Process Design, Process Planning and Line Balancing of Product

• Process design entails process planning, facility layout and job design.
• Process planning entails selection of process configuration, consideration of alternative feasible process sequences, and selection of the sequence to be adopted (including consideration of the span of the process to be undertaken) perhaps determined by break-even analysis.
• Facility layout concerns the positioning of departments on the site, the positioning of facilities and workplaces within departments, and the arrangement of workplaces.
• There are four main layout configurations: fixed-position, process, product, and cell (or group).
• Product layouts are sub-divided into connected- and disconnected-flow types.
• Two graphical approaches to siting departments in process layout are presented: minimising cost of movement; systematic layout planning, based on qualitative assessments of relationships between departments.
• The line-balancing of product layouts, using the longest-task-time heuristic, is presented.
• The scope of job design is simultaneously to meet the requirements of technical feasibility, economic feasibility and behavioural feasibility.
• An argument is made for the continuing importance of the methods of scientific management, but applied by the workers rather than by management.
• Method study is the identification of the most efficient and effective method for completing a task, and is presented as the procedure: select, record, examine, develop, install and maintain.
• Work measurement is the determination of the time for a qualified worker to carry out a specified job at a defined level of performance.
• Three approaches to work measurement are considered: time study, activity sampling and predetermined time standards.