
minimum. But the cost of equipments would not be at the minimum if
the equipments are not fully utilized.

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 In-group technology layout, the objective is to minimize the sum of the
cost of transportation and the cost of equipments. So, this is called as
multi-objective layout.

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Advantages of Group Technology Layout
Group Technology layout can increase
Component standardization and rationalization.
Reliability of estimates.
Effective machine operation and productivity.
Customer service.
It can decrease the
Paper work and overall production time.
Work-in-progress and work movement.
Overall cost.
Limitations of Group Technology Layout
This type of layout may not be feasible for all situations. If the product mix
is completely dissimilar, then we may not have meaningful cell formation.

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 4. Fixed Position Layout

Fixed Position Layout

This is also called the project type of layout. In this type of layout,
the material, or major components remain in a fixed location and
tools, machinery, men and other materials are bring to this location.
This type of layout is suitable when one or a few pieces of identical
heavy products are to be manufactured and when the assembly
consists of large number of heavy parts, the cost of transportation of
these parts is very high.

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Fixed-position layout is used when product is very bulky, heavy
Fixed-position layouts are used in large construction projects (buildings,
power plants, and dams), shipbuilding, and production of large aircraft and
space mission rockets.

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 5. Hybrid (mixed) Layout

Hybrid (mixed) Layout

Actually, most manufacturing facilities use a combination of layout types.
An example of a hybrid layout is where departments are arranged according to
the types of processes but the products flow through on a product layout.
For instance, supermarket layouts are fundamentally of a process nature, and
however we find most use fixed-path material-handling devices such as roller-
type conveyors both in the stockroom and at checkouts, and belt-type
conveyors at the cash registers.
Hospitals also use the basic process arrangement, although frequently patient
care involves more of a fixed-position approach, in which nurses, doctors,
medicines, and special equipment are brought to the patient.

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 Ergonomics and Industrial Safety

Lesson Objectives:
1. Identify common work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).
2. Recognize risk factors associated with work-related MSDs.
3. Identify ergonomic control methods for eliminating/reducing work-
related MSDs

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Ergonomics
• The scientific discipline concerned with understanding of interactions among
humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies
theory, principles, methods and data to design in order to optimize human
well-being and overall system performance.
Ergonomics means -fitting the job to the worker, including:

• Work stations
• Tools
• Equipment Ergo = Work
Nomos = Law

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Why is ergonomics important?
• Overexertion leading cause of injuries
• Most costly
• Recurring/Persistent pain may develop in future
• Bodily reaction is another leading cause of injuries
in workplace
• Repetitive motion also within top 10 most common
workplace injuries

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Ergonomics-Objectives

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Job risk factors

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Some ergonomic controls for MSD hazards
• Use a device to lift and reposition heavy objects to
limit force exertion.
• Reduce the weight of a load to limit force exertion.
• Reposition a work table to eliminate a
long/excessive reach and enable working in neutral
postures.

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