In manufacturing, a product layout
refers to a production system where the work stations and equipment are located
along the line of production as with assembly lines. The work units are usually
moved along a line by a conveyor. Work is done in small amounts at each of the workstations on the line. The product layout
can be used when the total work to be performed must be dividable into smaller
tasks and is assigned to each of the workstations.
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| Source: scrigroup.com |
Each of the workstations does the small amounts of work, the stations utilize
specific techniques and equipment as per the individual job they are assigned
which leads to higher rate of production.
Process layout is a design for the
floor plan of a plant which aims to improve efficiency by arranging equipment
according to the function. The design of production line is done to eliminate
waste in material flows, inventory handling,
and management. According to a particular production sequence in process
layout, the workstations and machinery
are not arranged. There is an assembly of similar operations or similar
machinery in every department.
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| Source: wikipedia |
The manufacturing organizations put a
lot of thought and do a lot of research regarding the layout of the facilities
in the factory. It is very critical to select the strategies for the manufacturing process and designing for
increasing the productivity and reduction of cost. Various strategies are
adopted by companies in reducing the wastage and increasing the output in
lesser time. On the basis of various scenarios,
either process layout or product layout are implemented by companies.
Below mentioned is an insight to everything one should know about the process and product layout manufacturing process.
Product Layout – Different workstation are grouped together according to the products
they work on. In a product layout, workstations can quickly transfer small
batches of semi-finished goods directly to the next station on a production line. For smaller manufacturing
businesses, product layouts can be ideal with small volume than their large
corporate competitors. It is wise to at least consider implementing a process
layout with the growing output in manufacturing business. For a garment manufacturer, the product layout is, for
example, stations of for sewing cloth, sewing on buttons, inspecting seams,
wrapping finished garments and boxing them up cleanly and neatly. All the
process is located within the close proximity to
an individual clothing item. This enables individual garments to pass from one
station to another quickly.
Process Layout – According to the activities being performed process layout group
workstations work together irrespective of which products each workstation is
working on. At a time, workstations produce higher volumes of output before
sending semi-finished goods in bulk to the next area. This may be located as
close as the other end of a building or other side of the globe. For example in
the case of garment manufacturing, a
process layout would group multiple sewing stations together for different
clothing items in one area and then locate inspection, wrapping and packaging
station for different items together in different areas.
Advantages
– Process Layout enables the increase economies of scale. This enables
individual processes to function more efficiently with various resources. Due
to this, process layouts are ideal for businesses that produce large volumes of
product every day. Additional cost advantages in human resources are provided
by process layout as employees get easily specialize in the specific work process. They also learn from
coworkers and supervisors by doing the same job repeatedly. The advantage of
Product layout is that it keeps specific production jobs relatively contained. This is ideal in case of building
manufactured homes with low volume goods that need a good communication between
the workers at different stations.
Disadvantages – When dealing with individual custom orders the process layouts can be
less effective, as custom information should be sent with the production line
along with the semi-finished materials. The Product layouts on a large scale
require more space than process layouts. This is due to the fact that tools and
equipment cannot be shared easily between workers doing the same task on
different products. The lack of layoff in production areas helps in increasing
the total expenses for equipment as each
extra station need to have a full set of equipment and tools to perform the
work independently.
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