Facilities Planning Notes

Chapter 1:
What is a facility:

Something that facilitates an action or process

Something created to serve a specific function

Examples of facilities:

Manufacturing Plant
Hospital
School
Airport
Military Facility
Warehouse
Shopping Mall
Theater
Bank

What is Planning?
The act or process of developing a scheme or method of action in advance

What is Facility Planning?

Determine how an activitys tangible fixed assets best support achieving the
activitys objective
The analysis, conceptualization, and arrangement of physical facilities and
their interrelationships in terms of their assets and functions to manufacture
a product or provide a service efficiently, economically and safely.

Facilities Planning and Supply Chain Excellence

Contemporary FP considers the facility as a dynamic entity requiring it to be
able to adapt and become suitable for new use
FP must help an organization achieve SC excellence
A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, activities, information,
and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to
customer.
FP must help an organization achieve SC excellence, which has six steps:
1. Business as usual: when a company works hard to maximize the
individual functions/departments; organization effectiveness is not the
emphasis.
2. Link Excellence: eliminating or minimizing interval boundaries
between departments/facilities until the entire organization functions
as one.
 3. Visibility: Seeing all links in the SC.
4. Collaboration: Allows the SC to determine how best to meet market
place demands; achieved through proper application of collaboration
technology.
5. Synthesis: Pursuing improvement through all SC links.
6. Velocity: Synthesis at the light of speed; todays business
environment demands speed.

Results of SC excellence :

Increase of Return on Assets

Improved customer satisfactions
Reduced Costs
Integrated SC

Facilities Planning Components:

Planning
Facilties

Facilities
Facilites
systems
Location
design
Facilities
Layout design
Design
Holding
system design

Facilities location: Placement with respect to customers supplies and other

facilities that have a relationship with it

Facilities System Design: Consists of structural systems, communication

systems, life safety systems

Layout Design: Consists of equipment, machinery, and furnishing within the

building envelope.
Handling Systems Design: Consists of materials, personnel information, and
equipment handling systems required.

Why plan/design facilities?

New facility
Expansion due to volume or diversity
New machines and processes
Relocating
OSHA
ADA
New laws or regulations

Facilities Planning Process

1. Define the problem
a. Define (or redefine) the objective of the facility: Quantitatively
specify the products/services to be produced/provided; define facilitys
role in the SC.
b. Specify primary & support activities for accomplishing the
objective: in terms of operations, equipment, personnel, and materials
flows.
2. Analyze the problem:
a. Determine activities interrelationship: quantitatively and qualitatively
3. Determine space requirements for all activities: considering
equipment, material and personnel
a. Generate Alternative facilities plans: For location and design
4. Evaluate the alternatives:
a. Evaluate alternative FP: Rank alternatives based on the accepted
criteria
5. Select the preferred design:
a. Select a FP: with objectives and goals in mind
6. Implement the design:
a. Implement the FP: plan and monitor the construction of the facility
b. Maintain and adapt the FP: if there are new energy-saving measures or
improved material handling equipment or changes in product design
c. Redefine the objective of the facility: e.g. modification of
product/service or expansion

Evaluation Criteria
 Cost
Customer satisfaction
Ability to meet requirements
Ease of future expansion
Flexibility of layout
Material handling effectiveness
Space utilization
Safety and housekeeping
Ease of supervision and control
Equipment utilization

Strategic FP
Strategic planning is the science and art of employing the resources of a firm
to achieve its business objectives.
For the facilities plan to support the overall strategic plan, it is necessary for
facility planners to take a proactive role, rather than a reactive one.

Chapter 2:
 Product Design: Specify end products

Process design: how the product will

be produced

Schedule Design: Specifies

production quantities and schedules the
production equipment

Facilities Planner: dependent on timely

and accurate input from above

Before any facility plan can be generated, following questions:

Questions Answer
What is to be produced? Product design
How are the products going to be Process design
produced?
Where will it be produced? Schedule design
# of units to be produced Schedule design
How long will we produce the product for Schedule design
Where will we produce it Schedule design or facilities location
Product Deisgn:
Product design is needed when:
Firm is introducing a new product
Changing the design of an existing product

Product design involves:

Determination of when products are to be produced
Detailed design of individual products

Ultimately Product must meet customer needs:

 Quality Function Deployment (QFD): an organized planning approach to
identify customer needs and to translate the needs to product characteristics
and processes.
Benchmarking: used to identify what competitors are doing to satisfy
customer needs and to identify best products from the most successful
organization.

