MS-05 Management of Machines and Materials

For a reordering system based on inventory level, calculate buffer stock. What should be reorder level at this buffer stock? What would be carrying costs for a year?

2011-06-21T03:26:00.000-07:00

The information provided for an item is as follows:
Annual demand = 12000 units
Ordering cost = Rs 60 per order
Annual carrying cost = 10 % of the purchase price.
Unit cost of item = Rs 10 and
Lead-time = 10 days.

There are 300 working days a year. Determine EOQ and a number of orders per year. In past two years, use rate has gone as high as 50 units per day. For a reordering system based on inventory level, calculate buffer stock. What should be reorder level at this buffer stock? What would be carrying costs for a year?

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hat do you understand by Automated Storage and Retrieval? For what kinds of goods and in which companies in India do you think such systems would be appropriate?

2011-06-21T03:22:00.001-07:00

What do you understand by Automated Storage and Retrieval? For what kinds of goods and in which companies in India do you think such systems would be appropriate?

Answer. Automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) are systems for receiving orders for materials from wherever in operations, collecting the materials from locations within a warehouse, and delivering the materials to workstations in operations. There are three major elements of ASRS:
1. Computers and communication systems: These systems are used for placing orders for materials, locating the materials in storage, giving commands for delivery of the materials to locations in operations, and adjusting inventory records showing the amount and location of materials.
2. Automated materials handling and delivery systems: These systems are automatically loaded with containers of materials from operations, which they deliver to the warehouse Similarly, they are automatically loaded with orders of materials at the warehouse, which they deliver to workstations in operations. Powered and computercontrolled conveyers of several types are sometimes used, but automated guided vehicle systems (AGVS) are now being used in greater numbers for this purpose. AGVS are usually driverless trains, pallet trucks, and unit loaded carriers. AGVS usually follow either embedded guide wires or paint stripes through operations until their destinations are reached.
3. Storage and retrieval systems in warehouses: Warehouses store materials in standardsize containers. These containers are arranged according to a location address scheme that allows the location of each material to be precisely determined by a computer. A storage and retrieval (S/R) machine receives commands from a computer, gets containers of materials from a pickup point in the warehouse, delivers materials to their assigned location in the warehouse, and places them in their location. Similarly, S/R machines locate containers of materials in storage, remove containers from storage, and deliver containers to a deposit point in the warehouse.

Main purposes of installing ASRS are as follows:
1. Increase storage capacity: ASRS ordinarily increase the storage density in warehouse; that is, the total maximum number of items that can be stored.
2. Increase system throughput: ASRS increase the number of loads per hour that storage system can receive and place into storage and retrieve and deliver to workstations.
3. Reduce labor costs: By automating the systems of retrieval, storage, and delivering materials, labour and related costs are often reduced.
4. Improve product quality: Because of human error in identifying materials, the wrong parts are often delivered and assembled into products. These errors often because of similarity in the appearance of different materials. Automated systems that must identify parts based on bar codes or other identification methods are not as subject to these kinds of identification errors.

AS/RS benefits include:
• Bringing material to the operator cutting cycle time by eliminating wait, walk, and search time.
• Reduces work-in-progress inventory. Better inventory accuracy and better responsiveness to need result in reduction or elimination of “safety stock” in the overall inventory model. This has the net effect of inventory reduction.
• Dramatically increases operator productivity. The “Part to Picker” model of order fulfillment is 3 to 5 times more productive that having the picker travel to the part to complete the fulfillment.
• Provides real-time inventory control with instant reports. With near 100% accuracy and real time information about the inventory on hand, achievable commitments can be made to your customer – as opposed to “best efforts promises”.
• Improves product quality and productivity. Real time information, faster response to a need, physical protection, and traceability of material access all contribute to a better process where time can be spent on improving the quality of the process instead of on expediting material to a point of use.

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) are typically used in applications where there is a very high volume of loads being moved into and out of storage where storage density is important because of space constraints, and where no value adding content is present in this process. They are used widely in both Manufacturing and Distribution operations to hold and buffer the flow of material moving through the process to the ultimate end user. Most systems operate in a fully automated mode with little or now human involvement in the handling of material except at the controlled input and output stations to the system. This results in extremely high inventory accuracy.

