PLANT LAYOUT

Plant Layout is the physical arrangement of equipment and facilities within a Plant. Process plants, such as refineries and petrochemical plants, are complex facilities consisting of equipment, piping systems, instruments, electrical systems, electronics, computers, and control systems. The design, engineering and construction of process plants involve a multidisciplinary team effort. Plant layout and design of piping systems constitutes a major part of the design and engineering effort. The goal is to design safe and dependable processing facilities in a cost effective manner.

The fundamental integration phase in the design of productive systems is the layout of production facilities. A working definition of layout may be given as the arrangement of machinery and flow of materials from one facility to another, which minimizes material handling costs while considering any physical restrictions on such arrangement. Usually this layout design is either on considerations of machine-time cost and product availability; thereby making the production system product-focused; or on considerations of quality and flexibility; thereby making the production system process-focused. It is natural that while product-focused systems are better off with a line layout dictated by available technologies and prevailing job designs, process-focused systems, which are more concerned with job organization, opt for a functional layout. Of course, in reality the actual facility layout often lies somewhere in between a pure line layout and a pure functional layout format; governed by the specific demands of a particular production plant. Since our assignment concerns only plant layout design for process-focused systems, this is the only layout design we will discuss here.

The main goal to keep in mind is to minimize material handling costs - therefore the departments that incur the most interdepartmental movement should be located closest to one another. The main type of design layouts is Block diagramming, which refers to the movement of materials in existing or proposed facility.

The location of the plant can have a crucial effect on the overall profitability of a project, and

the scope for future expansion. Many factors must be considered when selecting a suitable plant site. The principal factors are: Location, with respect to the marketing area Raw material supply Transport facilities Availability of labour Availability of suitable land Environmental impact and effluent disposal Local community consideration Climate Political and strategic consideration

PLANT LOCATION OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Plant location may be understood as the function of determining where the plant should be located for maximum operating economy and effectiveness .The selection of a place for locating a plant is one of the problems, perhaps the most important , which is faced by an entrepreneur while launching a new enterprise . A selection on pure economic considerations will ensure an easy and regular supply of raw material , labour forces ,efficient plant layout, proper utilization of production capacity and reduced cost of production .An ideal location may not, by itself, guarantee success; but it certainly contributes to the smooth and efficient working of an organization .A bad location ,on the other hand, is a severe handicap for any enterprise and it finally bankrupts it .It is, therefore, very essential that utmost care should be exercised in the initial stages to select a proper place. Once a mistake is made in locating a plant, it becomes extremely difficult and costly to correct it, especially where large plants are concerned. Cases are not wanting where mistakes were committed and wrong places selected. M/s.Samrat Thermo Plastic Industries, for example, are the manufacturers of mixers and grinders, located in Raipur district in Madhya Pradesh. Seventy-five per cent of the raw materials required by them had to be bought from Mumbai, and 75%of the finished products

had to be marketed in Pune and Mumbai. To overcome this difficulty, it was decided to shift the entire plant to Pune. Similarly, Associated Breweries & Distilleries first set up its plant for brewing beer at Goa, though Mumbai is its main consuming centre The plant is now shifted to Vashi, near Mumbai. This enabled the firm to save considerably on transportation costs .Since the shifting to, Mumbai; the firm has had a steady run of success. The difficulties experienced by the proprietors and the cost of shifting the plant can easily be imagined. The need for the selection of the location may arise under any following conditions: (a) When the business is newly started; (b) The existing business unit has outgrown its original facilities and expansion is not possible; hence a new location has to be found; (c) The volume of business or the extent of market necessitates the establishment of branches; (d) A lease expires and the landlord does not renew the lease; and (e) Other social or economic reasons; for instance , inadequate labor supply, shifting of the market etc. Whatever the reasons, the selection of the location has to be made after considering all the economic factors which have a bearing on it.It may be impossible to find a place which abounds in all the facilities that are required to start a factory; but a search has to be made for a place which enjoys as many facilities as possible. The guiding principle in the search should be for a place where the cost of the raw material and of fabrication, plus the cost of the marketing of the finished product will be less. The economic construction and operation of a process unit will depend on how well the plant equipment specified on the process flow sheet and laid out. The principal factors to be considered are: 1. Economic consideration: construction and operation cost. 2. The process requirement 3. Convenience of operation 4. Convenience of maintenance 5. Safety

6. Future expansion 7. Modular construction

COSTS: The cost of construction can be minimized by adopting a layout that gives shortest run of connecting pipes between equipment, and adopting the least amount of structural steel work. However, this will not necessarily be the best arrangement for operation and maintenance.