Product Designer
Exploded assembly drawing or photograph
Can be analyzed by CAD

Component Designer:
Detailed component part drawing
Can be prepared and analyzed in CAD

Process Design:
Process design is needed when:

Change in the design of a process

Replacement of a machine
Adaption of new standards

Involves determining:

How the product is to be produced

Who should do the processing (make or buy)
How long it will take to make or buy

Consists of 3 stages

1. Identifying the required processes

a. Make-or-buy decision
b. Part list
c. Bill of materials
2. Selecting the required Processes
a. Process selection procedure
b. Route Sheet
3. Sequencing the required processes
a. Assembly chart
b. Operation process chart
c. Precedence diagram
Identifying the required processes:
Make or buy decisions depends on the scope of the facility
Typically, managerial decisions requiring input from various factors in the firm
Input to the facilities planner is the items to be made and bought
o The listing usually takes the form of a parts list or a bill of materials

When Making a Make or Buy Decision the following questions are asked:

After deciding on the whether to make or buy a Parts list is required:

Parts list must include the following

o Part Numbers
o Part Names
o Number of parts per product
o Drawing references
Bill of Materials is done afterwards
o It is often referred to as a structured parts list because it contains
information about the hierarchy level of product assembly.

Selecting the required Processes:

 After determining in house parts, decisions are needed as to how the
products will be made based on:
1. Previous experiences
2. Related requirements
3. Available equipment
4. Production rates
5. Future expectations
Process selection procedure involved the following steps
1. Define elemental operations:
Determine operations required to produce each component
Consider alternative raw materials and types of elemental
operations
2. Identify alternative processes for each operation
Identify various equipment types for elemental operations
Determine whether manual, mechanized or automated to be
used
3. Analyze alternative processes
Determine unit production times
Determine equipment utilization for various elemental
operations and alternative equipment types
4. Standardize Process
Equipment utilization are inputs for this step
5. Evaluate Alternative processes
Economic evaluation of alternative equipment types
Evaluation of intangible factors
6. Select Processes
The outputs from the process selection are:
o Processes
o Equipment
o Raw materials
Output is generally presented in a route sheet

Sequencing the required processes

The method of assembling a product is illustrated by an assembly chart
Assembly chart shows the sequence of operations in putting the product
together
The easiest method of constructing an assembly chart is to begin with the
completed product and trace the product disassembly back to its basic
components

Operation Process Chart

 Start in the upper-right side with the components included in the first
assembly operation.
Purchased components are shown as feeding horizontally into assembly
Manufactured components are shown as feeding vertically into assembly
Additional information that might be present
o Materials needed below the name of the component
o Times can be included to the left of operations
o A summary of the number

Precedence Diagram: A more general graphical model with a directed network

Shows part numbers on arcs
Operations are circled and inspections are squares
Purchased parts are placed along the top and bottom of the diagram
Parts that require fabrication and assembly are placed along the center
Shows precedence relationship between operations, providing freedom to
generate different possible sequences.
Recommend to construct a precedence diagram first before the assembly
chart and operations process chart

Schedule Design:
Schedule design involves determining:

How much to produce

When to produce
How long to produce

Schedule design decisions impact:

Machine selection
Number of machines
Number of shifts
Number of employees
Space requirements
Material handling equipment

Estimation Number of Machines Required:

Machine fractions = Total time required to perform an operation / time

available
The total time required to perform the operation is the product of the
standard time for the operation and the number of parts that will be operated
on.
If the time is deterministic the number of machines can be estimated by:
o F=SQ/HER
Where;
 F = number of machines required per shift
S = standrard time per unit produced
Q= number of unites to be produced per shift
E = actual performance
H = amount of time available per machine
R = reliability of machine, expressed as a percentage
uptime

Facilities Design:

Once the product, process and schedule design decisions have been made,
the facilities planner needs to organize the information and generate and
evaluate layout, handling, storage, and unit load design alternatives.
Facilities planner must keep in mind the business objectives and goals in the
design
1. Breakthrough in production cost, on-time delivery, quality, lead time
The seven management and planning tools
1. Affinity diagram
Brainstorming session
Ideas and issues organized into groups
2. Interrelationship diagraph
Used to map logical links among related items under the same
group heading
Identifies which items impact others the most

3. Tree diagram
Used to map in increasing detail the actions that need to be
accomplished to achieve a general objective
4. Prioritization matrix
Determine the criteria for evaluating facilities design
alternatives
Determine the relative importance of each criterion
The most important criteria is found by adding the values
of the rows of the prioritization matrix
o The most important criteria is the one with the
largest row total
If a prioritization of layout alternatives based on one criteria is
given, the most desirable layout is found by finding the
alternative with the largest row total.
 If the prioritization of layout alternatives is given for all the
criteria the most desirable is given by multiplying the % row
total of the criteria with the row total % for every alternative
row.

