Plant Layout: Your Silent Partner In Integrating Materials Flow

Plant layout is the engine that powers the printing plant— and you control the horsepower. But a poorly designed layout can be your worst enemy, eroding your bottom line and making working at your plant an employee's nightmare. On the other hand, an efficient plant layout is like a silent partner working behind the scenes to make operations run smoothly and earn you more profits.

Last month, printers gathered at the R&E Council Digital Smart Factory in Orlando to discuss the steps to electronically link manufacturing systems, so data can be instantaneously shared across the plant. But even before production platforms can be wired together, careful thought has to be given to where and how machinery will cohabit the print plant. It doesn't do much good to accelerate the flow of job production data from machine to machine if no thought has been given to how work-in-process will make its way through the facility and out the door. The relationship is very close between computer integrated manufacturing and plant planning.

In any layout, the primary objective is twofold: 1) to move materials and people in the most direct and efficient manner, and 2) to allow for growth—i.e., new production equipment, new or expanding departments—without altering aisles established for material handling and practices (assuming they're working) or reducing square footage of work-in-process and staging areas.

Movement of product and potential for growth should be the two standards to guide you in evaluating your existing layout and when expanding or moving operations.

If you follow the four principles highlighted on the next page, what will your plant layout look like when you're finished? That depends on your expansion plans or, more often, on the expansion options you may be faced with. Will you be expanding your present building or converting another existing building into a printing facility? Will you be building a new plant?

If not expanding or moving, will you be looking to extend the shelf life of your building? You can put off an expansion or move for the time being by re-laying out existing operations to better utilize plant floor space and improve operating efficiencies.

Whether attempting to extend the shelf life of an existing building, expand or relocate to newer quarters, it turns out that the least sexy part of the building—the shipping and receiving dock locations—often drive the plant layout. That's because the receiving docks start the movement of product (i.e., raw materials), and shipping docks complete it (i.e., finished goods).

As a result, you have three basic plant layout possibilities: 1) U-shape (shown) where docks are on the same side of building; 2) straight-line where shipping and receiving docks are on opposite ends of the building; or 3) L-shaped where shipping and receiving docks are separated but not on opposite ends.

The four basic principles that can make plant layout your silent partner:

Establish department and area adjacencies. Placing office, prepress and production areas close to each other increases communication (verbal, visual), reduces travel time for product and people, and makes moving materials more efficient.

Consider location of building columns to ensure they will not make operating areas around equipment too tight or limit placing new production equipment.

Establish dedicated aisles to make it easier and faster to move people, raw materials, staging, work-in-process and finished goods.

Use full building height. Going up instead of out will reduce square footage in raw materials and finished goods.

Planning for expansion is a final point for consideration. Maintain established department/area adjacencies, common staging areas (i.e., paper to press) and good materials handling.

Planning ahead also keeps aisles from being compromised or negatively impacted when new equipment is installed or market forces create new departments or grow existing ones.