Chapter One
The chapter basically focuses on giving an introduction on what is entailed in facilities planning. The basic concepts of facilities planning are broadly discussed, which include the definition of facilities planning, its significance, the objectives, the process, strategic planning, developing these strategies, and finally illustration of inadequate planning. The definition of facilities planning has been changing over time. Currently, it is considered to be a strategy, while in the past, it was a science. This subject has been controversial and highly popular since time immemorial. Facilities planning is a broad subject that has several applications. Facilities planning is significantly essential, especially in the supply chain, in relation to the customer. For instance, facilities planning comprises the location and design of facilities, which is instrumental in the supply chain. Besides, it determines how an activity’s objectives could be met by assessing the tangible fixed assets of an event.
Furthermore, though facilities planning, it is possible to identify essential opportunities through which to carry out productivity improvement and cost reduction. It aims at ensuring resilience and sustainability, as well as maximization of all capital expenditures and ROI. Additionally, it purposes to improve the profitability of the supply chain through the reduction of costs. However, some of its aims conflict; thus, evaluation should be conducted individually. Facilities planning could also be termed as a dynamic process. Planning of facilities is always done once, but re-planning could be done several times. There is usually a facilities planning cycle that shows a connection between re-planning and planning processes.
However, facilities planning is not usually a science, but a systematic approach that involves six steps could be applied. Besides, strategic facilities planning is often needed to provide support for the competition to the supply chain. Planning is significantly vital in facilities as it is the determinant of all the outcomes of a particular activity. Therefore, while planning, it is essential that one also strategizes. According to Webster, resources are necessary for strategic planning. These resources include manufacturing, marketing, supply chain, and distributing resources, which could be used in achieving the objectives of a business. Therefore, these strategies are involved in facilities planning; hence they should be efficiently and adequately developed. Activities like teamwork are incredibly crucial as they will ensure that all the members of a firm are actively involved in the achievement of the firm’s objectives. These strategies are primarily needed for roles like distribution, supply chain marketing, purchasing, and manufacturing, handling of materials, data processing, and facilities.
Therefore, an individual owner or a firm should work to ensure that the strategic planning process is adequately catered for; otherwise, inadequate planning may occur. Precise illustrations provide proof of the occurrence of insufficient planning in an organization. Thus, actual situations could be used to show these examples; these situations include the installation of mini-load systems in two different sites by a particular firm. When a textile firm decides to implement massive high-rise RS or AS for only one between its two divisions. Therefore, every firm should focus on supply chin when designing strategies for facilities planning.
Chapter Two
After an analysis of facilities planning in the previous chapter, schedule, process, and product design are extensively discussed here. Product designing is a critical stage since it entails the general specification of the final product in terms of being produced. These specifications include the overall composition of the product, the dimensions of the product, and the packaging cycle of the final product. Therefore, the product, schedule, process, and facility design decisions are not made sequentially and independently since it’s a crucial stage. Hence the process must be examined and carefully planned to come up with an outstanding end product. The first stage is essential in product design, which entails the determination of the type of product to be produced and the detailed design of each product. The decisions made in the design stage gradually change depending on the nature of the product produced. The process is majorly influenced by the functions, the aesthetics, and materials to be involved in the designing of the product and, finally, manufacturing considerations.
Other vital considerations that should be implemented in the design process include are marketing, industrial engineering, purchasing, product engineering, and quality control are also crucial in this stage. Process design entails all the decisions that are implemented and how the product is to be produced. Even at this stage, the process designer must be able to determine which equipment is to be used, how the parts will be created, and the duration that should be allocated in a given operation. At this stage, there are three primary factors to be considered this includes identifying the required process which helps in determining the scope of the process, selection of the necessarily required process which basically based on the related requirements, previous experiences and the availability of the equipment to be used in the process and lastly sequencing the allocated required process.
Schedule design decisions entail the amount of produce to be used and allocated for production. Most conclusions in this stage are extracted from the market forecasts that are conducted. Schedule design significantly impacts machine selection, the number of machines to be allocated, the number of employees involved, the shifts, personnel required, storage equipment, building size, and unit load. To acquire this information, the company must invest in good customer relationships with its largest customers and invest in excellent sales representatives since the information that is gathered will help in projecting the trends and the future demands for the product to be used. Facilities design is done once the process, merchandise, and schedule design decisions have been made. The information that is gathered in the previous stapes will be used in the organization of information, generation, and evaluation of the layout, storage, handling, and finally determining unit design alternatives. A facility designer’s goals and objectives must be very carefully calibrated and planned to meet the desire of the top management within an organization.