PROCESS REQUIREMENT: All the required equipment does have to be placed properly within process. Even the installation of the auxiliaries should be done in such a way that it will occupy the least space.

OPERATION Equipment that needs to have frequent operation should be located convenient to the control room. Valves, sample points, and instruments should be located at convenient position and height. Sufficient working space and headroom must be provided to allow easy access to equipment.

MAINTENANCE Heat exchangers need to be sited so that the tube bundles can be easily withdrawn for cleaning and tube replacement. Vessels that require frequent replacement of catalyst or packing should be located on the outside of buildings. Equipment that requires dismantling for maintenance, such as compressors and large pumps, should be placed under cover.

SAFETY Blast walls may be needed to isolate potentially hazardous equipment, and confine the effects of an explosion. At least two escape routes for operator must be provided from each level in the process building.

PLANT EXPANSION Equipment should be located so that it can be conveniently tied in with any future expansion of the process. Space should be left on pipe alleys for future needs, service pipes oversized to allow for future requirements.

MODULAR CONSTRUCTION: In recent years, there has been a move to assemble sections of the plant at the manufacturer site. These modules will include the equipment, structural steel, piping and instrumentation. The modules then transported to the plant site, by road or sea.

SITE LAYOUT

The importance of a layout can be better appreciated if one understands the influence of an efficient layout on the manufacturing function: it makes it smooth and efficient. Operating efficiencies, such as economies in the cost of handling materials, minimization of production delays and avoidance of bottlenecks all these depend on a proper layout.

An ideally laid out plant reduces manufacturing costs through reduced materials handling, reduced personnel and equipment requirements and reduced process inventory. The objectives or advantages of an ideal layout are outlined in the paragraphs that follow. The advantages are common to all the plants, irrespective of age; and whether a plant employs 50 workers or 50,000 makes no difference in so far as the applicability of the plant layout advantages is concerned. Some of these advantages are: Economies in Handling Nearly 30% to 40% of the manufacturing cost is accounted for, by materials handling. Every effort should, therefore, be made to cut down on this cost. Long distance movements should be avoided and specific handling operations must be eliminated. A cynic may say that the cheapest way to handle materials is not to handle them at all. But, in a factory, materials have to be handled; and therefore, it all depends on the layout. Effective Use of Available Area Every inch of the plant area is valuable, especially in urban areas. Efforts should therefore be made to make use of the available area by planning the layout properly. Some steps for achieving this end are: location of equipment and services in order that they may perform multiple functions; development of up-to-date work areas and operator job assignments for a full utilization of the labour force. Minimization of Production Delays Repeat orders and new customers will be the result of prompt execution of orders. Every management should try to keep to the delivery schedules. Often, the deadline dates for delivery of production orders are a bug-a-boo to the management.

Plant layout is a significant factor in the timely execution of orders. An ideal layout eliminates such causes of delays as shortage of space, long-distance movements of materials, spoiled work and thus contributes to the speedy execution of orders. Improved Quality Control Timely execution of orders will be meaningful when the quality of the output is not below expectations. To ensure quality, inspection should be conducted at different stages of manufacture. An ideal layout provides for inspection to ensure better quality control. Minimum Equipment Investment Investment on equipment can be minimized by planned machine balance and location, minimum handling distances, by the installation of general purpose machines and by planned machine loading. A good plant layout provides all these advantages. Avoidance of Bottlenecks Bottlenecks refer to any place in a production process where materials tend to pile up or are produced at a speed, less rapid than the previous or subsequent operations. Bottlenecks are caused by inadequate machine capacity, inadequate storage space or low speed on part of the operators. The results of bottlenecks are delays in productions schedules, congestion, accidents and wastage of floor area. All these may be overcome with an efficient layout. Better Production Control Production Control is concerned with the production of the product of the right type, at the right time and at a reasonable cost. A good plant layout is a requisite for good production control and provides the production control officers with a systematic basis upon which to build organization and procedures. Better Supervision A good plant layout ensures better supervision in two ways: 1. Determining the number of workers to be handled by a supervisor and 2.Enabling the supervisor to get a full view of the entire plant at one glance.

