LAYOUT ANALYSIS

1. The customs clearance office at the Chennai Port Trust has various workcenters as
shown in the figure below. The figure also shows the route taken by dominant flow
of work through the office. Suggest a revised layout to improve the flow and
conserve space.

Final
Shipper Duties and
Stamp
Clearance Taxes
and
Signature
Entrance
and Exit

Initial Document
Check

Surface Photo-
Movement verification
Registration

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2. Lata Foods has made a layout for its kitchen with five work centers: Fridge,
Counter, Sink, Storage and Stove (see figure below). The numbers below the work
centers are their current spot identifiers. The walking distances between spots
2 & 3 and 3 & 4 are each 4 feet, while those between all other pairs of spots are
indicated beside the respective arcs (in feet). The number of trips between the
work centers is given in the table below.

Counter

Storage
NUMBER
Fridge

Stove
OF TRIPS
Sink Counter Sink Storage
2 3 4
Fridge 0 7 14 0 0
5 8 8 5
Counter 4 0 4 2 9 Fridge Stove
11 11
13
Sink 2 13 0 3 0 1 5

Storage 4 0 0 0 4
KITCHEN LAYOUT
Stove 0 9 3 11 0

a. What is the current trip distance score?

b. Now, using Excel solver, minimize the trip-distance score.
c. As per the solver solution obtained, which work center is in spot 3?

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3. Ajanta Metals handles a wide-variety of jobs in a year. The workshop has 10
machines that are currently laid out in the shop as shown in the figure. The figure
also indicates the aisles along which jobs can move between machines. Ninety-
degree turns are permitted at junctions.

ENTRANCE

WORKSHOP
OFFICE
GRINDING STAMPING

LATHE FORGING DRILLING PAINTING

MILLING CUTTING SHAPING EXTRUDING

Last year’s data show that some machines are more used than others. This is
because each job requires a unique set of machines and follows a unique route
between them. Also, a given job may be ordered in a different quantity each time.
Forklifts transport jobs, on pallets, between one machine and another. The
workshop has gathered data on the actual number of forklift trips made between
each pair of machines and between each machine and the entrance, in the last year.
See the table below. It is evident that the number of trips between a pair of
machines varied across machine pairs. For example, 328 trips were made between
stamping and shaping, while only 8 trips were made between the lathe and forging.
This pattern is likely to repeat itself in the coming year as well as in the year after.
Forklift movement takes time, costs money and is a general source of
inconvenience. Hence, minimizing the total distance travelled by the forklifts will
be beneficial to the work environment. Intuition suggests that to achieve this,
machines with a greater number of forklift trips between them must be closer to
each other, while those that have lesser trips between them can be farther from
each other. The same reasoning seems correct for the nearness of the machines to
the entrance.

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 Extruding
Stamping
Grinding

Painting

Shaping
Forging

Drilling

Cutting
Milling
Lathe
Stamping 37

Lathe 0 53

Forging 86 121 8

Drilling 9 214 55 28

Painting 15 652 215 84 74

Milling 621 64 46 0 170 138

Cutting 221 0 100 284 13 16 192

Shaping 0 328 0 30 14 252 183 12

Extruding 271 286 50 8 0 0 18 0 0

Entrance 10 102 514 0 0 1029 0 58 0 0

Since the operators need to take each others’ help with necessary tools and advice,
it is necessary that the Forging and Extruding machines must be neighbours (in any
direction). Likewise, the Drilling and Milling machines also must be neighbours.
Given all this, is the current layout optimal? If not, then what is the optimal layout?
Take the optimal layout to be the one that minimizes the total trip-distance. We are
permitted to rearrange the machines but the spaces used cannot be altered. The
above matrix is also given in the Excel worksheet titled “AJANTA METALS”.

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4. Ideal Diagnostics is setting up a new diagnostics center. Based on data from its
past centers, it prepares Table 1. In each cell, Table 1 shows the number of trips
made by visitors (above the diagonal line), and the desired closeness level using
letters (below the diagonal line). Also shown is the minimum area required for
each department in square feet. The closeness letters are explained below. It is
required that the aisles are atleast 10 feet wide. The entire floor available is 60 feet
by 60 feet in size.
A. Develop an initial relationship diagram, based only on desired closeness levels
but not considering visitor trips.
B. Develop an initial layout based on the above relationship diagram that ignores
space and building constraints.
C. Suggest a final layout that is to scale with the available floor size and the
required department areas.
D. Visually examine the trip numbers. Are there pairs of departments with high
trip numbers placed far apart or low trip numbers placed close by? Is there a
conflict between the closeness ratings and the trip numbers? How can we deal
with this?
Table 1
Ultra
Blood X-Ray Wash Waiting Minimum
DEPARTMENTS sound
Test (B) (X) rooms (S) (W) Area (sft)
(U)

Reception (R) 50 10 0 5 200 200

O O U U E

Blood test (B) 70 20 30 100 300

U I E U

X-Ray (X) 10 20 40 400

O O O

Ultrasound (U) 20 40 400

I U

Washrooms (S) 250 600

A

Waiting (W) 600

Value: A- Absolutely necessary; E- Very important; I- Important; O- Ordinary

importance; U- Unimportant; X- Undesirable.