Process Selection and Facility Layout

Learning Objectives

1. Explain the strategic importance of process selection

2. Discuss the factors that influence process selection

3. Compare the four basic processing types of process selection

4. Describe product layouts and their main advantages and disadvantages

5. Describe process layouts and their main advantages and disadvantages

6. Solve simple line-balancing problems

What is a process?
Process Selection

• Process selection: Refers to deciding on the way production of goods or services will be organized

• It has major implications for:

o Capacity planning

o Layout of facilities

o Equipment

o Design of work systems

Process Selection and System Design
Process Strategy

• How an organization approaches process selection is determined by the organization’s process strategy
• Capital Intensity: The mix of equipment and labor that will be used by the organization

• Process flexibility: The degree to which the system can be adjusted to changes in processing requirements due to such
factors as
o Product and service design changes

o Volume changes

o Changes in technology
Process Selection

Two key questions in process selection:

1. How much variety will the process need to be able to handle?

2. How much volume will the process need to be able to handle?

Job shop

• It is used when a low volume of high-variety

goods or services will be needed

• Processing is intermittent; work includes small

jobs, each with somewhat different processing
requirements

• High flexibility using general-purpose equipment

and skilled workers
Batch process

• Used when a moderate volume of goods or

services is desired

• The skill level of workers doesn’t need to be as

high as in a job shop

• Examples of batch systems include bakeries,

which make bread, cakes, or cookies in batches

• Movie theaters, which show movies to groups

(batches) of people
Repetitive process

• Used when higher volumes of more standardized

goods or services are needed

• Skill of workers is generally low

• Examples of products made by these systems

include automobiles, television sets, pencils, and
computers
Continuous process

• When a very high volume of non-discrete, highly

standardized output is desired

• Workers’ skill requirements can range from low to

high, depending on the complexity of the system

• Continuous systems include petroleum products, steel,

sugar, flour, and salt
Types of Processing

Job Shop Batch Repetitive/ Assembly Continuous

Description Customized goods or Semi-standardized Standardized goods or Highly standardized goods

services goods or services services or services

Advantages Able to handle a wide Flexibility; easy to add Low unit cost, high Very efficient, very high
variety of work or change products or volume, efficient volume
services

Disadvantages Slow, high cost per Moderate cost per unit, Low flexibility, high Very rigid, lack of variety,
unit, complex moderate scheduling cost of downtime costly to change, very high
planning and complexity cost of downtime
scheduling

Process capabilities should match product or service requirements

Volume and variety influence process choice
Project

• A project is used for work that is nonroutine, with a unique set of objectives to be accomplished in a limited time
frame

• Equipment flexibility and worker skills can range from low to high

• Examples include consulting, making a picture, launching a new product or service, publishing a book, building a
dam, etc.
Process choice affects numerous activities/functions
Facilities Layout

• Layout: The configuration of departments, work centers, and equipment, with particular emphasis on movement of
work (customers or materials) through the system

• Question: Why layouts are important?

1) Require substantial investments of money and effort

2) Involve long-term commitments, which makes mistakes difficult to overcome

3) Significant impact on the cost and efficiency of operations

• Facilities layout decisions arise when:

o Designing new facilities

o Re-designing existing facilities

The Need for Layout Planning

1. Inefficient operations
• High cost
• Bottlenecks

2. Accidents or safety hazards

3. Changes in product or service design

4. Introduction of new products or services

5. Changes in output volume or product mix

6. Changes in methods or equipment

7. Changes in environmental or other legal requirements

8. Morale problems
Layout Design Objectives

• Basic Objective: Facilitate a smooth flow of work, material, and information through the system

• Supporting objectives

1. Facilitate product or service quality

2. Use workers and space efficiently

3. Avoid bottlenecks

4. Minimize material handling costs

5. Eliminate unnecessary movement of workers or material

6. Minimize production time or customer service time

7. Design for safety

Basic Layout Types

• Product layouts

• Process layouts

• Fixed-Position layout

• Combination layouts
Repetitive Processing: Product Layouts

• Product layout: Layout that uses standardized processing operations to achieve smooth, rapid, high-volume flow

