ALMENDRAS, IVAN KYLE U.

April 11, 2021

BSIE 4-1 Module 1 Assignment

1. What is a plant layout?

 Plant layout is the end result of a manufacturing facility design project.

2. What is facilities design?

 Facilities design is the organization of the company’s physical assets to promote the
efficient use of resources such as people, material, equipment, and energy. It includes
plant location, building design, plant layout, and material handling systems. It directly
affects the supply/demand ratio. quality and cost of the product.

3. What is material handling?

 Material handling is defined simply as moving material. Improvements in material

handling have positively affected workers more than any other area of work design and
ergonomics. Material handling accounts for about 50 percent of all industrial injuries and
from 40 to 80 percent of all operating costs.

4. Explain how the cost reduction formula is used in the manufacturing design process.

 Facilities planners ask the six questions (column one-Why, Who,

What ,Where ,When ,How) about everything that can happen to a part flowing through
the manufacturing facility (column two-Operation, Transportation, Inspection, Storage,
Delay)to eliminate steps, combine steps, change sequence of steps or simplify (column
three- Eliminate, Combine, Change, Sequence, Simplify). This requires studying the
company’s products in depth to identify every step in the process.

5. Material handling accounts for what percent of injuries and what percent of
operating costs?

 Material handling accounts for about 50 percent of all industrial injuries and from 40 to
80 percent of all operating costs.

6. . List the goals of manufacturing facilities design and material handling.


1. Minimize unit and project costs.

2. Optimize quality.
3. Promote the effective use of (a) people, (b) equipment, (c) space, and (d)
energy.
4. Provide for (a) employee convenience, (b) employee safety, and (c) employee
comfort.
 5. Control project costs.
6. Achieve the production start date.
7. Build flexibility into the plan.
8. Reduce or eliminate excessive inventory.
9. Achieve miscellaneous goals.

7. What is a mission statement?

 A mission statement communicates the primary goals and the culture of the organization
to the facilities planner. The mission statement defines the purpose for the existence of
the enterprise. The statement should be short enough so that its essence is not lost and can
be easily remembered, and it must be timeless so that it is easily adaptable to the
organizational changes. For the most part, the mission statement is a philosophical
statement that sets the cultural tone of the organization.

8. What two items in Figure 1–1 are behind schedule?

 Steps 10 and 11 are behind schedule for product number 1670, known as Wizbang.

9. What is the value of a manufacturing facilities design procedure?

 Manufacturing facilities design procedure serves as an outline/guideline for a plant layout

project. It practices a systematic way a tackling a layout project. It gives the designer
insights on what things are important to consider and how some things are supposed to be
done. If followed or understood properly, it could result to an "approved" layout-
approved not only by you and your colleagues but also those people who are in the
position to give your proposal an approval and point out errors and areas of improvement
in your proposed layout (i.e., superiors, the management)

10. List the manufacturing facilities design procedure.


1. Determine what will be produced; for example, a toolbox or swing set or lawn
mower.

2. Determine how many will be made per unit of time; for example, 1,500 per8-hour
shift.
3. Determine what parts will be made or purchased complete—some companies buy
out all parts, and they are called assembly plants. Those parts the company makes
itself require fabrication equipment and considerably more design work.
4. Determine how each part will be fabricated. This is called process planning and is
usually done by a manufacturing engineer, but in many projects, the
manufacturing facilities designer is also responsible for tool, equipment, and
workstation design.
5. Determine the sequence of assembly. This is called assembly line balancing. The
topic is covered in depth throughout this book.
6. Set time standards for each operation. It is impossible to design a plant layout
without time standards.
7. Determine the plant rate (takt time). This is how fast the facility needs to produce.
For example, it needs to make 1,500 units in 8 hours (480 minutes), so 480
minutes divided by 1,500 units equals .32 minute. The speed of the plant and
every operation in the plant must make a part every .32 minute (about three parts
per minute).
8. Determine the number of machines needed. Once you know the plant rate and the
time standard for each operation, divide the time standard by the line rate and the
number of machines results. For example, you have an operation with a time
standard of .75 minute and a line rate of .32 minute. How many machines are
needed (.75 divided by .32 equals 2.34 machines)? You will need to purchase
three machines. If you buy only two, you will never produce 1,500 units per shift
without working overtime. This will cause a bottleneck.
9. Balance assembly lines or work cells. This is dividing work among assemblers or
cell operators according to the line rate. Try to give everyone as close to the same
amount of work as possible.
10. Study the material flow patterns to establish the best (shortest distance through the
facility) flow possible. a. string diagram b. multiproduct process chart c. from-to
chart d. process chart e. flow process chart f. flow diagram
11. Determine activity relationships—How close do departments need to be to each
other to minimize people and material movement?
12. Lay out each workstation. These layouts will lead to department layouts, and then
to a facility wide layout.
13. Identify needs for personal and plant services, and provide the space needed.
14. Identify office needs and layout as necessary.
15. Develop total space requirements from the above information.
16. Select material handling equipment.
17. Allocate the area according to the space needed and the activity relationships
established in item 11 above.
18. Develop a plot plan and the building shape. How will the facility fit on the
property?
19. Construct a master plan. This is the manufacturing facility design—the last page
of the project and the result of all the data collected and the decisions made over
the past months.
20. Seek input and adjust. Ask your peer-level engineers and managers to review your
plan to see if they can punch holes in your design before you present it to
management for approval.
21. Seek approvals, take advice, and change as needed.
22. Install the layout. At this stage, the plan comes together and is one of the most
rewarding times, as well as one of the most stressful.
23. Start production. Anticipate that many things will go wrong. No one has started
up any production line without some problems; don’t expect you will be the first.
You will get better each time, but it will never be perfect.
24. Adjust as needed and finalize project report and budget performance. Many
engineering professors and industrial consulting firms are trying to develop a
 computer formula for manufacturing facilities design. So far, they have developed
computer algorithms and simulations for parts of the analysis. Facilities planners
will use these tools like any other tool, but the quality of the design will depend
on how well they analyze the data, not the computer’s ability to solve problems.