Chapter Three
Whenever it is necessary to determine what a facility may require, then three vital considerations ought to be used, which are activity relationships, flow systems, and space requirements. In the flow systems, flow is mainly dependent on the sizes of the transfer lot, production, material handling systems, unit load sizes, building configuration, and layout arrangement. Besides, to measure flow, one needs to calculate activity relationships that exist between departments and machines. The flow systems are significantly essential; to a facilities planner responsible for analyzing the movement of energy, goods, materials, people, and information as flow. These systems are usually categorized under three stages, which are the material flow system, materials management system, and physical distribution system. The categorization is done according to the steps of manufacture, supply, and distribution.
Activity relationships are significantly crucial in facilities planning. It involves the measurement of activities that occur among several departments. These measurements are essential in departmental layouts within a particular facility. Therefore, activity relationships are used when it comes to analyzing alternative arrangements. These activity relationships are usually specified either qualitatively or quantitatively. The quantitative measures are typically applied in moves per day, pieces per hour or pounds per week.
Conversely, qualitative measures apply to either a preference or an absolute necessity. Flows could also be calculated using the quantitative measures, which is evaluated in terms of the amount that has been transmitted between departments in a facility. Often, the from-to-chart is used in recording this information. However, the from-to-chart is rarely symmetric despite being a square matrix.
Likewise, qualitative measures also measure flows. Here, a relationship chart is usually developed to record information from the calculation of flows using this approach. According to the perspective of facilities planning, activity relationships often translate into proximity requirements. A practical example of this would be two activities with positive; robust relationships would be highly preferred to be located close or better still adjacent. Similarly, tow activities with negative, strong relationships should be separated and situated away from each other. However, it is possible to satisfy the activity relationships through other methods other than physical separation. For instance, through communication links like computer ties and so on, it is possible to satisfy information relationships. Since relationships are many, other ways other than the physical separation ought to be developed.
Furthermore, facilities are also faced with a crucial role in determining the amount of space needed. Several uncertainties exist, leading to the provision of inflated approximations by the organization on the space requirements. Thus, this places the facilities planner in an awkward position of having to procrastinate the exact space requirements. Additionally, the Parkinson’s Law makes everything more difficult as space may be unavailable in the future, although being sufficient at present. Therefore, it is essential to come up with a systematic approach to deal with the problem of space requirements. The precise specification also needs to be identified when coming up with a systematic approach. Some of these specifications are the department, workstation, and aisle space specifications. With this, it is possible to transform the outlook of a building.
Chapter Four
Personal requirements planning also requires planning for other things like locker rooms, employee parking, drinking fountains, food services, health services, and restrooms. This challenge came to the rise as a result of the formation of the ADA. Therefore, the facilities planner must incorporate specific requirements and come up with a barrier-free design that will help to deal with all needs of each person within the facility. However, at times these personnel requirements are quite challenging to address since there is numerous personnel related to this area. Therefore, it is essential to plan the personnel requirements compatible with managerial desires.
Consequently, it is crucial and a must to provide an interface between non-work and work activities of an employee. This interface is fundamental as it acts as a storage area where personal property belonging to the employee is kept during working periods. Some of these private properties may include automobiles, purses, and lunches, to mention a few. Besides, it is also vital to include restrooms approximately 200 feet within the permanent work area. Moreover, decentralized bathrooms are always beneficial as they are still convenient for employees compared to the ones which are centralized and large. Besides, restrooms should ever be made accessible by disabled employees. Therefore, some of these restrooms should be located at ground level. Restrooms should also be separated according to gender such that males and females have separate restrooms.
Besides, food services are also vital to the employees and staff within a facility. A facility may regard this as a luxury, necessity, or even convenience. The perspective adopted by a facility regarding the time duration allowed for meals, off-premises dining, and reducing meal costs is significantly vital in planning for food service areas. When planning for food service areas, it is essential to consider the number of employees who are served by these facilities during the period of peak activity. On the other hand, when planning kitchen facilities, it is crucial to consider the number of meals to be served. Health services are also vital for any organization and should be considered when planning. However, it is very challenging to project the requirement of health services for a facility. Some of the services that a facility should provide are first aid treatment, dental care, illnesses’ treatment, pre-employment examinations, and major medical treatment.
Therefore, to determine the kind of services that a facility can offer, the facility planner should check the operating procedure of the firm. Other than health services, facilities planners are obligated to integrate the intent of the ADA. The facility should be barrier-free, in that, all impeding factors that bring inequity to the disabled employees ought to be eliminated. These factors are usually those that limit the disabled from accessing areas within the firm. Finally, facilities planners generally meet a lot of challenges when planning an office. Therefore, the facility planner needs to analyze the activities scheduled as well as follow a methodological planning process. Thus, office planning is as important as space allocation.
