Design of Facility layout

Dr. Debadyuti Das

Line Balancing is the process of assigning
tasks to workstations in such a way that the
workstations have approximately
equal time requirements.
Design of Product Layout: Line Balancing
Cycle time is the maximum time
allowed at each workstation to
complete its set of tasks on a unit.
Cycle Time
Output capacity =
OT
CT
OT operating time per day
D = Desired output rate
CT = cycle time =
OT
D

Determine Maximum Output

N =
(D)( t)
OT
t = sum of task times

Determine the Minimum Number

of Workstations Required
Precedence diagram: Tool used in line balancing to display
elemental tasks and sequence requirements
A Simple Precedence
Diagram
a
b
c d
e
0.1 min.
0.7 min.
1.0 min.
0.5 min. 0.2 min.
Precedence Diagram
Arrange tasks shown in Figure 1 into three
workstations.
Use a cycle time of 1.0 minute
Assign tasks in order of the most number of
followers
Example 1: Assembly Line Balancing


Workstation

Time
Remaining


Eligible

Assign
Task
Revised
Time
Remaining

Station
Idle Time
1 1.0
0.9
0.2
a, c
c
none
a
c
-
0.9
0.2


0.2
2 1.0 b b 0.0 0.0
3 1.0
0.5
0.3
d
e
-
d
e
-
0.5
0.3

0.3
0.5
Example 1 Solution
Percent idle time =
Idle time per cycle
(N)(CT)
Efficiency = 1 Percent idle time
Calculate Percent Idle Time
Assign tasks in order of most following
tasks.
Count the number of tasks that follow
Assign tasks in order of greatest positional
weight.
Positional weight is the sum of each tasks time
and the times of all following tasks.
Some Heuristic (intuitive) Rules:
Line Balancing Rules
c d
a b e
f g h
0.2 0.2 0.3
0.8 0.6
1.0 0.4 0.3
Example 2
Station 1 Station 2 Station 3 Station 4
a b
e
f
d
g
h
c
Solution to Example 2
Design of Process Layouts
Alternatives
Qualitative Method
Links some criteria to the closeness required between a pair of
resources
Computer packages such as ALDEP and CORELAP are available
Quantitative Method
Uses some quantitative performance measures for assessing the
impact of a layout design
Seeks to arrive at the best layout design by optimising on this
performance measure
One of the popular method used in CRAFT
Performance evaluation models using computer simulation
techniques
Design of process layouts
Qualitative method
Department 1
Department 2
Department 3
Department 4
Department 5
Department 6
O
U
A
U
O
A
O
U
O
I
X
O
E
U
A
Value Closeness
A Absolutely necessary
E Especially Important
I Important
O Ordinary closeness OK
U Unimportant
X Undesirable

Design of Process Layout
Quantitative Method
C
ij
= Cost per unit of transporting a unit distance from department
i to department j
F
ij
= Inter-departmental flow between department i and
department j
D
ij
= Distance between department i and department j
n = Number of departments to be laid out
The total cost of the plan is given by:

One can model the above as a mathematical programming problem
with the objective function of minimizing the total cost of the plan

n
i
n
j
ij ij ij
C D F TC
1 1