5. Contingency
diagram
Antici
pating and
solving
problems that
may arise
during
implementation
What could go wrong?
What can we do to prevent it?
What can we do in advance to prepare?
What will we do in response?
Murphys Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong
6. Matrix diagram
Shows the participants and their roles within teams
Provides visibility to key contacts on specific issues
Identifies individuals who are assigned to too many teams
7. Activity network diagram
Synonymous with the critical path method (CPM); can also be
replaced by a GANTT chart.
Used to develop a work schedule for an effort.
All task are carefully mapped in their logical sequence and dates
are identified for key project milestones

Chapter 3
Flow Systems
Flow as movement of goods, materials, information, and/or people..
A flow process may be described in terms of:
o The subject (the item to be processed) of flow
o The Resources (processing and transporting facilities required) that
bring about flow
o The communications (include the procedures that facilitate the
management of the flow process) that coordinate the resources
Flow systems can be categorized per the stages of the:
o Supply
o Manufacturing
 o Distribution cycles
A logistics system contains the following (with both materials management
system and physical distribution system making up the supply chain
management system):
o Materials management system (to the facility from the
vendor): the flow of materials into a manufacturing facility
The subjects of MMS are:
Materials
Parts
Supplies
The resources of MMS include:
The production control and purchasing functions
The vendors
The transportation and material handling equipment
The receiving, storage, and accounting functions
The communications within MMS include production forecast,
inventory records, stock requisition.
Kanban: is an inventory-control system to control the supply
chain done in between handling
Move ticket: A move ticket is the official document which
includes all the details of work flow in a work center. It enables
supervisors to keep a record of the time taken to complete each
production activity as it logs the start and end time of each
activity.
Bill of lading: A detailed list of a ships cargo in the form of a
receipt given by the master of the ship to the person cosigning
the goods
o Material flow system (within the facility): The flow of materials,
parts, and supplies within the facility
The subject of material flow system are:
Materials
Parts
Supplies
The resources of MFS include:
The production control and quality control departments
The manufacturing, assembly and storage departments
The communication includes production, schedules, work order
releases, move tickets, kanbans, bar codes, route sheets,
assembly charts, and warehouse records.
o Physical distribution (from the facility to the customer): the
flow of products from a manufacturing facility
The subjects of material flow systems are:
Final goods produced by a firm
The resources of PDS include:
The customer
The sales and accounting departments and warehouses
The MHE and transportating equipment
 The distributors of the finished product
The communications include sales order, picking lists, shipping
reports, shipping releases, kanbans, and bills of lading.
Material Flow System
o Defines the overall flow environment within which material movement
takes place
o Effective flow planning within a facility is a hierarchal planning process:

o
Effective flow within departments:
Motion studies and ergonomics are important in
establishing the flow within workstations. Planners must
consider:
o Visiblility
o Reach requirements
o Sitting or standing workstations
o HCI
o Ergonomic workstation guidelines
o Fixed locations for work components
o Symmetrical motions
o Natural movements
o Rhythmic and habitual flow
Aim for a directed flow path
o A sequential flow path
o Does not intersect with other paths
o No backtracking
The flow pattern within departments is dependent on the
type of departments:
o Product department: the processing is sequential
with minimal or no backtracking
Flow between workstations with operators:

 o Process department: similar or identical
machines are grouped in the same department.
A minimal amount of flow should occur
between workstations within departments
Flow patterns are dictated by the orientation
of the workstation to the aisles
Three common arrangement patterns for
process departments:

o Product family departments: similar products
are grouped in the same departments
Effective flows within departments:
Flow between workstations in the case of mechanized and
automated systems:
o The line flow pattern: A sequential,
uninterrupted flow path with minimal or no
backtracking.
Most effective flow pattern

 o The spine flow pattern: Material handling device
operating along a central spine

o The loop flow pattern: A loop that services the
workstations around it

o

The tree flow pattern: Workstations positioned in

treed that are linked together by a centralized
material handling device.

