POM
Module 4: Facility Layout
Unit 2: Designing Process Layouts
Overview:
In this Unit, you will learn how to design Process Layouts.
Module Objective:
After successful completion of this Unit, you should be able to:
• Design simple process layouts using the Load-Distance Method.
Course Materials:
• Handout: Designing Process Layouts
Design:
DESIGNING PROCESS LAYOUTS USING THE LOAD-DISTANCE METHOD
Objective
The major objective of the Load-Distance method is to arrange departments or work
centers such that the material handling cost or the total distance travelled by people,
materials or product through the production system is minimized.
Approach
To achieve the abovementioned objective, departments or work centers with large flows
of people, materials or products between them should be placed next to one another.
Factors to Consider
There are 2 major factors to consider when designing process layouts using the Load-
Distance method:
1. The number of loads (or people) to be moved during some period of time
between departments
2. The distance-related costs between departments. (Cost can be a function of
distance between departments).
EXERCISE
A university advising office has four rooms, each dedicated to specific functions:
Room Advisor Function
101 A Petitions
102 B Schedule advising
103 C Grade complaints
104 D Student counseling
The office is 80 ft long by 20 ft wide. Each room is 20 ft x 20 ft. The top view perspective
of the figure below shows the present assignment of the advisors to the rooms as:
101 102 103 104
A B C D
The load summary shows the number of student contacts that each advisor in a room
has with other advisors in the other rooms.
A – B = 10 B – C = 15
A – C = 20 B – D = 10
A – D = 30 C – D = 20
The load summary shows that, say, on a daily basis, 10 students go from Advisor A to
Advisor B or vice versa, 20 students go from Advisor A to Advisor C or vice versa, 30
students go from Advisor A to Advisor D or vice versa, and so on.
The problem is: how do we re-arrange the assignments of the advisors to the rooms in
order to minimize the total distance travelled by the students in this advising office?
Solution
To answer this question, we will go through the following steps:
1. Evaluate the present layout; i.e., determine the total distance travelled by the
students in the present advisor-to-room assignments;
2. Re-arrange the assignments by placing the advisors with large flows of students
between them as near to each other as possible;
3. Evaluate the proposed layout and see if there are still other possible
improvements.
To facilitate our analysis, let’s assume that:
1. The movement of the students from one advisor to another follows a straight path
inside the advising office; i.e., no walls separating each room; the students walk
along a corridor as they move from one advisor to the next; and
2. The students move from the center of one room to the center of the destination
room.
101 102 103 104
A B C D
Recalling that each room is 20 ft x 20 ft and applying the assumptions above, we can
see that the distance travelled by a student from Advisor A to Advisor B is 20 ft; the
distance between A and C is 40 ft; the distance between B and D is 40 ft; and so on.
Let’s now set up the table that we will use for the evaluations:
Present Layout Proposed Layout
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # of Students feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
A–B 10
A–C 20
A–D 30
B–C 15
B–D 10
C–D 20
Step 1
Let’s first evaluate the present layout by determining the distance between pairs of
advisors:
Present Layout Proposed Layout
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # of Students feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
A–B 10 20
A–C 20 40
A–D 30 60
B–C 15 20
B–D 10 40
C–D 20 20
Next, let’s calculate the Load x Distance for each pair of advisors:
Present Layout Proposed Layout
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # of Students feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
A–B 10 20 10 * 20 = 200
A–C 20 40 20 * 40 = 800
A–D 30 60 30 * 60 = 1800
B–C 15 20 15 * 20 = 300
B–D 10 40 10 * 40 = 400
C–D 20 20 20 * 20 = 400
Next, let’s calculate the total distance travelled by all the students in the present layout:
Present Layout Proposed Layout
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # of Students feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
A–B 10 20 10 * 20 = 200
A–C 20 40 20 * 40 = 800
A–D 30 60 30 * 60 = 1800
B–C 15 20 15 * 20 = 300
B–D 10 40 10 * 40 = 400
C–D 20 20 20 * 20 = 400
Total 3,900 feet
Step 2
Let’s use the approach of the Load-Distance method by putting the advisors with large
flows of students between them close to each other. We refer to the From/To and the
Load columns.
Notice that among the pairs of advisors where there are flows of students, Advisor A and
Advisor D have the highest number of advisees at 30 students per day. This implies that
A and D should be adjacent to each other; thus,
A D
Next, notice that pairs A – C and C – D each have 20 student contacts per day. This
implies that A and C should be adjacent to each other; thus,
C A D
But it is equally important that C and D should also be adjacent to each other. Since
we cannot place C next to A and next to D at the same time, this means that we have
another possible layout; thus,
A D C
Next, pair B – C has 15 student contacts per day; this means that B should be adjacent
to C; thus, continuing with the two potential layouts above, we have
B C A D
and
A D C B
Step 3
Let’s now evaluate these potential layouts to determine which of them we would
propose:
Layout B – C – A - D Layout A – D – C - B
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # of Students feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
A–B 10 40 10 * 40 = 400 60 10 * 60 = 600
A–C 20 20 20 * 20 = 400 40 20 * 40 = 800
A–D 30 20 30 * 20 = 600 20 30 * 20 = 600
B–C 15 20 15 * 20 = 300 20 15 * 20 = 300
B–D 10 60 10 * 60 = 600 40 10 * 40 = 400
C–D 20 40 20 * 40 = 800 20 20 * 20 = 400
Total 3,100 feet 3,100 feet
Incidentally, these two potential layouts have equal evaluations. Since we can
recommend only of them, we have to consider other criteria to break the tie. But for
now, either of these two layouts may be proposed as each will be able to lower the
distance travelled by students in the advising office from 3,900 ft to 3,100 ft per day.
