Space requirement in Plant location

Principles of Plant Layout:

While designing the plant layout, the following principles must be kept in view:

(i) Principle of Minimum Movement:

Materials and labour should be moved over minimum distances; saving cost and time of transportation and material handling.

(ii) Principle of Space Utilization:

All available cubic space should be effectively utilized – both horizontally and vertically.

(iii) Principle of Flexibility:

Layout should be flexible enough to be adaptable to changes required by expansion or technological development.

(iv) Principle of Interdependence:

Interdependent operations and processes should be located in close proximity to each other; to minimize product travel.

(v) Principle of Overall Integration:

All the plant facilities and services should be fully integrated into a single operating unit; to minimize cost of production.

(vi) Principle of Safety:

There should be in-built provision in the design of layout, to provide for comfort and safety of workers.

(vii) Principle of Smooth Flow:

The layout should be so designed as to reduce work bottlenecks and facilitate uninterrupted flow of work throughout the plant.

(viii) Principle of Economy:

The layout should aim at effecting economy in terms of investment in fixed assets.

(ix) Principle of Supervision:

A good layout should facilitate effective supervision over workers.

(x) Principle of Satisfaction:

A good layout should boost up employee morale, by providing them with maximum work satisfaction.

Township Selection:

The factors to be considered regarding township selection are:

(i) Availability of men power of requisite skill

(ii) Competitive wage rates of workers

(iii) Other enterprises which are complementary or supplementary regarding raw materials, other input, labour and skill required.

(iv) Moderate taxes and the absence of restricting laws.

(v) A favourable cooperative and friendly attitude towards the industry.

(vi) Favourable living conditions and standards keeping in view the availability of medical and educational facilities, housing, fire service, recreational facilities, cost of living etc.

Advantages of Rural Area:

(i) The initial cost of land, erection cost of building and plant is less in rural area as compared to urban or city area.

(ii) Acquisition for additional area for extension work expansion of plant is possible without much difficulty whereas urban area being congested; the additional land is not easily available.

(iii) Rural areas are free form labour trouble which is most common in towns and cities.

(iv) Over crowding of working class population in cities is avoided.

Advantages of Urban Area:

(i) Better modes of transportation for collection and distribution of materials and finished products.

(ii) Availability to requisite type of labour for special and specific jobs is there.

(iii) Utilities like water, power, fuels etc. are easily available.

(iv) Industries do not need to construct colonies to provide residential facilities to their workers since houses are available on rental basis whereas in rural areas, houses have to be build for workers.

Layout

Product Layout (or Line Layout):

In this type of layout, all the machines are arranged in the sequence, as required to produce a specific product. It is called line layout because machines are arrange in a straight line. The raw materials are fed at one end and taken out as finished product to the other end.

Special purpose machines are used which perform the required jobs (i.e. functions) quickly and reliably.

Advantages:

1. Reduced material handling cost due to mechanized handling systems and straight flow
2. Perfect line balancing which eliminates bottlenecks and idle capacity.
3. Short manufacturing cycle due to uninterrupted flow of materials
4. Simplified production planning and control; and simple and effective inspection of work.
5. Small amount of work-in-progress inventory
6. Lesser wage cost, as unskilled workers can learn and manage production.

Process Layout (or Functional Layout):

In this type of layout, all machines performing similar type of operations are grouped at one location i.e. all lathes, milling machines etc. are grouped in the shop and they will be clustered in like groups.

Advantages:

1. Greater flexibility with regard to work distribution to machinery and personnel. Adapted to frequent changes in sequence of operations.
2. Lower investment due to general purpose machines; which usually are less costly than special purpose machines.
3. Higher utilisation of production facilities; which can be adapted to a variety of products.
4. Variety of jobs makes the work challenging and interesting.
5. Breakdown of one machine does not result in complete stoppage of work.

Combination Layout:

In practice, plants are rarely laid out either in product or process layout form. Generally a combination of the two basic layouts is employed; to derive the advantages of both systems of layout. For example, refrigerator manufacturing uses a combination layout.

Process layout is used to produce various operations like stamping, welding, heat treatment being carried out in different work centres as per requirement. The final assembly of the product is done in a product type layout.

Fixed Position Layout:

It is also called stationary layout. In this type of layout men, materials and machines are brought to a product that remains in one place owing to its size. Ship-building, air-craft manufacturing, wagon building, heavy construction of dams, bridges, buildings etc. are typical examples of such layout.