Introduction :

Facility Layout means planning:

a. For the location of all machine, utilities, employees, workstations, customer service areas, material storage areas, aisles, restrooms, lunchrooms, internet walls, offices and computer rooms.

b. For the flow of patterns of materials and people around, into, and within building.

c. Infrastructure services such as the delivery of line communications, energy and water and the removal of waste water all make up basic utilities.

Characteristic of facility layout decision:

a. Location of these various areas impacts the flow through the system.

b. The layout can affect productivity and costs generated by the system.

c. Layout alternatives are limited by

the amount and type of space required for the various areas.

the amount and type of space available.

the operations strategy.

Objective of layout Strategy:

Develop an economic layout which will meet the requirements of:

a. Product design and volume (product strategy)

b. Process equipment and capacity (process strategy)

c. Quality of work life (human resource strategy)

d. Building and site constraints (location strategy)

Basic layout forms:

a. Process Layout

b. Product Layout

c. Combination Layout

d. Fixed position Layout

Process Layout

Used when the operations system must handle a wide variety of products in relatively small volumes (i.e., flexibility is necessary).

The layouts include departments or other functional groupings in which similar kinds of activities are performed.

A manufacturing example of a process layout is the machine shop, which has separate departments for milling, grinding, drilling, and so on.

Product Layout

Product layout is used to achieve a smooth and rapid flow of large volumes of products or customers through a system.

For instance, if a portion of a manufacturing operation required the sequence of cutting, sanding, and painting, the appropriate pieces of equipment would be arranged in that same sequence.

Combination Layout

It is a type of layout in which a process layout is combined with a product layout.

For instance, supermarket layouts are fundamentally of a process nature, and however we find most use fixed-path material-handling devices such as roller-type conveyors both in the stockroom and at checkouts, and belt-type conveyors at the cash registers.

Fixed-Position layout

In fixed-position layouts, the item being worked on remains stationary, and workers, materials, and equipment are moved as needed.

Fixed-position layouts are widely used for farming, firefighting, road building, home building, remodeling and repair, and drilling for oil,buildings, ships, aircrafts.

Factors in Determining Layout and Design:

Small business owners need to consider many operational factors when building or renovating a facility for maximum layout effectiveness. These criteria include the following:

1. Ease of future expansion or change—Facilities should be designed so that they can be easily expanded or adjusted to meet changing production needs. "Although redesigning a facility is a major, expensive undertaking not to be done lightly, there is always the possibility that a redesign will be necessary. Therefore, any design should be flexible.… Flexible manufacturing systems most often are highly automated facilities having intermediate-volume production of a variety of products. Their goal is to minimize change over or setup times for producing the different products while still achieving close to assembly line (single-product) production rates."

2. Flow of movement—The facility design should reflect a recognition of the importance of smooth process flow. In the case of factory facilities, the plan will show the raw materials entering your plant at one end and the finished product emerging at the other. The flow need not be a straight line. Parallel flows, U-shaped patterns, or even a zig-zag that ends up with the finished product back at the shipping and receiving bays can be functional. However, backtracking is to be avoided in whatever pattern is chosen. When parts and materials move against or across the overall flow, personnel and paper work become confused, parts become lost, and the attainment of coordination becomes complicated."

3. Materials handling—Small business owners should make certain that the facility layout makes it possible to handle materials (products, equipment, containers, etc.) In an orderly, efficient—and preferably simple—manner.

4. Output needs—The facility should be laid out in a way that is conducive to helping the business meet its production needs.

5. Space utilization—This aspect of facility design includes everything from making sure that traffic lanes are wide enough to making certain that inventory storage warehouses or rooms utilize as much vertical space as possible.

6. Shipping and receiving— small business owners to leave ample room for this aspect of operations. "While space does tend to fill itself up, receiving and shipping rarely get enough space for the work to be done effectively," it said in How to Run a Small Business.

7. Ease of communication and support—Facilities should be laid out so that communication within various areas of the business and interactions with vendors and

customers can be done in an easy and effective manner. Similarly, support areas should be stationed in areas that help them to serve operating areas.

