405- Production & Operations Management S.Y.B.B.

A (Sem-4)

UNIT-2 Plant Layout and Material Handling (15%)

 PLANT LAYOUT:

 Definition of plant layout:

“Plant layout is physical arrangement (present or proposed) of various building,

production department, technical utilities and location of various machines within each
production department. The process of preparing plant layout for a new manufacturing
or service set-up is called plant layout design.”

 Factors affecting plant lay-out design:

Following factors decide types of plant layout

1. What to manufacture?
Before everything else, this question is answered to decide area of business. There
are many items like cement, petroleum, sugar, bulk chemical, etc. which are not
possible to manufacture on small scale. They are manufactured on mass production
basis in large capacity continuous production system. Factories of such products will
have product layout.Many products are specially manufactured as per customer
order. Factories of such products will have process layout.

2. How much to manufacture?

This decision will affect number of machines required; number of people who
will be working in production area, size and capacity of technical utilities etc. this will
have a direct impact on layout.

3. Manufacturing technology. (How to manufacture?)

Different kinds of machines require different utilities. Their size and shape are
also different. According to the selection of machine, utilities to be provided will change.
As per the selection of technology, number of people required to operate machines may
change modern machines are compact, more automatic and will lesser man power

4. Cost of land:
In urban areas where land is expensive, plant layout can have multi stored
buildings. In remote area where land is easily available single level manufacturing area
are designed.

5. Number of employees, visitor and male female area:

Plant layout also considers safe and convenient movement of people including
production employees, employees of other department and external visitor. This aspect
of estimating number of people is extremely important in service layouts like;
restaurant, bank, hospital, etc.
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6. Storage of semi-finished articles:

It may happen that there is a time gap between two successive stages of
production. Because of this reason, it may be necessary to store semi-finished articles in
production area. There should be a provision in plant layout for storage of such semi-
finished articles.

7. Nature of raw material:

Storage and movement of raw material discussed above point no. 7 depend
heavily on nature of raw material. Certain raw materials are volume occupying
material. FOR EXAMPLE: cotton raw materials are seasonally available raw material.

They are purchased in bulk quantity. FOR EXAMPLE: agricultural product. One has to
provide for large warehouses for such material. Some raw materials are explosive in
nature. They are stored in separate areas.

8. Type of industry:
There are certain similarities in design of manufacturing units of the same
industry. FOR EXAMPLE: all power plants manufacture electricity by consuming gas
as a fuel will always look similar or alike. Types of machines will be of similar nature.

9. Planning of future expectation:

Certain facilities like roads, water tank etc, are created considering future scale of
operations. It’s difficult later on to add such facilities when production capacity is
expanding. Because of this reason, such facility or utilities are requirement and hence
plant layout changes considerably.

 TYPES OF PLANT LAYOUT:

1. Process Layout
2. Product Layout
3. Fixed Position Layout
4. Cellular Layout
5. Combination Layout/Hybrid Layout

1. Process lay-out:

Process layout is also known as functional layout or Batch Production

Layout.

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Process layout involves grouping together of like machines in one

department.

Process layout are designed to process items or provide services that

involves a variety of process requirements.

It is that of plant lay out in which machines, equipment and department

arranged according to manufacturing or business processes. These types of lay out are
usually related to intermittent production systems. Here, department are created by
grouping similar types of machines. The purpose of various department is not creating
a signal product or not to impart a signal feature on continuous basis for manufacturing
purpose of a large quantity of a signal product. The purpose of any department is to do
that process on any product.

A typical EXAMPLE is that of an engineering company like LARSEN & TOUBRO. They
are manufacturing various products as per customer order.

TURNING SHOP LATHE MACHINES HEAT

OFFICE GEAR CUTTIJNG TREATMENT
SHOP, MILLING SHOP
MACHINES
RAW MATERIAL DRILLING MACHINE
STORE WORK SHOP WELDING
SHOP

OPEN AREA, GARDENS ELECTRO

PLATING
SHOP

FINISHED GOOD STORAGE, FINAL ASSEMBLY

DISPATCH PAINT
SHOP

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Here, turning department shall accommodate various types & size of lathe
machines. Same is the case with drilling department, welding department etc. first,
orders of customer with people design, drawings and specifications are received. After
that, technically competent people in production department shall decide about what
are the various processes to be performed in order to manufacturing that specially
designed product. It is obvious that according to design & specifications of customer,
each product shall be unique. Because of this reason, what processes we shall be
performing for different finished products shall be differing from product to product.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Product No 1 sequence can be as following:

Turning shop milling shop welding electro plating paint shop

Product No 2 sequence can be as following:

Drilling shop heat treatment shop welding electro plating paint shop

1.1 Advantages of process lay out:

1) It is possible to manufacturing a different products or many product with
different features. Machines are not so much specialized that they can
manufacture only single product.

