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Plant Layout

1. Plant layout refers to the arrangement of machinery, equipment, and facilities within a factory in order to maximize efficiency and productivity. 2. The goals of plant layout include streamlining material flow, minimizing material handling costs, optimizing space utilization, and facilitating the manufacturing process. 3. There are three main types of layouts: product layout where machines are arranged sequentially by operations; process layout where similar machines are grouped together; and combination layout which blends aspects of product and process layouts.

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526 views5 pages

Plant Layout

1. Plant layout refers to the arrangement of machinery, equipment, and facilities within a factory in order to maximize efficiency and productivity. 2. The goals of plant layout include streamlining material flow, minimizing material handling costs, optimizing space utilization, and facilitating the manufacturing process. 3. There are three main types of layouts: product layout where machines are arranged sequentially by operations; process layout where similar machines are grouped together; and combination layout which blends aspects of product and process layouts.

Uploaded by

Sasmita Sahoo
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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PLANT LAYOUT

Plant layout is a plan of an optimum arrangement of facilities including personnel, operating equipment, storage space, material
handling equipment and all other supporting service. The efficiency of production depends on how well the various machines; production
facilities and employee’s amenities are located in a plant. Only the properly laid out plant can ensure the smooth and rapid movement of
material, from the raw material stage to the end product stage. Plant layout encompasses new layout as well as improvement in the
existing layout.
It may be defined as a technique of locating machines, processes and plant services within the factory so as to achieve the right
quantity and quality of output at the lowest possible cost of manufacturing.

DEFINITION
Plant layout refers to the arrangement of physical facilities such as machinery, equipment, furniture etc. within the factory
building 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 material to the shipment of the finished product.

OBJECTIVES OF PLANT LAYOUT


The primary goal of the plant layout is to maximize the profit by arrangement of all the plant facilities to the best advantage of total
manufacturing of the product. The objectives of plant layout are:
1. Streamline the flow of materials through the plant
2. Facilitate the manufacturing process
3. Maintain the high turnover of in process inventory
4. Minimize material handling and cost
5. Effective utilization of men equipment and space
6. Make effective utilization of cubic space
7. Flexibility of manufacturing operations and arrangements
8. Provide for employee convenience safety and comfort
9. Minimize investment in equipments
10. Minimize overall production time
11. Maintain flexibility of arrangement and operation
12. Facilitate the organizational structure

PRINCIPLE OF PLANT LAYOUT


1. Principle of Integration:- A good layout is one that integrates men, materials, machines and supporting services and others in other
to get the optimum utilization of resources and maximum effectiveness.

2. Principle of Minimum Distance: This principle is concerned with the minimum travel or movement of man and materials. The
facilities should be arranged such that the total distances traveled by the men and material should be minimum and as far as
possible straight line movement should be preferred.

3. Principle of Cubic Space Utilization: The good layout is one that utilizes both horizontal and vertical space. It is not only enough if
only the floor space is utilized optimally the height is also to be utilized effectively.

4. Principle of Flow: A good layout is one that makes the materials to move in forward direction towards the completion stage there
should not be any back tracking.

5. Principle of Maximum Flexibility: The good layout is one that can be altered without much cost and time, future requirements should
be taken into account while designing the present layout.

6. Principle of Safety, Security and Satisfaction: A good layout is one that gives due consideration to workers safety and satisfaction
and safeguards the plant and machinery against fire, theft etc

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7. Principle of Minimum Handling: A good layout is one that reduces the material handling to the minimum.
TYPES OF LAYOUT
Layouts can be classified into the following three categories
(a) Product or line layout
(b) Process or functional layout
(c) Combined or group layout
(a) Product or line layout:
Under this, machines and equipments are arranged in one line depending upon the sequence of operations required for the product. The
materials move form one workstation to another sequentially without any backtracking or deviation. Under this, machines are grouped in
one sequence. Therefore materials are fed into the first machine and finished goods travel automatically from machine to machine, the
output of one machine becoming input of the next, e.g. in a paper mill, bamboos are fed into the machine at one end and paper comes out
at the other end. The raw material moves very fast from one workstation to other stations with a minimum work in progress storage and
material handling.
The grouping of machines should be done keeping in mind the following general principles.
a) All the machine tools or other items of equipments must be placed at the point demanded by the sequence of operations
b) There should no points where one line crossed another line.
c) Materials may be fed where they are required for assembly but not necessarily at one point.
d) All the operations including assembly, testing packing must be included in the line A line layout for two products is given below.