A good plant layout is, therefore, the first step to good supervision. Improved Utilization of Labour Labour is paid for every hour it spends in the factory. The efficiency of a management lies in utilizing the time for productive purpose. A good plant layout is one of the factors in effective utilization of labour. It makes possible individual operations, the process and flow of materials handling in such a way that the time of each worker is effectively spent on productive operations. Improved Employee Morale Employee morale is achieved when workers are cheerful and confident. This state of mental condition is vital to the success of any organization. Morale depends on: (a)Better working condition; (b)Better employee facilities; (c)Reduced number of accidents; (d)Increased earnings. Plant layout has a bearing on all these. Avoidance of Unnecessary and Costly Changes A planned layout avoids frequent changes which are difficult and costly. The incorporation of flexibility elements in the layout would help in the avoidance of revisions

Types of plant layout

Fixed Position Layout or Location Layout As the term itself implies, fixed layout involves the movement of men and machines to the product which remain stationary. In this type of layout, the material or major components remain in a fixed location, and tools, machinery and men as well as other pieces of material are brought to this location. The movement of men and machines to the product is advisable because the cost of moving them would be less than the cost of moving the product which is very bulky.

Also called the fixed location layout, this type is followed in the manufacture of bulky and heavy products such as locomotives, ships, boilers, aircraft and generators. The construction of a building requires a fixed location layout because men, cement, sand, bricks, steel, wood and others are taken to the site of the construction. This is equally true of a brick kiln. Another example is that of a hospital, where doctors and nurses (workers) and medicines and other paraphernalia (materials) are taken to the patient (product).

The advantages of a fixed position layout are: 1. Men and machines can be used for a wide variety of operations producing different products. 2. The investment on layout is very small. 3. The worker identifies himself with the product and takes pride in it when the work is complete. 4. The high cost of and difficulty in transporting a bulky product are avoided.

Cellular Manufacturing (CM) Layout

In CM, machines are grouped into cells and the cells function somewhat like a product layout within a larger shop or process layout. Each cell in the CM layout is formed to produce a single parts familya few parts, all with common characteristics, which usually means that they require the same machines and have similar machine settings. Advantages of CM : Among the advantages of cellular layouts are lower work-in-process inventories, reduced material handling costs, shorter flow times in production, simplified production planning

(material and labor), increased operator responsibilities, improved visual control and fewer tooling changes, therefore facilitating quicker set-ups. Overall performance often increases by lowering production costs and improving delivery on time. Quality also tends to improve. Disadvantages of CM Disadvantages include reduced manufacturing flexibility and potentially increased machinedown time (since machines are contained to cells and may not be used all the time) and finally duplicate pieces of equipment may be needed so that parts need not be transported between cells.

Combined Layout
The application of the principle of product layout, process layout or fixed location layout in their strict meanings is difficult to come across. A combination of the product and process layouts, with an emphasis on either, is noticed in most industrial establishments. Plants are never laid out in either pure form. It is possible to have both types of layout in an efficiently combined form if the products manufactured are somewhat similar and not complex. In plants involving the fabrication of parts and assembly, fabrication tends to employ the process layout, while the assembly areas often employ the product layout. In soap manufacturing plants, the machinery manufacturing soap is arranged on the product-line principle; but ancillary services, such as heating, the manufacturing of glycerine, the powerhouse, the water treatment plant are arranged on a functional basis. To extend the logic of the combined layout, we may refer to the application of the fixed location principle in every industrial establishment. Is it not true that workers are bought from different places in buses to the factory every day? Will not material and tools be carried to the place of manufacture every time?