2) It reduces risk of doing business.

3) Investment in machineries is less as machines are less automatic and less

specialized. Because of this reason initial investment in plant & machines is not
very high.

4) It is easy to expand capacity because capacities of various departments not are

exactly balanced.

5) It is easy to give subcontracting or to do out sourcing only for selective processes.

Because of this there is a great deal of flexibility in production planning.

6) There is a greater incentive for better performance. It is possible to co-relate

output with the workers & with the group of workers.

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1.2 Disadvantages of process layout:

1) Material handling is complex & usually it is not possible to fully automate

material handling faction.

2) Production planning is complex because there are many products. At times we

have to do production planning for entirely a new type of products.

3) As processes are not going be 100% automatic, rate of production is slow. The
pre unit cost of manufacturing is high.

4) Machines are not specially created to manufacture one product and hence they
are not 100% automatic. Because of this reason, quality assurance is a different
job.

5) Area & volume utilization in plant lay out design are different to achieve.

6) As machines are less automatic, there is more reliance on man power. The labour
is therefore high.

2. Product Lay-out:

Product layout is also known as Straight line layout .

A product Layout involves the arrangement of machines in one line

depending upon the sequences of operations.

These lay out are designed to manufacture signal product or a few variants of the
same product according to continuous production philosophy. Here, the purpose is
to make one product in large quantity on continuous basis. The machines &
production processes are specially modified or designed to contribute toward
manufacture of that definite product.

In this case, the lay out follows technical sequences of processes which are decided
to make one product continuously & hence the name ‘product lay out’ once created,
it is not possible to make different product.

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The lay out May look as following:

Line Line Line Line Line

1 2 3 4 5

FINAL
ASSEMBLY
LINE

2.3 Advantages of product lay out:

1) Labour cost % are less in total costing as machines are of special purpose &
automatic.

2) Mass production at very fast rate is possible. It is possible to enjoy economies of

scale. Per unit cost of manufacturing is low.

3) Work in progress inventories are less as manufacturing is fats & automatics.

4) Less number & various of finished goods are manufacturing. Less varieties of
input material are needed.

5) Machines are automatic & hence quality assurance is easy.

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6) Compact automatic machines are used & hence better floor area utilization is
possible.

2.4 Disadvantages of product layout:

1) These lay out not flexible. You cannot manufacture any other product than what
the layout is designed for risk of doing business is therefore more.

2) These lay out are capital intensive. Machines are costly, high capacity automatic
machines. Initial project investment is high because of this fixed cost like interest
& depreciation costs are high.

3) Expansion is not easy as it to increase capacity of one department in isolation. If

capacity is to be inverse, usually a new plant is to be created.

4) The break down in one department shall instantly affect another department.
This is because work in progress inventory are virtually non-existent and even if
they are found in between two stages, they can hardly last for minutes.

5) Production capacity adjustments are not possible by out sourcing of few

operations.

6) The lay out are associated with high capacity high investment plants. It is not
possible to work with lower capacities even during lean demand seasons.

3. Fixed Position Layout:

Fixed Position Layout involves the movement of men and machine to

the product which remains stationary.

In this type of layout the material or major component remains in a fixed location and
other tools, equipment, machines, men’s as well as other pieces of materials will be
brought to this location.

Here, product remains stationary because cost of moving the product would be too
high and as compared to cost of moving of men, material and other equipment’s.

Here the focus should be on timing of raw material and equipment delivers so as not
to hurdle the work site and to avoid having to relocate materials and equipment
around the work site.

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FOR EXAMPLE: In service industry, best example is of hospital, wherein doctors,

nurse, equipment, medicines etc. are taken to the patients for their recovery.

3.1 Advantages of Fixed position lay out:

1. Men and machines can be utilized for variety of operation by producing different
products.
2. The investment on layout is small as compared to product and process layout.
3. The high cost of and difficulty of transporting heavy and bulky material is avoided.

4. Cellular Layout :

Cellular Manufacturing layout, machines are grouped into cells and

these cells function somewhat like product layout within a larger shop.
Each cell in the CM layout is formed to produce a single parts family- a few parts, all
with common characteristics, which usually means that they require the same machines
and have similar machine settings.

Here groupings of cells are determined by operations needed to perform work for a set
of similar items, or part families, which require similar processing. The cells over here
are smaller versions of product layouts.

The flow of parts within the cells may take any form. They may go in same line flow
pattern or they may take different routes through the cells because of differences in the
design of the two parts.