Effective flow
between
workstationL
The flow patterns
used within
departments can be
adopted for
establishing flow
between departments
Flow between departments is a criterion often used to
evaluate overall flow within a facility
Must consider the location of the pickup and delivery
stations for each department
 Departmental Planning
o Planning departments: include production, support, administrative,
and service areas
o Production planning departments: collections of workstations
grouped together during the facilities layout process
o General Rule Combine workstations that perform like
functions:
Workstations performing operations on similar
products/components
Workstations performing similar processes.
o The Volume-Variety relationship of the different production planning
departments can be classified as:

Product Family Departments:

o Product family departments
o Machines required to manufacture the part family are grouped
together to form a cell
o Direct Cluttering Algorithm (DCA):
Steps:
1. Order the rows and columns. Sum the 1s in each column
and in each row of the machine-part matrix. Order the
rows in descending order of the number of 1s in the rows,
and order the columns in ascending order of the number
of 1s in each. Where ties exist, break the ties in
descending numerical sequence
2. Sort the columns, beginning with the first row of the
matrix, shift to the left of the matrix all columns having a
 1 in the first row. Continue the process row by row until no
further opportunity exists for shifting columns.
3. Sort the rows. Column by column, beginning with the
leftmost column, shift rows upward when opportunities
exist to form blocks of 1s.
4. Form cells. Look for opportunities to form cells such that
all processing for each part occurs in a single cell
o If a bottleneck machine occurs:
Locate the boundary of the
two conflicting cells
Duplicate the machines one
for each cell
Reexamine parts to
determine if other machines
can be used
Consider outsourcing the
part.

Layout Types Based on Material Flow System:

The type of material flow system is determined by the makeup of the
activities or planning departments among which materials flow
There are four types of material flow system that are based on the four types
of production planning departments:
o Production line departments:

Advantages
Smooth, simple, logical, and direct flow
lines result
Small work-in-process inventories should
result
Total production time per unit is short
Material handling requirements are
reduced
Less skill required by personnel
Simple production control is possible
Limitations
Machine stoppage stops the line
Product design changes cause the layout
to become obsolete
Slowest station paces the line
General supervision is required
Higher equipment investment usually
results
Special-purpose equipment can be used
o Fixed materials location department:
o
Advantages
Material movement is reduced
When a team approach is used,
continuity of operations and
responsibility results
Provides job enrichment opportunities
Promotes pride and quality because an
individual can complete the whole job
Highly flexible; can accommodate
changes in product design, product mix
and production volume
o Product Family Layout:
Advantages
By grouping products, higher machine
utilization can result
Smoother flow lines and shorter travel
distances are expected than for process
layouts
Team atmosphere and job enlargement
Limitations
Personal and equipment movement is
increased
May result in duplicate equipment
Requires greater skill for personnel
Requires general supervision
May result in increased space and
greater work-in-process
Requires close control and coordination
in scheduling production
Limitations
General supervision required
Greater labor skills required for team
members to be skilled on all operations
Critically dependent on production
 benefits often result
Has some of the benefits of product
layouts and process layouts
Encourages consideration of general-
purpose equipment
o Process Layout:
balancing the flows through the
individual cells
If flow is not balanced in each cell,
buffers and work-in-progress storage are
required in the cell to eliminate the need
for added material handling to and from
the cell
Has some of the disadvantages of both
product and process layouts
The opportunity to use special-purpose
equipment is decreased

Advantages
Increased machine utilization
General-purpose equipment can be used
Highly flexible on allocating personnel
and equipment
Diversity of tasks for personnel
Specialized supervision is possible
Limitations
Increased material handling
requirements
More complicated production control
required
Increased work-in-process
Longer production lines
Higher skills required to accommodate
diversity of tasks required

Activity relationships:
o Activity relationships may be specified in a quantitative or qualitative manner
o Quantitative Flow Measurements
o Steps for constructing a from-to chart:
1. List all departments down the row and across the column
following the overall flow pattern
2. Establish a measure of flow for the facility that accurately
indicates equivalent flow volumes
 If the items moved are equivalent with respect to ease of
movement, the number of trips may be recorded in the
from-to chart
If the items vary in size, weight, value, shape, and so on,
then some common unit of measure may be established
so that the quantities recorded in the from-to chart
represents the proper relationship
3. Based on the flow Paths for the items to be moved and the
established measure of flow, record the flow volumes in the
from-to chart.
o Qualitative Flow Measurements
o Flows may be measured qualitatively using the closeness relationship
given below

