Define plant layout and physical facilities...Factors are considerd while starting a business?
Answers
Meaning and Definition of Plant Layout:
Plant layout is the most effective physical arrangement, either existing or in plans of industrial facilities i.e arrangement of machines, processing equipment and service departments to achieve greatest co-ordination and efficiency of 4M’s (Men, Materials, Machines and Methods) in a plant.
Layout problems are fundamental to every type of organisation/enterprise and are experienced in all kinds of concerns/undertakings.
Need of Plant Layout:
Many situations give rise to the problem of plant layout. Two plants having similar operations may not have identical layouts. This may be due to size of the plant, nature of the process and management’s calibre.
The necessity of plant layout may be felt and the problem may arise when:
(i) There are design changes in the product.
(ii) There is an expansion of the enterprise.
(iii) There is proposed variation in the size of the departments.
(iv) Some new product is to be added to the existing line.
IMPORTANCE:
product is quite heavy or difficult to handle involving costly material handling equipment or a large amount of labour, important consideration will be to move the product minimum possible e.g. boiler, turbines, locomotive industries and ship building companies etc.
(ii) Complexity of the Final Product:
If the product is made up of a very large number of components and parts i.e. large number of people may be employed for handling the movement of these parts from shop to shop or from machine to machine or one assembly point to another e.g. automobile industry.
(iii) The Length of the Process in Relation to Handling Time:
If the material handling time represents a appreciable proportion of the total time of manufacturing, any reduction in handling time of the product may result in great productivity improvement of the industrial unit e.g. Steam Turbine Industry.