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5. Combination Layout (Hybrid Layout):

Combination layout refer to combination of product layout and process

layout and emphasis is put on either of them.

When the nature of product is such which is manufactured somewhat in a same way
and somewhat in a complex form, then it is possible to have the layout in a
combination form of product and process.

FOR EXAMPLE:
 Some parts which are manufactured through process layout and if they are
faculty then they may require their reproduction by process layout.

 Malls and supermarkets are an example of process layout but still they use
fixed path material handling devices such as roller type conveyors in the stock
rooms, belt type conveyors at billing centers.

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Note: Some time different between product layout & process layout is asked. It is
advice sable to compare various features of both types of layout in vertical format.

 Principles of good plant layout

1) The principle of minimum travel

Men and materials should travel the shortest distance between operations
so as to avoid waste of labour and time and minimise the cost of material
handling.
2) Principle of sequence
Machinery and operations should be arranged in a sequential order. This
principle is best achieved in product layout, and efforts should be made
to have it adopted in the process layout.
3) Principle of usage
Every foot of available space should be effectively utilised. This
principle should receive top consideration in towns and cities where land
is costly.
4) Principle of compactness
There should be a harmonious fusion of all the relevant factors so that the
final layout looks well integrated and compact.

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5) Principle of safety and satisfaction

The layout should contain built in provisions for safety for the workman.
It should also be planned on the basis of the comfort and convenience of
the workman so that they feel satisfied.
6) Principle of flexibility
The layout should permit revisions with the least difficulty and at a
minimum cost.
7) Principle of minimum investment
The layout should result in savings in fixed capital investment, not by
avoiding installation of the necessary facilities but by an intensive use of
available facilities.

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 MATERIAL HANDLING
Concepts
Many types of materials like raw-materials, purchased components, material-in-
process, finished goods, packaging materials, maintenance and repair supplies,
scrap and waste and reject or rework are used and handled in manufacturing
organizations. These materials are of various size, shape and specific features. The
layout of facilities is directly affected by the nature of these materials. For e.g.
large and bulk material, heavy materials, fluids, solid, flexible and inflexible
materials and materials requiring special handling to protect them from conditions
such as heat, cold, humidity, light, dust, flame and vibration affect the layout of
facilities for handling, storing and processing these materials.

Definition
“Material handling is defined as the art and science of moving, packaging
andstoring of substances in any form.”

 PRINCIPLES OF MATERIAL HANDLING

A) Materials should move through the facility in direct flow pattern, minimizing
zigzagging or backtracking.
B) Related production processes should be arranged to provide for direct material
flows.
C) Mechanized material handling device should be designed and set up so that
human efforts is minimised.
D) Heavy and bulk materials should be moved the shortest distance during
processing.
E) The number of times each material is handled should be minimised.
F) Mobile equipment should carry full loads all the times.

 TYPES MATERIAL HANDLING EQUIPMENT

There are different methods by which this equipment can be classified.

A) Classification on the basis of form of material

1) Handling equipment for solid material like

(i) Hand carts

(ii) Cranes
(iii) Fork lifts
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(iv) Conveyer belts

2) Handling equipment for liquids like
(i) Pipes
(ii) Barrels
(iii) Tanks
(iv) Canals (For waste water mainly)
3) Handling equipment for gases like
(i) Cylinders
(ii) Pipelines

B) Classification as per direction of movement

There are mainly three types of movements

(i) Vertical movements
Elevator and pipes can be used for vertical movements

(ii) Horizontal movements

Hand-carts and fork lifts can be used for horizontal movements

(iii) Inclined movements

Pipelines, moving cranes and inclined conveyor belts can be used for
inclined movements

C) Classification as per starting point & destination of material

movements

(i) Intra department handling equipment

There can be special equipment for material movement within a
department or production area, it is called as intra department handling
equipment.
(ii) Inter department handling equipment
Equipment are meant for material movement between two departments, it
is called as inter department handling equipment.

D) Classification as per basic mechanism

The following are some classification of equipment as per basic mechanism

 Forklifts
 Cranes
 Conveyors belt
 Elevators
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 Hand carts
 Crates and boxes
 Pipe line

These all equipment has certain technical specialities. Some are fixed path
equipment. Some are variable path equipment.

E) Classification of handling equipment as per degree of

automation

Material handling can be done by fully automatic equipment. Examples are robotic
systems automation storage automation retrieval (ASAR) system for storage of
gases& liquids in tanks. Computerized & numerically controlled (CNG) handling
system. Fully automatic system is usually fixed path handling system. Some
handling equipment are semi-automatic.

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