Value Closeness
A Absolutely Necessary
E Especially important
I Important
O Ordinary closeness okay
U Unimportant
X undesirable
Difference between relationship values U and X
o Two departments can be placed adjacent to each other with
relationship value U
o Two departments cannot be placed adjacent to one another
with a relationship value X
Activity relationship can be satisfied in ways other than physical
distance
How to construct a relationship chart
1. List all departments on the relationship chart
2. Conduct interviews or surveys with persons from each
department listed on the relationship chart and with
the management responsible for all departments
3. Define the criteria for assigning closeness relationships
and itemize and record the criteria as the reasons for
relationship values on the relationship chart
4. Establish the relationship value and the reason for the
value
5. Evaluate and discuss changes in the charts

Space Requirements
The most difficult determination in facilities planning is the amount of space
needed in the facility, which depends on the uncertain future.
Must predict future customer demands, technology, product mixes, and
facility development/modifications
 In manufacturing and office environments, space requirements should be
determined first for individual work stations and then departments
A workstation should include space for: equipment, material and personnel.
The materials areas for a workstation consist of space for
1. Receiving and storing inbound materials
2. Holding in-process materials
3. Storing outbound materials and shipping
4. Storing and shipping waste and scrap
5. Holding tools, fixtures, jigs, dies and maintenance materials

Chapter 6
Introduction:
Layout: the physical arrangement of departments, including:
Machines
Equipment
Workstation
People
Material handling equipment

Objective of a facility layout

Minimize investment in equipment

Minimize production time
Minimize material handling cost
Minimize utilization of space, equipment and people
Maintain flexibility of arrangement and operations
Provide safety and comfort to employees
Customer satisfaction
Efficiency flow of information, material and people

When is a layout needed?

New facility
New product
Product design changes
 Cost reduction
Improve material flow and efficiency of an existing facility

Different facility Planning Procedures:

Can be classified into two main categories
o Construction layout methods: involve developing a new layout
sketch
o Improvement Procedures: Generate layout alternatives by seeking
improvements in an existing layout.
Todays methodologies
o Apples plant layout procedure
o Reeds plant layout procedure: Reed calls the layout planning chart
the most important single phase of the entire layout process. It
incorporates the following:
Flow process including operation, transportation, storage,
inspection
Standard times for operations
Machines to be used
Manpower
Material handling requirements
o Muthers Systematic Layout Planning (SLP) procedure: Based on
data and an understanding of the roles and relationship between
activities, Material flow and the activity relationship charts are
analyzed.

3 The relationship diagram:

 The relationship diagram positions activities
spatially
Proximities are used to reflect the
relationships between pairs of activities

6. Space relationship diagrams:

Involves the determination of the amount of

space to be assigned to each activity
Space templates are then developed for
each department and are hung on the
relationship diagram

9. Design layout alternative

Based on modifying considerations and

practical limitations, several layout
alternatives are developed and
evaluated
Preferred alternative is then identified
and recommended
After the block layout, the SLP method can be used to construct
a detailed layout for each department
Steps of SLP:
1. Develop an Activity Relationship Diagram is developed from
information in the activity relation chart, essentially the
relationship diagram is a block diagram of various areas to be
placed into the layout. The departments are shown linked
together by the number Iines
2. Combine the relationship diagram with
departmental space requirements to
form a Space Relationship Diagram,
here, the blocks are scaled to reflect
space needs while still maintaining the same relative placement
in the layout.
3. A Block Plan represents the final layout based on activity
relationship information. If the layout is for an existing facility,
the block plan may have to be modified to fit the building, in the
case of a new facility, the shape of the building will conform to
layout requirements.

