Plant Layout - Types, Objectives, Principles, Benefits (2023)

What is a plant layout?

A plant layout is the arrangement of the physical elements of facilities (or machines/equipment) that produce the product or service. This plant layout is the overall arrangement of machinery, personnel, material handling, service facilities, and passengers required to allow the production system to operate efficiently.

Plant layout objectives

The primary goal of facility layout is to maximize profits by arranging all assets to best advantage the entire "manufacturing equation" - people, materials, machines and money to achieve this goal.

The objectives of system planning are:

1. Minimize material handling.
2. Reduce manufacturing costs.
3. Achieve quantity and quality economically.
4. Maintain the flexibility of agreement and collaboration to meet changing needs.
5. Maintaining a high turnover of work in progress.
6. Reduced investment in equipment.
7. Use floor space effectively and economically.
8. Optimal use of equipment and facilities.
9. Reduce work delays and disruptions.
10. Promote the effective use of manpower.
11. Avoid tracing.

types of layouts

TheMusteraccording to which departments and facilities within departments are arranged can be viewed either in terms of workflow or the function of the productive system. According to the workflow pattern, four basic types of layouts are used in manufacturing operations.

Types of layout are as follows:-

1. Fixed position layout
2. Prices or functional layout
3. Product or line layout
4. group layout

Group layout based ongroup techniquePhilosophy is accepted as the fourth type of layout. With this layout type, an existing function layout is converted into a group layout in order to be able to use all the advantages of the product layout.

1. Fixed position layout

See Also

Plant layout: concept, goals, principles and typesCreate plant layout - Microsoft SupportWhat is plant layout? Types, goals, process diagrams, flowchartTYPES OF PLANT LAYOUTS | Gallery of Engineers

In the fixed position layout, the product stays in one place because of its mass or weight. The equipment and personnel required for product manufacture are taken from the product, rather vice versa. This layout is used under the following conditions:

• Only tools or simple machines are required for material forming or processing.
• When only one or a few parts of an item are to be manufactured.
• When the cost of transporting the main piece of material is high.
• When craftsmanship is in the skills of workers or when it aims to assign responsibility for product quality to a worker or group of workers.

Examples of this type of layout are: sound stages on a film site, airplanes, locomotives, ship assembly shops, shipyards, etc.

Advantages of fixed position layout are:-

1. The handling of large assemblies is reduced.
2. Highly skilled operators are allowed to do their job at one point and responsibility for quality rests with one person or assembly team.
3. Frequent changes in product design and workflow are possible.
4. The arrangement is adapted to a variety of products and a temporary demand.
5. It is more flexible in almost every respect.

2. Product layout

In product layout, the equipment or assembly work stations are arranged according to the progressive steps of the sequence or operations by which the product is manufactured. The product plant layout is advantageously used in the continuous production system where:

• The number of end products is small.
• The parts are highly standardized and interchangeable.
• The production volume for each item is high or large.
• Demand for the product is fairly constant.
• The continuity of the material flow can be maintained.

Examples of this type of layout are automotive assembly, food processing, and furniture manufacturing.

Product layout advantages

1. Reduced material handling by transfer machines or conveyors.
2. Reduced amount of material in the process, allowing for reduced production time and lower material investment.
3. More effective use of labor through:
(i) Greater professional specialization.
(ii) Ease of Training.
(iii) Greater labor supply.
4. Easier control.
5. Fewer inspections, fewer work-in-progress, less floor space and smaller aisles.

Disadvantages of product layout are:-

1. Higher initial investment in equipment.
2. Greater vulnerability to work stoppages.
3. Greater inflexibility due to design changes, making it more expensive.
4. Greater boredom due to the highly repetitive nature of the work.

3. Process layout

In the process layout, all operations of the same type are grouped according to the general function they perform, without regard to a specific product. Conceptually, same types of operations are performed in the same area. For example, all drilling machines may be in one area, all milling equipment in another work center, and spot welding work in yet another, etc. See Fig. 1.2.

The process engineering plant layout is used to advantage if:

1. The volume is low.
2. The variety of products is diverse.
3. Demand for the product is low or erratic.
4. Low cost general purpose machines are desirable.
5. Machines or processes that generate unwanted noise, vibration fumes, or heat may be located in remote areas.

Examples of this type of layout are custom workshops, department stores, hospitals, etc.

Advantages of the process layout are:

1. Better machine utilization enables lower machine investments.
2. Adaptable to a variety of products and frequently changing workflows.
3. Easily adaptable to intermittent requirements.
4. Facilitates product continuity in the event of:
(i) Machine Failure.
(ii) Storage of Materials.
(iii) absence of workers.
5. Allows maintenance.
6. Allows the individual worker to have an incentive system for remuneration in order to increase the level of performance.

Disadvantages of the process layout

1. The operating costs per unit can be higher - often much higher due to the slow operation of the general purpose machines used.
2. Work preparation, disposition and accounting costs are expensive because each new order is calculated separately.
3. Material handling and transportation costs are high as products follow different paths each time and the use of conveyor belts becomes uneconomical.
4. Inventories of materials in process are high, and due to the slow movement of materials, a lot of storage space is required.
5. It's difficult to strike a good balance between labor and equipment needs.

4. Group layout

(Video) Types of Plant Layout, Explanation with Advantages and Dis-advantages, Plant layout part 2

In the group facility layout, the existing workshop/batch shop is divided into a few groups of machines, with each group manufacturing its associated families of components.group technology(GT) philosophy uses the similarity of parts from a processing point of view to create families of parts. By applying the philosophy, a job shop is transformed into a group technology environment that facilitates the optimization of product planning.

The essence of GT uses similarities in repetitive tasks in three ways.

1. By doing similar activities together, avoiding wasting time switching from one independent activity to the next.
2. By standardizing closely related activities, focusing only on clear differences and avoiding unnecessary duplication.
3. Efficiently storing and retrieving information about recurring problems reduces the time it takes to find the information and eliminates the need to resolve the problem again.

Fig. shows how a job shop can be divided into GT shops. It can be noted that the four components are the representative components of the component families.

The advantages of the group layout are as follows:

1. Reduction of machine set-up times and costs.
2. Material handling cost reduction.
3. Elimination of excess work-in-process inventory, which subsequently allows lot size reduction.
4. Reduction of throughput time.
5. Simplification of production planning functions etc.

Disadvantages of the group layout are:

1. Changing the existing plant layout to the GT layout is time consuming and expensive.
2. Adding new components to existing component families requires thorough analysis.
3. A change in the input component mixture can probably change the cell structure.
4. A change in batch size can change the number of machines for each machine type.
5. The presence of a large number of unique components leads to complexity in machine tending. Exceptional components are those that are machined by more than one machine group.

Check out other important topics

IC-Motor

Electric

Important PDFs

Kessel

Synergy Maritime exam

Marinebogen

interview questions

difference between

types of pumps

types of valves

MEO class 4

auxiliary machines

Heim