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Facilities Design and Plant Layout

Copyright © August 12, 2019 by Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.
All Rights Reserved.

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Click on Professional Presentations to read Chapter Twenty-Four of this book.


ISBN: 978-1732788336
Type of Book: Paperback
Book Size: 6 inches by 9 inches
Number of Pages: 292
Normal Price: $14.95


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Book Description on Amazon.com

This is not an academic textbook. Instead this is a reference handbook for individuals who are responsible for the successful design of a new facility and who have to create an effective plant layout that will optimize the daily activities within that facility.

The concepts in each chapter are explained in a conversational manner and a college degree in engineering is not necessary to be able to understand and master the skills presented in this book. This book carefully describes the entire facility design process beginning with the objective of the new facility, how to calculate the amount of space that will be required for inventory, how to select a material handling system, how to design workstation layouts and the entire manufacturing area, how to design service areas and offices, how to create an efficient plant layout, how to select an appropriate building site, how to draw a site plan, how to calculate the total cost of goods sold including different options for allocating overhead, how to prepare a pro forma income statement and a balance sheet, how to calculate return on investment, the payback period, and the breakeven point, how to do a sensitivity or risk analysis, how to estimate cash flows for several years into the future, and how to formulate a reasonable implementation plan. Finally the book will clearly illustrate how to combine all of the preceding information into a comprehensive well-documented feasibility report and how to translate the feasibility report into a powerful professional presentation.

The author of this book worked as an industrial engineer for 12 years and he earned a living doing the activities explained in this book. In 1980 the author was appointed the "on-site engineer" for a $9,200,000 plant expansion that he had helped design. He had the authority to resolve problems as the facility was being built when the "original architectural plans" would not work as anticipated and compromises had to be made quickly or work on the facility would come to a standstill.

The author has also taught facilities design, plant layout, material handling, production control, quality control, and managerial accounting courses at a major state university for 35 years.

In addition, from 1982 to 2019 the author has also done industrial engineering consulting work for dozens of organizations such as: Alemite Corp., Amoco, Anheuser-Busch, Bartow County Bank, Boeing Commercial Aircraft, Ciba-Vision, Consolidated Groceries, Delta Airlines, Equifax, EMS Inc., FedEx, General Motors, Georgia Marble, Georgia Power, Heatlhcare Atlanta, Herman Miller Furniture, Home Depot, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, Marta, Motorola, Nationwide Credit, Porex, Scientific Atlanta, Scovill Fasteners, Siemens, Southern Mills, Southwire, U.S. Can, U.S. Navy, Wayne Farms, and ZF Industries.

This book discusses the concept in each chapter from a traditional perspective without relying on computer software. After you clearly understand the basic concepts then it is not too difficult to learn how to use a software program that will generate the answers for you. However, since software programs are updated and changed every two or three years, this book does not recommend or explain how to use specific software programs.

Finally, in order to keep the publisher's recommended retail price of this book as low as possible, this book does not contain any color pictures because color pictures increase the printing cost by about 400%. The low retail price of this book should make it affordable for anyone who is interested in learning the knowledge and skills described in this book.

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Preface to
Facilities Design and Plant Layout

Most academic textbooks are written by professors who teach the corresponding topic to students. Some of these professors have some work experience in the area in which they are writing and some do not. Most of the people who write academic textbooks consult a variety of other academic textbooks written on the same topic and the information from those other textbooks is consolidated and organized into a slightly different format in the academic textbook the person is writing. The assumption is that the information in those other textbooks is a reasonably complete summary of the topic and that those other textbooks include what a student needs to know about the topic. When the student graduates with a college degree and gets a job working in their field of study, the student frequently discovers that there is a significant difference between theory and reality, and that the successful application of their knowledge requires a different approach than what they were taught in school.

This book is not an academic textbook and it does not include problems at the end of each chapter, and it does not include solutions to the odd-numbered problems at the end of the book.

Instead this book was written to serve as a reference handbook for engineers who have to create and design facilities that will work smoothly and efficiently. The author worked as an engineer for 12 years and he helped to design a variety of facilities including a $9,200,000 facility where he was appointed the "on-site engineer." He had the authority to resolve problems as the facility was being built when the "original architectural plans" would not work as anticipated and compromises had to be made quickly or work on the facility would come to a standstill.

The author has also taught facilities design, plant layout, material handling, production control, and managerial accounting courses at a major state university for 35 years. And he has taught facility design concepts to a variety of his consulting clients.

This book includes detailed explanations and summaries on how to make all of the necessary decisions in the entire facility design process and it demonstrates how these decisions overlap and compliment one another. It includes mathematical examples of how to arrive at the answer to each step in the facility design process. Finally it integrates all of these different concepts together into a facility design project example that continues from the beginning to the end of the book.

Respectfully,
Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.
August 12, 2019

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Table of Contents

Chapter		Page
1	Introduction	1
2	The Facilities Planning Process and a Feasibility Study	3
3	The First Critical Decision: The Choice of a Product	11
4	Product Example: Folding Wood Tray Table	13
5	Product Decisions	17
6	Forecasting Techniques	21
7	Inventory Management	25
8	Warehouses and Material Handling Systems	37
9	Optimization of Space and Total Costs	51
10	Operation Process Charts	61
11	The Manufacturing Process	67
12	Workstation Layouts for Manufacturing Operations	73
13	Work Measurement	79
14	Scrap Loss, Equipment, and Labor	93
15	Employee Service Areas and Offices	101
16	Activity Relationships and Block Diagrams	111
17	Plant Layout	117
18	Facility Location and Site Selection Criteria	125
19	Plot Plan or Site Plan	137
20	Cost of Goods Sold and Overhead Allocation Methods	145
21	Income Statement, Balance Sheet, ROI, Sensitivity	155
22	Implementation Timetable	161
23	Feasibility Study and Formal Report	165
24	Professional Presentations	169
25	Computer Systems and Computer Software	177
26	Academic Approach versus a Practical Approach	181
	Appendix A: Feasibility Study Formal Report	185
	Appendix B: Exhibits that Support the Feasibility Study	199
	Appendix C: Manufacturing Workstation Layouts	213
	Appendix D: Job Descriptions and Standard Times	227
	Appendix E: PowerPoint Slides for Feasibility Study	263
	Appendix F: Probability Tables	279
	Index	285
	About the Author	288

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Grandpappy's e-mail address is: RobertWayneAtkins@hotmail.com