Algorithmic Approaches to SLP:

Algorithm can be classified per the:

Type of input data:

o Most layout algorithm can be classified according to the type of input
data they require:
1. Qualitative flow data (relationship chart)
2. Quantitative flow data (from-to chart)
 3. Both the above
o Given that values can be converted to relationship ratings and vice
versa, most algorithims can be used with either type of data.
o Default values; A = 10, E = 5, I = 2, O = 1, U = 0, X = -1.
o Relationship charts require even more time because they involve
Interviewing multiple individuals about closeness rating
Understanding and resolving inconsistencies
Agreeing on final closeness ratings
Becomes impractiacal for more than 20 departments
o From-to charts are not practical when faced with medium to
large sized problems (more than 20 departments)
However, it takes less time to complete because
o No need to interview
o Relies on data
o Most of the chart remains blank
Constructing a from-to chart requires info about
o Production route data for each product
o Flow expressed as # of units/ unit time
o Using appropriate multiplies considering variations
in the type of units being transmitted
o Combining flow charts of each products
Objective function:
1. 2 types
o Distance-based objective: Aim is to minimize the sum of
flows time distances (cost)
m m

Minimize z = F ij c ij dij
i=1 j=1

oWhere
M is the # of departments
Fij is the flow from department i to j (# of
units moved/unit time)
Cij cost of moving a unit one distance unit
from i to j
Dij rectilinear distance from i to j
o Adjacency-based objective: Maximize adjacency score
m m

Maximize z= F ij x ij
i=1 j=1

oWhere
xij = xji = 1 of i is adjacent to j
M is the # of departments
Fij is the flow from department i to j (# of
units moved/unit time)
Normalized adjacency score (efficiency rating)
 m m

F ij x ij
i =1 j=1
o Z= m m

F ij
i=1 j=1

If Z=1 all departments pairs with positive

flow between then are adjacent in the layout
In some cases, the layout planner may
represent an X relationship with a negative
value to fij
The exact value should be determined with
respect to the positive flow values
In this case the normally adjacent score is
modified to

Limitations of the adjacency-based objective:

It is not a complete measure of a layouts efficiency
since it disregards distance between non-adjacent
departments
o Possible to construct two layouts that have
identical adjacency scores but with different
travel distances

Discrete vs Continuous:
1. Discrete
o Area of each department is rounded off to the nearest integer #
of grids
o if the grid size is too large, large departments may have too
many grids
o If the grid size is too small, small departments may have too few
grids
o The grid size determines the overall resolution of the layout
2. Continuous
o No underlying grid structure
o More flexibility, but more difficult
o Restricted to rectangular building/department shapes
 Improvement vs. construction layout
1. Layout Improvement: start with an initial layout
2. Layout construction: Start from scratch
o Building dimensions may not be provided.

Algorithm Approaches
Pairwise Exchange Method:
o Improvement-type layout algorithm
o Claims only local optimality, since the final outcome depends on the
initial layout.
o Can be used with adjacency-based or distance-based objectives (often
used with the latter)
o Use equal-area departments
o Sets the foundation for the other methods
o Steps for the method:
1. Pairwise exchange method simply states that for each iteration,
all feasible exchanges of department pair are evaluated one at a
time
2. Distance matrix is recomputed each time an exchange is
performed
3. The pair that results in the lowest cost is selected
4. Continue the top steps until the total cost doesnt drop (TC =
flow x distance x cost of moving 1 unit(usually 1$))
Graph-Based Method
o Similar to the SLP method
o Construction-type layout algorithm
o Often used with adjacency-based objective
o Node represents departments
o Arcs represent two departments that are adjacent
o Procedure:
1. From the relationship chart, select the department pair with the
largest weight. Ties are broken arbitrarily
2. 3rd department chosen is the one with the largest total weight
with the current departments
3. Continue doing it until all the departments are selected
4. Construct a corresponding block layout
CRAFT
o Computerized Relative Allocation of Facilities Technique
o Input is From-to chart
o Layout cost is measured by rhe distance based objective
o Layout represented discretely
o Improvement-type layout
 o Procedure:
1. Determines the centroids of each department with respect to a
coordinate system
2. Calculate rectilinear distance(d) between department pairs
3. Construct a distance matrix
4. Initial cost is found by TC = fijcijdij
5. Next, consider all possible two-way department exchanges and
identify the best exchange (largest reduction in the layout cst)
Excanges are estimated by swapping the centroids of
departments
Feasible exchanges: departments with equal areas or
adjacent departments.
6. Updates the layout accordingly and compute the new centroids,
distances and subsequently the new layout cost
7. Continue until no further reduction is found
8. Final layout should be massaged into a practical layout
o Dummy departments can be used to transform non-rectangular
buildings into rectangular ones

