Week 7

Question 1

Layout Strategies

Answer 1

1. Office
2. Retail
3. Warehouse and (storage)
4. Project (fixed position)
5. Job shop (process oriented)
6. Work cell (product families)
7. Repetitive, continuous (product oriented)

Question 2

Office layout

Answer 2

Main focus- movement & flow of info. Managers need to take into account communication, working conditions, etc that impact employees.

Question 3

Retail layout

Answer 3

Organises space with regard to customer- what should/shouldn’t see.
Spotting fee- certain spot paid by manuf. at the retail store.
Servicespace- physical space at which services take place and the extent to which this influences customers and employees.

Question 4

Warehousing and storage layouts

Answer 4

Main objective- to find the optimum trade off between handling costs and costs associated w/ warehousing space.
Max utilisation of space.
3 types:
1) Cross-docking- avoiding excess storage, process as received from shipping.
2)Random stocking- locating stock whenever there is open location in warehouse
3)Customising- use warehouse to add value through component modification, labelling, repair and packing.

Question 5

Fixed position layout

Answer 5

Stationary projects, bring all the workers & materials to the site of project, issues solved stationary, on site.

Question 6

Process oriented layout

Answer 6

Low volume, high variety of product, machines and equipment grouped together.
Advantage- flexibility. Disadvantage- comes from general purpose of equipment.
Cost minimisation formula

Question 7

Work cells

Answer 7

People and machines that are normally distributed over different departments get grouped together.
Common issue- det. nr of employees (takt time used)

Question 8

“Rules of Thumb”

Answer 8

1. Facilities according to volume and variety, when grouped.
   2.Direct feedback needed from output to operation.
   3.Carefully analyse future demand regarding volume, variety, rate of new product introduction before transformation.
2. Rigorously drive down machine set up times.
3. Introduce IT if and only if system is smoothly running.

Question 9

How to prevent weak points in paced line?

Answer 9

Kits
Buffer
Group work
Tasting facilities to improve quality

Question 10

What is “Poka Yoke”?

Answer 10

“Poka Yoke”- failure/fool proof automatically known if something is wrong and cannot proceed further.