Raw materials
Station Station Station Station Finished
or customer item
1 2 3 4

Material Material Material Material

and/or and/or and/or and/or

labor labor labor labor

Used for Repetitive Processing

Key characteristics

• High degree of labor and equipment utilization

• Items move quickly from operation to operation

• The amount of work-in-process is often minimal

• The entire system is highly vulnerable to being shut down because of mechanical failure or high absenteeism

• Preventive maintenance is required

Repetitive Processing: Product Layouts
Product Layouts: Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages Disadvantages

• High rate of output • Creates dull, repetitive jobs

• Low unit cost • Poorly skilled workers may not maintain equipment or
quality of output
• Labor specialization
• Fairly inflexible to changes in volume or product or
• Low material handling cost per unit
process design
• High utilization of labor and equipment
• Highly susceptible to shutdowns
• Established routing and scheduling
• Preventive maintenance, capacity for quick repair and
• Routine accounting, purchasing, and inventory spare-parts inventories are necessary expenses
control
• Individual incentive plans are impractical
U-Shaped Layouts

• U-shaped line is more compact; it often requires approximately half the length of a straight production line

• A U-shaped line permits increased communication among workers on the line because workers are clustered, thus
facilitating teamwork

• U-shaped line minimizes material handling

Non-repetitive Processing: Process Layouts

• Process layouts: Layouts that can handle varied processing requirements

Dept. A Dept. C Dept. E

Dept. B Dept. D Dept. F

Used for Intermittent processing

Job Shop or Batch
Key characteristics

• Jobs that are processed requires frequent adjustments to equipment

• Variable-path material handling equipment (forklift trucks) is needed to handle the variety of routes and items

• Provides the flexibility necessary to handle a wide range of processing requirements.

Process Layouts: Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages Disadvantages

• Can handle a variety of processing requirements • In-process inventories can be high

• Not particularly vulnerable to equipment failures • Routing and scheduling pose continual challenges

• General-purpose equipment is often less costly • Equipment utilization rates are low
and easier and less costly to maintain
• Material handling is slow and inefficient
• It is possible to use individual incentive systems
• Reduced spans of supervision

• Special attention necessary for each product or customer

• Accounting, inventory control, and purchasing are more

involved
Fixed Position Layouts

• Fixed Position layout: Layout in which the product or project remains stationary, and workers, materials, and
equipment are moved as needed

• Weight, size, bulk, or some other factor makes it undesirable or extremely difficult to move the product
Key characteristics

• Lack of storage space can present significant problems

• Special efforts are needed to coordinate the activities

• Administrative burden is often much higher than it would be under either of the other layout types
Combination Layouts

• Some operational environments use a combination of the three basic layout types:

o Hospitals

o Supermarket

o Shipyards

• Some organizations are moving away from process layouts in an effort to capture the benefits of product layouts

o Cellular manufacturing

o Flexible manufacturing systems

Cellular Layouts

• Cellular production: Layout in which workstations are grouped into a cell that can process items that have similar
processing requirements

• Groupings are determined by the operations needed to perform the work for a set of similar items, part families, that
require similar processing

• The cells become, in effect, miniature versions of product layouts

Cellular Layouts
Cellular layouts

• Enables companies to produce a variety of products with as little waste as possible

• Provides a smooth flow of work through the process with minimal transport or delay

• Reduced space requirements and lead times, productivity and quality improvement, and increased flexibility

• Introduction to Cellular Layouts – YouTube

• Lean Manufacturing Cell - YouTube

Service Layout

• Service layouts can be categorized as: product, process, or fixed position

• Service layout requirements are somewhat different due to such factors as:

o Degree of customer contact

o Degree of customization

• Common service layouts:

o Warehouse and storage layouts

o Retail layouts

o Office layouts
Service Layout

Kiosks benefit customers by

speeding up tedious processes
and reducing waiting time
Service Layout
Service layout

Self-service Job shop

(Supermarkets) (Healthcare)

Contact

Core service and the customer can Facilitate workers and equipment
be separated (Tailoring)
(ATM, online banking)

Customization
Designing Product Layouts: Line Balancing

• The goal of a product layout is to arrange workers or machines in the sequence that operations need to be performed
Line Balancing

• Line balancing: The process of assigning tasks to workstations in such a way that the workstations have
approximately equal time requirements

• Goal: Obtain task grouping that represent approximately equal time requirements since this minimizes idle time
along the line and results in a high utilization of equipment and labor

• Why is line balancing important?