Pros
Can capture initial layout with
reasonable accuracy
Departments are not restricted to
rectangular shapes
can accommodate nonrectangular
buildings
Can include obstacles, using dummy
departments
Allows to fix the location of any
departments
Cons
Guarantees only locally optimality based
on the initial layout supplied
Estimated centroids during exchanges
can differ substantially from the actual
centroids, which affect the estimated
and actual layout costs
Departments shapes deteriorate as a
number of iterations increase
Final layout needs to be massages into a
practical layout

MCRAFT
o MICRO-CRAFT
o Input from-to chart
o Layout cost is measured by the distance based objective
o Layout represented in a discrete fashion
o Improvement-type layout algorithm
o Procedure
Similar to CRAFT, except it can exchange two non-adjacent
departments of different sizes.
Layout formation techniques that allow easy shifting of
departments
Layout formed by starting at the upper-left corner of the building
and sweeping the bands from left to right and top to bottom
Two way exchanges done until no further improvements are
achieved
 o Limitations
May be hard to fit the existing layout to bands
Band width is assumed to be the same for all bands
A fixed department may float when certain non-equal area
departments are exchanged

Pros
Can exchange two departments of
different areas even if they are not
adjacent; when a department pair are
exchanged, other departments are
automatically adjusted/shifted
Department shapes obtained in the final
layout tend to be more reasonable than
in CRAFT
Cons
Cannot capture the initial layout
accurately unless the departments are
already arranged in bands
Band width is assumed to be equal
Not as effective in treating fixed

departments
Guarantees only local optimality

BLOCPLAN
o Input is relationship chart and from-to chart
o Layout cost is measured by both the adjacency based objective and
distance based objective
o Uses a continuous representation
o Construction or improvement-type layout algorithm
o Procedure
Similar to MCRAFT, departments are arranged in bands, but
band widths are allowed to vary.
Each department occupies exactly one band; all the
departments are rectangular
Improvements in the department are sought through two-way
department exchanges
BLOCPLAN considers all possible two-way exchanges

Pros
Can exchange two departments of
different areas even if they are not
adjacent; band widths are adjusted as
necessary
Department shapes obtained in the final
layout tend to be more reasonable than
in other methods
Band widths are allowed to vary
Cons
Cannot capture the initial layout
accurately unless the departments are
already arranged in bands
Bands are limited to 3
Not as effective in treating fixed
departments
 Guarantees only local optimality

Mathematical Programming Formulation of The Facility Layout

Program

Objective
o Find a nonoverlapping planar arrangement of a number of rectangular
departments of specified areas within a rectangular facility of given
dimensions
o Design objective is to minimize the total flow among all departments
Input Parameters
o Lx: Facilitiy length along the x-axis
o Ly: Facility length along the y-axis
o N: number of departments
o ai: Area of departments i
o i: Aspect ratio of Department i: Wi/Li= max(lix, liy)/min(lix, liy)
o Fij: Flow from I to j
Decision Variables
o Cix: x-axis coordinates of department is centroid
o Ciy: y-axis coordinate of departments is centroid
o lix: half-length of department i along the x-axis
o liy : half-length of department i along the y-axis
o zijx: relative location of department i with respect to department j along
the x-axis
Zij = 1 if department i is to the west of department j
y
o zij : relative location of department i with respect to department j
along the y-axis
Zij = 1 if department i is to the south of department j
Formulation:
o Can be solved as a non linear program
o Objective Function
n1 n

z=minimize (f ij)(d ijx +d ijy )

i=1 j =i +1

o Constraints
d xij = c xi c xj
1. Nonlinear constraint to find x-axis
d xij = c iy c yj distance
2. Nonlinear constraint to find y-axis
x x x x
l i c i L l j distance
3. Ensures the department is in the
l iy c iy L y l yj given area
4. Ensures the department is in the
x y
ai = 4 l i l i given area
5. Non-kinear area
6. Aspect ratio
7. Prevents departments from
overlapping
8. Prevents departments from
overlapping
9. Prevents departments from
 x y
max (l i ,l i )
i=
min(l i , l i ) gv b
x y

c xi +l ix c xj l ix + L x ( 1z xi j )

c iy +l iy c yj l iy + L y (1z iyj )

z xij + z xij 1
y y
z ij + z ij 1

Zij are binary

Cij and li >=0