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6 - Flow Systems, Activity Relationship, and Space Requirements

The document discusses flow, space, and activity relationships in facility planning including effective flow paths, departmental planning, and manufacturing cells. It describes how to group workstations into departments based on similar functions or processes and how to form manufacturing cells by clustering similar parts and grouping the required machines together based on a machine-part matrix and direct clustering algorithm methodology. The goal is to improve productivity, quality, and other benefits through effective flow and grouping of related activities.

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86 views22 pages

6 - Flow Systems, Activity Relationship, and Space Requirements

The document discusses flow, space, and activity relationships in facility planning including effective flow paths, departmental planning, and manufacturing cells. It describes how to group workstations into departments based on similar functions or processes and how to form manufacturing cells by clustering similar parts and grouping the required machines together based on a machine-part matrix and direct clustering algorithm methodology. The goal is to improve productivity, quality, and other benefits through effective flow and grouping of related activities.

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Hello World
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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IE 421 Facilities Planning

Chapter 3
Flow System, Activity Relationships, and Space
Requirements

1
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
Flow Planning

Planning effective flow involves combining the flow patterns with


adequate aisles to obtain a progressive movement from origination
to destination.
Effective flow within a facility includes the progressive movement
of materials, information, or people between departments.
Effective flow within a department
involves the progressive movement
of materials, information, or people
between workstations.
Effective flow within a workstation
addresses the progressive movement
of materials, information, or
people through the workstation.
2
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
Flow Planning
A directed flow path is an uninterrupted flow path (fig. a)
progressing directly from origination to destination.
An uninterrupted flow path is a flow path that does not intersect
with other paths.
Figure (fig. b) illustrates the congestion and undesirable
intersections that may occur when flow paths are interrupted.

3
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
Flow Planning

A directed flow path


progressing from origination
to destination is a flow path
without backtracking.

As can be seen in figure,


backtracking increases the
length of the flow path.

4
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

To facilitate the consideration of flow, space, and activity


relationships, it is helpful to introduce the subject of departmental
planning.

Planning departments can involve production, support,


administrative, and service areas (called production, support,
administrative, and service planning departments).

As a general rule, planning departments may be determined by


combining workstations that perform “like” functions.
“Like” could refer to:
1. Workstations performing operations on similar products or
components.
5
2. Workstations performing similar processes.
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning > Production Planning Departments
(PPDs)

PPDs are collections of workstations to be grouped together during


the facilities layout process.

Depending on the product volume-variety, production planning


departments can be classified as:
i. product,
ii. fixed materials location,
iii. product family (or group technology), and
iv. process planning departments.

A systematic approach should be used in combining workstations


into departments.
6
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

7
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

Suppose a large, stable demand for a standardized product, like an


engine block, is to be met by production. In such a situation, the
workstations should be combined into a planning department so that
all workstations required to produce the product are combined. The
resulting product planning department may be referred to as
production line department.

8
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

Suppose a low, sporadic demand exists for a product that is very


large and awkward to move, for example, an aircraft fuselage. The
workstations should be combined into a planning department that
includes all workstation required to produce the product and the
staging area. This type of product planning department may be
referred to as a fixed materials location department.

9
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

A third type of product planning department may be identified when


there exists a medium demand for a medium number of similar
components. Similar components form, a family of components that
may be produced via a “group” of workstations. The combination of
the group of workstations may be referred to as a product family
department.

10
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

The fourth type of product planning department may be identified


when similar processes are combined together forming what is
called process departments.
An examples of planning departments based on the combination of
the workstations containing “similar” processes are metal cutting
departments, gear cutting departments, and hobbing departments.

11
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

Most facilities consist of a mixture of product and process


planning departments.
Assuming that in a facility consisting of mainly process planning
departments producing a large variety of rather unrelated products,
the detailed placement of individual workstations within a process
department might be based on a product planning department
philosophy.

12
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

Most facilities consist of a mixture of product and process


planning departments.
Assuming that in a facility consisting of mainly process planning
departments producing a large variety of rather unrelated products,
the detailed placement of individual workstations within a process
department might be based on a product planning department
philosophy. As an example, all painting activities might be grouped
together in a painting process department. However, the layout of
the painting department can consist of a painting line designed on
the basis of a product planning department philosophy.

Many companies using modern manufacturing approaches are


converting their facilities to combination of product and product
family (group technology) planning departments. 13
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2. Departmental Planning

14
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2.1 Manufacturing cells / Product family departments

Product family or group technology departments aggregate medium


volume-variety parts into families based on similar manufacturing
operations or design attributes.

The machines that are required to manufacture the part family are
grouped together to form a “cell”.

15
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2.1 Manufacturing cells / Product family departments

The most important benefits of cellular manufacturing are achieved


when manufacturing cells are designed, controlled, and operated
using Just-In-Time (JIT), Total Quality Management (TQM), and
Total Employee Involvement (TEI) concepts. These benefits are:

• Reduction of inventories, space, machine breakdowns, rework,


paperwork, warranty claims, storage and handling equipments,
employee turnover and absenteeism, production lead-times, costs,
and stockout;
• Simplification of communication, handling, and production
scheduling; and
• Improvement of productivity, flexibility, inventory turnover,
quality, and customer and employee satisfaction.
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FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2.1 Manufacturing cells / Product family departments

Clustering methodologies are used to group parts together so that


they can be processed as a family. This methodology lists parts and
machines in rows and columns, and interchanges them based on
some criterion like similarity coefficients.

For example, Direct Clustering Algorithm (DCA) forms clustered


groups based on sequentially moving rows and columns to the top
and left.

DCA is based on a machine-part matrix in which 1 indicates that the


part requires processing by the indicated machine; a blank indicates
the machine is not used for the particular part.

17
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2.1 Manufacturing cells / Product family departments

DCA methodology consists of the following steps:

Step 1: Order the rows and columns. Sum the 1s in each column and in each row
of the machine-part matrix. Order the rows (top to bottom) in descending ( )
order of the number of 1s in the rows, and order the columns (left to right) in
ascending () order of the number of 1s in each. Where ties exist, break the ties
in descending ( ) numerical sequence.

18
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2.1 Manufacturing cells / Product family departments

DCA methodology consists of the following steps:

Step 2: Sort the columns. Beginning with the first row of the matrix, shift to the
left of the matrix all columns having a 1 in the first row. Continue the process row
by row until no further opportunity exists for shifting columns.

19
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2.1 Manufacturing cells / Product family departments

DCA methodology consists of the following steps:

Step 3: Sort the rows. Column by column, beginning with the leftmost column,
shift rows upward when opportunities exist to form blocks of 1s.

20
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2.1 Manufacturing cells / Product family departments

DCA methodology consists of the following steps:

Step 4: Form cells. Look for opportunities to form cells such that all processing
for each part occurs in a single cell.

21
FLOW, SPACE, ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS
2.1 Manufacturing cells / Product family departments
Example: The below matrix is a representation of the machines visited by a set
of parts during production. Our objective is to group parts and machines together
to form cells.
Step 1:

The DCA methodology accomplishes this by ranking each row and column by its
number of occurrences, that is “1”s. This ranking is represented by the number of
far right of each row and the bottom of each column. 22

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