Chapter Five
The overall facilities design ought to incorporate the outlook of the material handling system since it is essential. Both the material handling design and the layout design cannot be separated. The facility planner must consider both. Material handling is a vital part of a facility and could account for close to 25% of the employees, 87% of the time of production, and for the factory space, 55%. Through material handling, many improvements could be achieved. Material handling is both an art and science. Besides, it could also refer to the appropriate allocation of material under proper conditions, positions, places, cost, sequence, and methods. Material handling is significantly essential, and this is evident through the distribution and manufacturing operations. Material handling is indeed a broad subject. It also involves certain principles which ought to be observed.
The fact that no mathematical approach could provide a solution to material handling is one principle that indicates the fundamentals of material handling in practice. These principles are essential as they provide perspective and guidance to the designers of a material handling system. However, passing judgments should not be entirely based on these principles. From the laws of material handling, various checklists have been established to help in identifying opportunities for improving current material handling systems. Besides, these checklists are also crucial in designing newer systems of material handling. Designing these material handling systems involves a series of six steps. However, the performance of a material handling system for the first time may not be as good as expected.
Through continuous improvement, the material handling system is more likely to operate more efficiently and effectively. For designing a material handling system, the material handling planning chart is highly recommended. Furthermore, there exists the unit load principle, which is among the ten principles of material handling. This principle is unique and deserves the utmost attention. Specification of the unit load size is significantly crucial as it affects the operation and specification of a material handling system. It is advantageous for larger units since fewer moves are recorded. One other important aspect of material handling is equipment. However, material handling equipment and material handling are opposite to one another. A lot is entailed in material handling apart from specifying the equipment. At times, some material handling activities do not require the use of equipment.
Therefore, the focus is not usually on the equipment but the material, method, and move. However, knowledge of equipment is significantly essential for the material handling designers while generative alternative designs. In designing alternatives to material handling systems, it is also necessary to approximate the costs likely to be incurred. It is crucial to identify the appropriate costs. Estimating these costs require the use of rule-of-thumb data and standard data. However, while using the rules of thumb, it is essential to be cautious. Besides, safety measures need to be applied when designing material handling systems as well as other areas within the facility.
Chapter Six
This chapter deals with the design algorithms and layout planning process. In the facilities planning process, the establishment and examination of several layout alternatives are crucial because the layout generated is designated to establish the physical relations that are existent between activities and material flow patterns. The basic kinds of layouts are also discussed alongside the alternative layout planning process. The future state map has to drive the types and definitions of departments. Besides, the formal layout algorithms are also discussed as well as their weaknesses and strengths. Some of the layout algorithms that have been outlined are MCRAFT, CRAFT, and MULTIPLE, which use the layout representations that are discrete. They also do not restrict the department shapes, apart from the MCRAFT. Besides, the MULTIPLE and CRAFT can capture the previous layout. Conversely, MIP, BLOCPLAN, and LOGIC use the layout representations that are continuous.
They are also specific in nature since they can only work with department shapes that are rectangular. However, LOGIC stands out as it can develop one or several departments that are not rectangular, if and only if, the original building has obstacles or is non-rectangular. The rectangular departments are beneficial as they enhance one’s control of the shapes of various departments. Besides, they are also expected to desirable and acceptable for most of the departments within a facility, especially when in practice. However, when non-rectangular or fixed departments are present, then the costs of the layout are likely to increase for the rectangular department shapes. More so, with LOGIC and BLOCPLAN, it becomes impossible to capture the initial designs that have several or a sing non-rectangular department shape.
Besides, algorithms have a fundamental idea behind each one of them, which is an important aspect. For instance, BLOCPLAN uses either two or three horizontal bands, MCRAFT is dependent on the seep technique, LOGIC divides up the facility into smaller sections and assigning each department to these sections. MULTIPLE uses the hand-generated or space-filing curve, and MIP relies on mathematical programming. Based on the objective function, all of these algorithms use either the adjacency-based objective or the distance-based objective or even both at times. Practically, it is estimated that at least any layout algorithm should be able to accept either one or more objective functions. For instance, the objective functions designated to the MULTIPLE, LOGIC, and CRAFT can be transformed into the adjacent-based to distance-based without any changes in the particular algorithm.
All of the algorithms apart from the MIP can be used to develop and evaluate a layout in regard to the user-specified objective function. With the MIP, it is possible to use the alternate objective function; however, this should be done cautiously. Early layout algorithms have also been identified, such as COFAD, ALDEP, PLANET, and CORELAP. They are also significantly essential in facility layout. Apart from these, other algorithms also exist, such as the FLAC, SHAPE, and DISCON. The benefits of these algorithms could be compared theoretically and even identify the best. These algorithms provide a satisfactory solution in facility layout.