This could result in faster service to the students, lesser stress to both students and
advisors, and greater productivity for both.
Actually, there are four layouts that could be proposed all having evaluation of 3,100 ft
per day; the additional two layouts are mirror images of the two layouts found and
evaluated above.
101 102 103 104
A D C B
101 102 103 104
B C D A
101 102 103 104
B C A D
101 102 103 104
D A C B
By merely comparing each of these layouts with the present layout, which one of them
would you propose and why?
The above problem is simple because the advisors are assigned in a line of adjacent
rooms. What if the rooms or available spaces, when viewed from the top, is a 2 x 3
grid? Let’s consider the following problem:
Vision Company’s management wants to arrange the six departments of its factory in a
way that will minimize interdepartmental handling costs. They make an assumption
that each department is 20 ft x 20 ft and that the building is 60 ft long by 40 ft wide. A
forklift will carry all interdepartmental loads. The load summary is as follows:
From To Load
Dep’t Dep’t
1 – 2 50
1 – 3 100
1 – 6 20
2 – 3 30
2 – 4 50
2 – 5 10
3 – 4 40
3 – 6 100
4 – 5 50
1. Arrange the six departments of this factory among the six available spaces, such
that the total distance traveled by the forklift, say, per day, is minimized.
2. Show and evaluate your proposed layout
Given the description, the factory would look like this when viewed from the top:
Solution
Assumptions:
1. The spaces are not partitioned by walls, but only by painted lines along the floor.
2. Movement of the forklift is from the center of one department to the center of the
destination department.
3. In moving from one department to another, the forklift can only move laterally
(left-right-left-…); i.e., no diagonal movements.
To illustrate, let’s say that the forklift is to move from Department 1 to Department
5, it may take only either Path A or Path B, either of which will be a distance of 40
ft., but not Path C.
5
To illustrate further, let’s say that the forklift is to move from Department 1 to
Department 6, it may take any of the following paths; any of which will be a distance
of 60 ft.
6
Let’s now set up the table that we will use for the evaluations:
Proposed Layout 1 Proposed Layout 2
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # of Trips feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
1–2 50
1–3 100
1–6 20
2–3 30
2–4 50
2–5 10
3–4 40
3–6 100
4–5 50
Let’s start assigning each department. To do so, we need first to take note of the pairs
of departments that have the highest loads: these are 1 – 3 and 3 – 6, for which the
forklift has 100 trips each per day. So, Department 1 and 3 should be adjacent to each
other. Same should be true for Departments 3 and 6.
Among Departments 1, 3 and 6, Department 1 has three department pairs, Department
6 has two department pairs, while Department 3 has four department pairs. Therefore,
it would seem wise to assign Department 3 at the middle of the factory. So, our initial
assignments could be:
1 3 6
or
1 3
6
Let’s arbitrarily choose to continue with
1 3 6
Looking at the pairs of departments with the next highest loads, we see; 1 – 2; 2 – 4;
and 4 – 5; with 50 loads each. So, 2 should be near 1, 4 should be near 2 and 5
should be near 4; thus, our layout will be
1 3 6
2 4 5
Let’s evaluate this layout, by first determining the distances within department pairs:
Proposed Layout 1 Proposed Layout 2
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # of Trips feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
1–2 50 20
1–3 100 20
1–6 20 40
2–3 30 40
2–4 50 20
2–5 10 40
3–4 40 20
3–6 100 20
4–5 50 20
Now, let’s calculate the Load * Distance for each pair of departments and find the total
distance travelled by the forklift in this factory per day.
Proposed Layout 1 Proposed Layout 2
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # of Trips feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
1–2 50 20 50 * 20 = 1000
1–3 100 20 100 * 20 = 2000
1–6 20 40 20 * 40 = 800
2–3 30 40 30 * 40 = 1200
2–4 50 20 50 * 20 = 1000
2–5 10 40 10 * 40 = 400
3–4 40 20 40 * 20 = 800
3–6 100 20 100 * 20 = 2000
4–5 50 20 50 * 20 = 1000
Total 10,200 feet
If we are to propose this layout, we may expect the total distance to be travelled by the
forklift through this factory to be around 10,200 ft/day.
1 3 6
2 4 5
Could you come up with a layout having a lower evaluation? Why don’t you try beating
this layout?
Activities/Assessments:
Activity 10
Trinity Valley Furniture Warehouse has purchased a retail outlet with six departments,
as shown below. The anticipated number of customers that move between departments
each week is given in the load summary chart. Each department is 30 ft x 30 ft.
Present Layout
A B C
D E F
Present Layout Proposed Layout
Load Distance, Distance,
From/To # Customers feet Load * Distance feet Load * Distance
A–B 70
A–F 50
B–E 100
C–B 70
D–C 80
E–A 40
E–F 30
F–B 60
F–E 100
Total
a) Determine the total distance travelled by customers through the retail outlet
on a weekly basis according to the present layout.
b) Re-arrange the six departments such that the weekly total customer
movement (distance) is minimized.
c) Evaluate your proposed layout.
Present the results of your calculations on the table above.
