MT435 Unit 7 Facility Layout Proposal Example

From 15,400 to 8,870 Cart-Feet a Day: An MT435 Unit 7 Facility Layout Proposal Scored by Load-Distance

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT435: Operations Management

Unit 7 Facility Layout Proposal

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Pacolet Bunk & Loft's floor plan, trip counts, distances and relocation cost are composite; the sources cited are real.

Why Measure Flows

A layout looks tidy or untidy on a sketch, but the cost of a layout is the work of moving material through it. The proposal therefore starts from counted trips and measured distances. Load-distance, the number of cart loads between two areas each day multiplied by the distance between them, gives one figure per pair and one total per plan. Tompkins et al. (2010) describe this measure as the standard starting point for comparing layouts, and it lets every change be checked against the flows it is meant to shorten.

Counting the Trips

For two weeks, the floor lead tallied every cart load moved between areas on a clipboard sheet at each station. The ten flows with regular traffic averaged, per day: sheet rack to router, 12 loads; router to shaper, 18; shaper to boring, 16; boring to sanding, 14; sanding to the finishing building, 10; finishing building to assembly, 10; hardware crib to assembly, 5, as assemblers fetch parts; hardware kitting to assembly, 8; assembly to pack and ship, 9; and pack and ship to the loading dock, 7.

Measuring Distances

Distances are measured along the aisles a cart must use, not in straight lines, since carts cannot pass through machines or walls. Each pair's distance is measured on the current floor plan and on the proposed sketch, both drawn to scale.

The Current Plan

In the current plan, the sheet rack sits 200 feet from the router, at the far end of the building near the old receiving door. The router, shaper and boring machine are spread across the floor where they were installed over the years. Finished, painted parts coming back from the separate finishing building travel 290 feet to an assembly area at the opposite end of the shop, and assemblers walk 140 feet to the hardware crib. The total load-distance is 15,400 cart-feet a day. The largest single contributors are the yard crossing to the finishing building, 3,100 cart-feet, the return from finishing to assembly, 2,900, and the sheet rack to the router, 2,400.

The Proposed Plan

The proposal makes four moves. It relocates the sheet rack beside the router, cutting that leg from 200 feet to 30. It lines the router, shaper and boring machine along the north wall in process order, so parts flow from one to the next in short legs of about 25 feet. It moves assembly to the east end, near the door that faces the finishing building, cutting the return leg from 290 feet to 120. And it moves the hardware crib beside the hardware station and assembly, cutting the assemblers' walk from 140 feet to 20.

One leg gets longer. Assembly to pack and ship rises from 60 feet to 90, because assembly moves away from the packing area. With nine loads a day, that adds 270 cart-feet, a small cost against the savings and one the proposal accepts rather than hides.

The total load-distance falls to 8,870 cart-feet a day, a reduction of 6,530, or 42.4 percent.

The biggest saving comes from moving one rack of plywood 170 feet, not from any machine.

What the Proposal Does Not Change

The yard crossing from sanding to the finishing building stays at 310 feet and 3,100 cart-feet, now the largest single leg. Moving the booth into the main building would remove it, but that would require a new air permit, fire separation and a ventilation system, a project far larger than this one. The proposal notes it as the next layout question rather than leaving it out of the scoring.

What It Costs

Relocating the sheet rack, moving three machines along the north wall with their dust collection and electrical drops, and moving the assembly benches and hardware crib cost about $21,500, done over two weekends to avoid lost production.

What It Saves

Shorter cart trips save labor and handling. At roughly one minute of cart work for every 100 feet moved, including stops and turns, the 6,530 cart-feet saved each day is about 65 minutes of floor labor, about 270 hours a year. At $26 an hour loaded, that is about $7,050 a year, so labor alone would recover the $21,500 in roughly three years. Fewer and shorter moves also mean fewer chances to ding painted parts, and Unit 3 showed that re-sprays cost booth time, the shop's scarcest resource. Muther (1973) argued that the benefits of a better layout extend beyond handling cost to flow, safety and control, and the cleaner sequence along the north wall makes it easier to see where work is waiting.

How the Move Would Be Staged

The four moves are ordered so the shop never loses a full day. On the first weekend, the sheet rack is moved and the router, shaper and boring machine are relocated along the north wall with their dust collection and power drops, since those moves need the most work and affect the start of the line. On the second weekend, assembly and the hardware crib move to the east end. Between the two weekends the shop runs with the new cutting line and the old assembly area, a temporary arrangement that still saves about two thirds of the expected cart-feet.

A Caution About What Layout Can Do

The layout does not raise output. The booth remains the constraint, and Slack and Brandon-Jones (2019) note that layout changes improve flow and cost but cannot add capacity to the slowest step. The proposal should therefore be judged on handling, damage and floor space, not on beds per day.

Why Not a Full Redesign

A more ambitious plan would rebuild the shop as a single U-shaped line from sheet rack to boxing, with the booth inside. It would remove the yard crossings entirely, but it would require a new booth permit, a building addition and several weeks of lost production, for a project costing many times the $21,500 here. The proposal chooses the moves that cost little and remove the most cart-feet now, and leaves the larger redesign for a decision about the finishing building itself.

Recommendation

Approve the four moves over two weekends, measure trips again for two weeks afterward to confirm the new score and take up the finishing building's location as a separate question.

References

Muther, R. (1973). Systematic layout planning (2nd ed.). Cahners Books.

Slack, N., & Brandon-Jones, A. (2019). Operations management (9th ed.). Pearson.

Tompkins, J. A., White, J. A., Bozer, Y. A., & Tanchoco, J. M. A. (2010). Facilities planning (4th ed.). Wiley.