Process layout:
It is also called functional layout. All machines performing similar type of operations are grouped at one location in the process layout e.g. all lathes, milling machines, cutting machines etc. in the engineering shop will be clustered in their like groups. Thus all forging will be done in one area and all the lathes will be placed in another area.

In this layout, several products may share a machine to make its full use. The sequential arrangement of the machine group is generally, but not necessarily made on the basis of labor operations. In this type of layout the process rather than the product has a dominating role. The product is given secondary consideration and is moved for the purpose of operations to the process section with like machines stationed at a particular point. This type of process is more suitable to job order type of production. In such production the operation differs from product to product. So, it is desirable to arrange the machines on the basis of process rather than on the products. The typical arrangement of the machines in the process layout will be as under: Product A and Product B with their differential sequence will be routed for the processing in the manner.

Advantages: The process layout avails of the following advantages: 1) Like product layout it eliminates the duplication of machines an enables the optimum use of installed capacity. 2) It facilitates the flexibility in production. It is more flexible than a line layout. Different products can be made without the changes in the arrangement of machine. The production capacity is not arranged in rigid sequence and fixed rated capacity with line balancing. 3) Like product layout, the breakdown of one machine does not interrupt the entire production flow. 4) Specialization in supervision becomes possible. 5) Individual incentive schemes can be developed. Disadvantages: The following are the main disadvantages of the process layout: 1) Due to lack of straight line sequence of production, it is impossible to maintain the line balancing in production. So the problems of bottleneck and waiting and idle capacity arise. 2) The cost of material handling increases due to long routing and back tracking between the

processes. 3) The processing time is prolonged which reduces the inventory turnover and increase the investments in inventories. 4) The inspection cost increases. Due to frequent changes in the machine set-up inspection is required at each stage of the process. 5) The cost of supervision increase due to specialist supervisors and more number of supervisors are required at each process unit. 6) The production planning and control becomes difficult due to complexities arising in routing, scheduling, dispatching and follow up. 7) It is not possible to implement the group inventive schemes on the basis of quantity of the products manufacturing 8) More space is required for internal storing, reservoir of materials and provision for the expansion of the particular process section.

Product layout:
In this type of layout, the machines are arranged in the sequence as required by the particular product. All machines as required to balance the particular product the product line layout. In this layout, one product goes through all the machines lined up, in the order required by its manufacture. The best known example of this type of layout is seen in motor car production. To make this layout successful, the work load on the various machines must be balanced. The process of getting even loading at each stage of production is called line balancing. In this type of layout, the product is dominating over the process, in the sense that the product is given the primary importance and the process machine must remain present at a point where the product needs its services. Thus, unlike the process layout, the process is given secondary importance in relation to the product. Product layout suitable for continuous flow production with few items of production: It does not require frequent changes in machine set up. The typical arrangement of the machines in the product with the separate independent product lines for the Product A and Product B will be as shown.

Advantages: The product layout is advantageous as under: 1) Reduced material handling cost due to straight line production flow. 2) Mechanization of material handling is possible due to handling between fixed points. 3) Line balancing may eliminate bottlenecks an idle capacity. 4) Shorter operating cycle due to shorter and speedier movement of materials. 5) Maximum utilization of machine and labor capacity through developing proper balance between them. 6) Effective control over production with reduced supervision by generalist supervisors. By reducing the manufacturing to simple steps we can often use less skilled labor. 7) Effective quality control with reduced inspection points. It does not require frequent changes in machine set-up. 8) Effective production planning and control. Unlike process layout, the routing, scheduling, dispatching and follow up are relatively easier. 9) Maximum use of space due to straight production flow and reduced need of interim storing. 10) It facilitates the implementation of the group inventive schemes for the workers. 11) It is relatively easy to control To sum up In the final analysis, the combination that produces the desired volumes of products at the least total cost is preferred. Marketing is concerned with maximizing income, industrial engineering is concerned with minimizing cost and management is gambling that there is a sufficient difference in its favour A properly designed plant layout is an important source of competitive advantage. It can: Operate At Low Cost Provide Fast Delivery Accommodate Frequent New Products

 Produce Many Varied Products Produce High or Low Volume Products Produce At The Highest Quality Level Provide Unique Services Or Features