How much per bearing can RBI afford to spend on inspection costs before it begins to lose money on inspection?

2011-06-21T03:21:00.000-07:00

The marketing manager of Roller Bearings International (RBI) estimates that “defective bearings that get into the hands of industrial users cost RBI an average of Rs. 200 each” in replacement costs and lost business. The production manager counters that “the bearings are only about 2 per cent defective now, and the best a sampling plan could do would be to reduce that to 1 per cent defective – but not much better (unless we go to 100 percent inspection).” Should RBI adopt a sampling plan if it costs?
i) Rs. 100 per bearing?
ii) Rs. 250 per bearing?
iii) How much per bearing can RBI afford to spend on inspection costs before it begins to lose money on inspection?

Solution. Let y be the cost of production each bearing and 1000 bearing are produced.
Production cost = 1000y
2% defective = 20 bearings
Cost of replacement and lost business = Rs. 200 each
= 200 x 20 = 4000
= Total cost = 1000y + 4000 …… (1)

If defects are reduced to 1%
Defective bearings would be 10 only

Cost of replacement and lost business = Rs. 200 x 10 = 2000

Part (i)
Revised production cost is (y + 100)
Total cost = 1000 (y + 100) + 2000
= 1000y + 100000 + 2000
= 1000y + 102000 …. (2)

Savings : Equation (1 – 2)
(1000y + 4000) – (1000y + 102000)
= 1000y + 4000 – 1000y – 102000
= - 98000 Rs.
So RBI should no adopt the sampling plan because it is losing money.

Part (ii)
RBI is losing money if the sampling plan cost is Rs. 100 per bearing. If the cost is Rs. 250 then it will lose more money. So it should not adopt the plan.

Part (iii)
Let RBI can afford Rs. z on inspection for each bearing.
Cost of inspection for 1000 bearings = 1000z
= 1000y + 1000z ….(3)

Equating equations (1 and 2)
1000y + 4000 = 1000y + 1000z
1000z = 4000
z = 4000/1000
z = 4 Rs. only
If the inspection cost is more than Rs. 4 per bearing then RBI will start losing money.

What do you mean by an integral approach to Materials Management? Explain.

2011-06-21T03:20:00.000-07:00

What do you mean by an integral approach to Materials Management? Explain.

Answer. Materials management is a coordination function responsible for planning and controlling materials flow. Its objectives are:
• Maximize the use of the firm’s resources
• Provide the required level of customer service

An industrial unit should have a centralized authority vested with the responsibility of planning, procuring, preserving, handling, usage and other related aspects. Such a centralized authority wherein, all related activities of materials are combined is called “integrated materials management”.

An integrated or life cycle approach to materials management has the following primary and secondary objectives:
1. Primary objectives
• Low prices
• High Inventory Turnover
• Low Cost acquisition/possession
• Continuity of supply
• Consistency of quality
• Low payroll costs
• Favourable supplier relations
• Development of personnel
• Good records

Secondary Objectives
• Reciprocal relations
• New materials and products
• Economic make or buy
• Standardization
• Product improvement
• Inter-department harmony
• Forecasts
• Acquisitions

Supplier selection and supplier relations are considered important for the purchasing department. Should the quality assurance department ever become involved in these issues? Why or why not?

2011-06-21T03:19:00.000-07:00

Supplier selection and supplier relations are considered important for the purchasing department. Should the quality assurance department ever become involved in these issues? Why or why not?

Answer. Supplier selection criteria for a particular product or service category should be defined by a “cross-functional” team of representatives from different sectors of your organization. In a manufacturing company, for example, members of the team typically would include representatives from purchasing, quality, engineering and production. Team members should include personnel with technical/applications knowledge of the product or service to be purchased, as well as members of the department that uses the purchased item.