11. What are the five types of manufacturing facilities design projects?


1. New facility

2. New product
3. Design changes
4. Cost reduction
5. Retrofit

12. What is the difference in procedure between a new facility design and a retrofit? Define
simulation and explain why you think a simulation can be an important tool in facilities
design.

 A new facility design is where the most influence can be made with a new manufacturing
facility project. There are fewer restrictions and constraints placed on anew project due to
the fact that the designer does not have to be concerned about old facilities while retrofit
design have to consider some matters about old facilities, since this type of procedure
focuses on making them- the old facilities, more productive. But besides those points,
these two types are almost the same- except there are more constraints such as: existing
walls, floor pits, low ceilings, and any other permanent fixtures that may pose an obstacle
to an efficient material flow.
 Simulation is the use of software to make computer models of manufacturing systems, so
to analyze them and thereby obtain important information. It can be used to predict the
behavior of a manufacturing or service system by actually tracking the movements and
interaction of the system components and aiding in optimizing such systems. The
simulation software generates reports and detailed statistics describing the behavior of the
system under study. This technique represents a valuable tool used by engineers when
evaluating the effect of capital investment in equipment and physical facilities like
factory plants, warehouses, and distribution centers. Simulation can be used to predict the
performance of an existing or planned system and to compare alternative solutions for a
particular design problem.

13. Explain how you would incorporate various ISO 9000 requirements into the
facilities planning process.

 ISO 9000 standards and requirements can have a direct influence on facilities design.
Considerations must be given during the initial planning of the facilities in order to
incorporate and facilitate the implementation of these standards. The latest revision of the
ISO 9000 standard emphasizes the “process approach” to the organization of the
enterprise. When analyzing the facilities planning from a macroscale approach, each and
 every aspect of the enterprise—from receiving to shipping, with all the intermediate and
support functions of the facility—should function as an integrated and a cohesive system
supporting the process. Some of the specifics are as follows.

14. What do you believe is meant by a “random” process? Give an example of a random
occurrence on the factory floor and how simulation can be helpful in understanding
such a phenomenon.

 "Random" process is a process wherein a certain random phenomenon is measured by

using a suitable mathematical model. An example of a "random occurrence" on the
factory floor can be a low productivity rate of a certain area in a factory. But in this
situation, we should assume that these area produces outputs via processes that takes too
many steps. As a solution to that, the management and the engineers came up with a plan
to change the layout of that certain area to eliminate some unnecessary steps and
traveling time so that it can make the flow of the process smoother and faster which
would potentially result to a higher productivity rate. The problem here is that its too
costly to reconstruct the layout, its risky in a sense that it takes too much effort to do but
the result is not guaranteed. But not doing it would also be risky for the factory because it
might just be the solution that they are looking for. In order to eliminate that risk,
simulation can be very handy, because it helps the company not only by being a tool for
reconstructing the layout by just editing it on a computer software but also it could
simulate the whole process from which the engineers could gather valuable data about the
effectivity of the proposed layout modification. From there, they can have a more
solidified basis for the decisions and changes they would be making without risking too
much financial resources, time and effort as compared to trying out the proposed layout
in the actual area.

15. Are you familiar with any automatic data capture technology? Where and how do
you see that such technology may be applied in the facilities planning process?

 One automatic data capture technology is the use of barcodes. Since material handling
and facilities planning process are treated as one subject, I assume that they have a direct
relationship with each other. With that being said I can steer my answer towards the
application of the automatic data capture technology that I mentioned in the first sentence
— the use of barcodes. It very useful in the storage and tracking of supplies, materials or
even products. These barcodes are scanned by a barcode scanner, then the information
stored in that barcode will be "automatically" stored, compiled and organized in the
company's computer or data software device which eliminates a significant amount of the
use of papers and also it makes the process much simpler for the employees handling it,
since it won't be "manually" sorted and collected.

16. On the average, a facility undergoes some “layout design changes” once every 18
months. What would necessitate such changes?

 I think lay out design changes once every 18 months is necessary for helping the factory
achieve its optimal output and maintain its position in market or in the industry. When
something must be changed in a layout, it means that something in it must be improved
or a problem at the current layout must be solved otherwise it would be pointless. One of
the problems that must be solved in that area could be the company's struggle to adapt in
this modern era where innovations and improvements of businesses are moving at a faster
rate than ever before.