8. Impact on employee morale and job satisfaction—Since countless studies have indicated that employee morale has a major impact on productivity. Some ways layout design can increase morale are obvious, such as providing for light-colored walls, windows, space. Other ways are less obvious and not directly related to the production process.

Some examples are including a cafeteria or even a gymnasium in the facility design. Again, though, there are costs to be traded off. That is, does the increase in morale due to a cafeteria increase productivity to the extent that the increased productivity covers the cost of building and staffing the cafeteria."

9. Promotional value—If the business commonly receives visitors in the form of customers, vendors, investors, etc., the small business owner may want to make sure that the facility layout is an attractive one that further burnishes the company's reputation. Design factors that can influence the degree of attractiveness of a facility include not only the design of the production area itself, but the impact that it has on, for instance, ease of fulfilling maintenance/cleaning tasks.

10. Safety—The facility layout should enable the business to effectively operate in accordance with Occupational Safety and Health Association guidelines and other legal restrictions.

Difference between office and factory Layout

Factory layout

Offices and manufacturing facilities are typically designed in much different ways—a reflection of the disparate products that the two entities make. "A factory produces things. These things are moved with conveyors and lift trucks; factory utilities include gas, water, compressed air, waste disposal, and large amounts of power as well as telephones and computer networks. A layout criterion is minimization of transportation cost.

However, that the mandate of business offices is to produce information, whether disseminated in physical (reports, memos, and other documents), electronic (computer files), or oral (telephone, face-to-face encounters) form. "Office layout criteria, although hard to quantify, are minimization of communication cost and maximization of employee productivity.

Layout requirements can also differ dramatically by industry

Service oriented :

The needs of service-oriented businesses, for instance, are often predicated on whether customers receive their services at the physical location of the business (such as at a bank or pet grooming shop, for instance) or whether the business goes to the customer's home or place of business to provide the service (as with exterminators, home repair businesses, plumbing services, etc.) In the latter instances, these businesses will likely have facility layouts that emphasize storage space for equipment, chemicals, and paperwork rather than spacious customer waiting areas.

Manufacturer industry:

. Manufacturers may also have significantly different facility layouts, depending on the unique needs that they have. After all, the production challenges associated with producing jars of varnish or mountaineering equipment are apt to be considerably different than those of making truck chassis or foam beach toys.

Retail Industry:

Retail outlets comprise yet another business sector that have unique facility layout needs. Such establishments typically emphasize sales floor space, inventory logistics, foot traffic issues, and overall store attractiveness when studying facility layout issues.

KFC Facility Layout:

Internal & External layout of KFC outlet is attractive and charming all over the world.

Ideal color schemes, pleasant lighting outlets, comfortable sitting arrangement, fully trained

employees and their proper work division, State of the art interior beautification, speedy &

appropriate cooking process, special club/block for kids, etc. are the chief characteristic of the

KFC layout.

. Advantage of KFC Good Layout:

Reduces bottlenecks in moving people or material.

Minimizes materials-handling costs.

Reduces hazards to personnel.

Utilizes labor efficiently.

Increases morale.

Utilizes available space effectively and efficiently.

Provides flexibility.

Provides ease of supervision.

Facilitates coordination and face-to-face communication where appropriate.

.

KFC Facility Layout Map:

KFC follows the following facility layout for their outlets round the world.

6. KFC Process Layout Map:

KFC use process layouts because of variability in customer processing requirements. The KFC’s old and new process schematic diagram are presented blow.

KFC Old Process Layout:

KFC Modern (New) Process Layout:

Conclusion

Facility layout and design is an important component of a business's overall operations, both in terms of maximizing the effectiveness of production processes and meeting employee needs and/or desires. The criteria for a good layout necessarily relate to people (personnel and customers), materials (raw, finished, and in process), machines, and their interactions."

Raw Material Cook

Assemble

Finished Goods

Customer Place Order

Deliver

Raw Material Cook AssembleW. I. P.

Customer Place Order

Deliver