Advantages: Product layout provides the following benefits:


a) Low cost of material handling, due to straight and short route and absence of backtracking
b) Smooth and uninterrupted operations
c) Continuous flow of work
d) Lesser investment in inventory and work in progress
e) Optimum use of floor space
f) Shorter processing time or quicker output
g) Less congestion of work in the process
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h) Simple and effective inspection of work and simplified production control
i) Lower cost of manufacturing per unit
Disadvantages: Product layout suffers from following drawbacks:
a. High initial capital investment in special purpose machine
b. Heavy overhead charges
c. Breakdown of one machine will hamper the whole production process
d. Lesser flexibility as specially laid out for particular product.
Suitability: Product layout is useful under following conditions:
1) Mass production of standardized products
2) Simple and repetitive manufacturing process
3) Operation time for different process is more or less equal
4) Continuous supply of materials
Therefore, the manufacturing units involving continuous manufacturing process, producing few standardized products continuously
on the firm’s own specifications and in anticipation of sales would prefer product layout e.g. chemicals, sugar, paper, rubber, refineries,
cement, automobiles, food processing and electronics etc.

(b) Process layout:


In this type of layout machines of a similar type are arranged together at one place. E.g. Machines performing drilling operations
are arranged in the drilling department, machines performing casting operations be grouped in the casting department. Therefore the
machines are installed in the plants, which follow the process layout.
Hence, such layouts typically have drilling department, milling department, welding department, heating department and painting
department etc. The process or functional layout is followed from historical period. It evolved from the handicraft method of production.
The work has to be allocated to each department in such a way that no machines are chosen to do as many different job as possible i.e.
the emphasis is on general purpose machine.

The work, which has to be done, is allocated to the machines according to loading schedules with the object of ensuring that
each machine is fully loaded. Process layout is shown in the following diagram.

Process layout showing movement of two products


The grouping of machines according to the process has to be done keeping in mind the following principles
a) The distance between departments should be as short as possible for avoiding long distance movement of materials
b) The departments should be in sequence of operations
c) The arrangement should be convenient for inspection and supervision

Advantages: Process layout provides the following benefits


a) Lower initial capital investment in machines and equipments. There is high degree of machine utilization, as a machine is not blocked
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for a single product
b) The overhead costs are relatively low
c) Change in output design and volume can be more easily adapted to the output of variety of products
d) Breakdown of one machine does not result in complete work stoppage
e) Supervision can be more effective and specialized
f) There is a greater flexibility of scope for expansion.

Disadvantages: Product layout suffers from following drawbacks


a. Material handling costs are high due to backtracking
b. More skilled labour is required resulting in higher cost.
c. Time gap or lag in production is higher
d. Work in progress inventory is high needing greater storage space
e. More frequent inspection is needed which results in costly supervision

Suitability: Process layout is adopted when


1. Products are not standardized
2. Quantity produced is small
3. There are frequent changes in design and style of product
4. Job shop type of work is done
5. Machines are very expensive
(c) Combination layout
In most of industries, only a product layout or process layout or fixed location layout does not exist. Thus, in manufacturing
concerns where several products are produced in repeated numbers with no likelihood of continuous production, combined layout is
followed. Generally, a combination of the product and process layout or other combination are found, in practice, e.g. for industries
involving the fabrication of parts and assembly, fabrication tends to employ the process layout, while the assembly areas often employ the
product layout. In soap, manufacturing plant, the machinery manufacturing soap is arranged on the product line principle, but ancillary
services such as heating, the manufacturing of glycerin, the power house, the water treatment plant etc. are arrange d on a functional
basis. In this type of layout the material or components remain in a fixed location and tools, machinery, men and materials are brought to
this location.

Advantages:
The major advantages of this type of layout are
1. Helps in job improvement and upgrades the skills of the operators
2. The workers identify themselves with a product in which they take interest and pride in doing the job
3. Greater flexibility with this type of layout
4. Layout capital investment is lower
Combined Layout

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