1. It allows us to use labor and equipment more efficiently.

2. To avoid fairness issues that arise when one workstation must work harder than another.
Challenges in line balancing

• The major obstacle to attaining a perfectly balanced line is the difficulty of forming task bundles that have the same
duration. It may because of differences in equipment requirements or because the activities are not compatible

• Secondly, differences among elemental task lengths cannot always be overcome by grouping tasks

• Thirdly, a required technological sequence may prohibit otherwise desirable task combinations
How does a manager decide how many stations to use?

• Cycle time: The maximum time allowed at each workstation to complete its set of tasks on a unit

• Cycle time also establishes the output rate of a line. For instance, if the cycle time is two minutes, units will come
off the end of the line at the rate of one every two minutes.

• The minimum cycle time is equal to the longest task time (1.0 minute), and the maximum cycle time is equal to the
sum of the task times (0.1 + 0.7 + 1.0 + 0.5 + 0.2 = 2.5 minutes).
Cycle Time

• Cycle time: The maximum time allowed at each workstation to complete its set of tasks on a unit

Operating time per day

Cycle time 
Desired output rate

Operating time per day

Output rate 
Cycle time
How Many Workstations are Needed?

• The required number of workstations is a function of

1. Desired output rate

2. Our ability to combine tasks into a workstation

• Theoretical minimum number of stations

N min 
t
Cycle time
where
N min  theoretica l minimum number of stations
 t  Sum of task time s
Precedence Diagram

• Precedence diagram: A diagram that shows elemental tasks and their precedence requirements
Assigning Tasks to Workstations

• Some Heuristic (Intuitive) Rules:

1. Assign tasks in order of most following tasks

2. Assign tasks in order of greatest positional weight. Positional weight is the sum of each task’s time and the times of
all following tasks
Example 1

• Arrange the tasks shown in Figure into three workstations. Use a cycle time of 1.0 minute.

• Assign tasks in order of the greatest number of followers.

Solution

1. Begin with task a; it has the most following tasks. Assign it to workstation 1.

2. Next, tasks b and c each have two following tasks, but only task c will fit in the time remaining at workstation 1, so
assign task c to workstation 1.

3. Task b now has the most followers, but it will not fit at workstation 1, so assign it to workstation 2.

4. There is no time left at workstation 2, so we move on to workstation 3, assigning task d and then task e to that
workstation.
Solution
Solution
Measuring Effectiveness

• Balance delay (percentage of idle time): Percentage of idle time of a line

Idle time per cycle

Balance Delay   100
N actual  Cycle time
where
N actual  Actual number of stations

• Efficiency: Percentage of busy time of a line

Efficiency  100% - Balance Delay

Positional weight method

• The positional weight for a task is the sum of the task times for itself and all its following tasks

• Using the information contained in the table shown, do each of the following:

1. Draw a precedence diagram.

2. Assuming an eight-hour workday, compute the cycle time needed to obtain an output of 400 units per day.

3. Determine the minimum number of workstations required.

4. Assign tasks to workstations using this rule: Assign tasks according to greatest number of following tasks. In case
of a tie, use the tiebreaker of assigning the task with the longest processing time first

5. Compute the resulting percent idle time and efficiency of the system.
Positional weight method
Positional weight method
Positional weight method

• Cycle time = Operating time/Desired output rate = 480/400 = 1.2 minutes/cycle

• Number of stations = Total processing time/Cycle time = 3.8/1.2 = 3.17 stations

Positional weight method
Positional weight method
Other Approaches

Adapted from Mikell P. Groover, Automation, Production Systems, and Computer-Aided Manufacturing, 2nd
ed. © 1987. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.