Benefits of a Proper Plant Layout Design
- Lower capital costs due to increased space utilization.
- Improved employee safety with visual shop floor management.
- Minimal material travel distances and costs.
- Minimal inventory and inventory carrying costs.
- Reduced cycle times
- Reduced machine set-up and changeover times.
- Able to incorporate future expansions and changes.
Our Plant Layout Design Capabilities
- Cellular Manufacturing / Group Technology Techniques
- Systematic Layout Planning (SLP)
- Material handling system design, equipment selection and costing.
- Ergonomic – Workstation design
- Simulation Modeling
- Warehouse Design
- Bottleneck analysis.
- Required labor calculations.
- Point of use staging area calculations
- Lean manufacturing principles
Facility Layout – Micro Modular Nuclear Reactor Prefabrication Site
Fabricate, build, assemble, test and stage modular nuclear reactor assemblies and support offices with control equipment.
- Designed a several hundred thousand SF greenfield fabrication facility layout, precast concrete operations and overall site layout.
- Used material flow paths to streamline operations.
- Selected and costed all processing and material handling material equipment.
- Calculated Takt times and labor requirements to meet throughput targets.
- Summarized all start-up and labor costs for a DOE loan application.
Site Layout – Steel Bridge Manufacturing and Installation Company
Designs, fabricates and installs steel bridges.
- Created 4 site layout and building expansion options for evaluation with Pros vs. Con documentation.
- Documented current and future state department floor space requirements.
- Documented current and new site operations with product line material flow paths.
- Researched, costed and proposed new cutting, welding and material handling technologies to reduce operating costs.
Department Layout – Electrical Vehicle Charger Manufacturer
Assembles and tests commercial electric vehicle charging stations.
- Created an assembly and test layout for a new product launch.
- Created material flow patterns to minimize travel distances.
- Calculated labor requirements for each workstation.
- Selected and calculated the processing equipment and material handling equipment start-up costs.
- Calculated raw material and WIP inventory levels.
Plant Layout – High performance clamping and coupling components manufacturer in the aerospace industry.
- Consolidated 250,000 SF facility 4 stories high into a new 100,000 SF single level facility.
- Documented current and future state department floor space requirements.
- Documented new site operations with product line material flow paths.
- Designed layout based on Pareto sales volume of 5 product lines to minimize overall material flow distances.
Building Expansion Layout – Modular Office and Display Fabrication Company
- Created several site layouts for review with a 30,000 SF building expansion to estimate budgetary costs.
- Created detailed equipment layouts of the combined 100,000 SF facility.
- Proposed a new pallet rack locations and layouts that freed up 5,000 SF of floorspace.
Building Expansion Layout – Fiberglass Panel Manufacturer for the Recreational Vehicle Industry
Sprays chopped glass and polymers on molds, cuts and packages large panels for high end RV clients.
- Designed facility layout and capacity analysis of a $14 million building expansion to double production.
- Performed capacity calculations to specify material handling equipment requirements.
- Provided and trained employees on procedures, production target tables and operator utilization calculations for analyzing and identifying process improvements.
- Performed a labor analysis the resulted in a 25% increase in production efficiency. and capacity 25% by identifying and eliminating non-value added steps associated with labor tasks.
Warehouse & WIP Layout – Projection TV Lens Manufacturer
Manufactures and assembles several million lens assemblies annually from glass blanks, injection molded lenses and components.
- Performed a 60,000-sq. ft. warehouse layout design to minimize floor space requirements, material handling costs and inventory carrying costs. This was done by performing a complete material flow analysis.
- Provided spreadsheet models for re-calculating reorder-point levels and inventory turns to minimize inventory-carrying costs of different product forecasts.
Shipping Department Layout – Glass Company
Manufacturer of glass blanks for microchip etching lasers
- Performed layout design for the packaging, shipping and receiving department.
- Calculated required WIP quantities in-between all processing steps.
Work Cell & Facility Layout – Compressed Gas Equipment Manufacturer
Regulator, Valve, CGA Fitting and Manifold Design, Fabricate, Assembly & Test Manufacturer
- Implemented 5 manufacturing cells with components staged at point of use for manual assembly. This reduced inventory levels and increased production efficiency 15%.
Facility Layout – Football Helmet Manufacturer & Reconditioner
- Designed complete process layout rearrangement that reduced travel distances 20%.
- Designed a new helmet packaging layout.
Plant Layout – Architectural custom woodworking design, manufacture and installation company.
- Created a 40,000 SF woodworking cutting, sanding, router, assembly and coating facility to minimize operational costs.
Plant & Warehouse Layouts – Medium Sized Batch Petro Chemical Company
Chemical mixing, blending and packaging company.
- Performed a 3 Phase site expansion feasibility study.
- Created several site and facility layouts for revision and updating.
- Calculated manpower savings from a consolidated barrel filling operation.
- Generated material handling costs for a $30 million, 3 line automatic, 55-gallon filling stations.
- Provided project management meetings, presentations within budget.
Department Layouts – Tier 1 Stamping, Welding & E-Coating Company
- Designed and implemented a Kanban inter-plant replenishment process which required several facility layouts, inventory analysis, training, and material handling equipment selection
- Designed the Kanban kit carts and staging layout areas.
- Implemented a Production Reporting Program that tracked OEE, equipment utilization, downtime, employee efficiency and scrap rates.