Common supplier selection criteria:
• Previous experience and past performance with the product/service to be purchased.
• Relative level of sophistication of the quality system, including meeting regulatory requirements or mandated quality system registration (for example, ISO 9001, QS-9000).
• Ability to meet current and potential capacity requirements, and do so on the desired delivery schedule.
• Financial stability.
• Technical support availability and willingness to participate as a partner in developing and optimizing design and a long-term relationship.
• Total cost of dealing with the supplier (including material cost, communications methods, inventory requirements and incoming verification required).
• The supplier's track record for business-performance improvement.
• Total cost assessment.

Methods for determining how well a potential supplier fits the criteria:
• Obtaining a Dun & Bradstreet or other publicly available financial report.
• Requesting a formal quote, which includes providing the supplier with specifications and other requirements (for example, testing).
• Visits to the supplier by management and/or the selection team.
• Confirmation of quality system status either by on-site assessment, a written survey or request for a certificate of quality system registration.
• Discussions with other customers served by the supplier.
• Review of databases or industry sources for the product line and supplier.
• Evaluation (SUCH AS prototyping, lab tests, OR validation testing) of samples obtained from the supplier.

The quality department should be involved in the supplier selection and retention. To ensure that materials from suppliers are of the highest quality, suppliers must be brought into the company’s TQM program. Ford Motor company is a good example of how this should be work. A Ford the initial selection of suppliers is based on how well the suppliers can interface with the Ford’s TQM program. Ford has about 300 suppliers on its Q1 list, a list of suppliers with which Ford is willing to have long-term supply contracts in order to achieve highest quality at competitive costs. Because Q-1 suppliers in the design of new Ford products, the design reflect the supplier’s ability to product high quality materials. And suppliers participate in Ford’s quality training programs; thus, suppliers’ employees are capable of making TQM work within the suppliers’ organizations.

“You don’t inspect quality into a product: You have to build it in.” Discuss the implications of this statement.

2011-06-21T03:18:00.000-07:00

“You don’t inspect quality into a product: You have to build it in.” Discuss the implications of this statement.

Answer. The saying, "You don't inspect quality into a product, you have to build it in!" emphasizes the shift in emphasis from inspection to prevention

Investing in prevention can be economic. A typical factory invests 20 to 25 percent of its operating budget in finding and fixing mistakes. One fourth of all workers fix things that are not done right. These are appraisal and internal failure cost. On the other hand, if quality standards are enforced as the item is being built, appraisal, internal and external failure costs will decrease while prevention costs will increase. The rule of thumb is that for every dollar spent in prevention, ten dollars are saved in failure and appraisal costs.

What is quality? This is a multifaceted question, difficult to address in the abstract. It is easier to understand quality by considering its evolution in leading companies. In the United States and Europe, quality control of one sort or another has been part of manufacturing for more than a hundred years, and the use of various quality concepts has come and gone and come again.

By contrast, in Japan quality control was not significant until after World War II. In Japan as in the United States, however, the spectrum of quality practices ranges from none at all to the leading edge, where progress has been rapid and uniform.
At the beginning of this evolutionary process, quality of any kind is not noticed or measured. Goods are produced and shipped. If customers want to send something back, they do so –en of the story.

Quality in product development began with attempts to inspect quality into products or services either in the process domain (scrap and rework), the design domain (verification tests and durability failures) or the customer domain (warranty costs and complaints). The evolution of quality involved a significant mind-set transition from reacting to inspection events to utilizing process patterns in engineering and manufacturing to build quality into the product. Recent developments in quality engineering involve the use of structural tools to lay the proper foundation for good design and enable the process-level methods to work better. Six Sigma is used to react to or fix unwanted events in the customer, design or process domains. DFSS is used to prevent problems by building quality into the design process across domains at the pattern level of thinking. Use of new structural tools such as TRIZ (a Russian acronym for “theory of inventive problem solving”) and axiomatic design provide a foundation for future enhancement of Six Sigma methodologies.

Model of Product Development

The process of design involves understanding what you want to achieve and then selecting a strategy that achieves that intent. The creation of great products or services involves selecting strategies associated with four primary activities or domains: customer domain, functional domain, physical domain and process domain. The customer domain consists of customer attributes—a characterization of needs, wants or delights that define a successful product or service from a customer perspective. The functional domain consists of functional requirements—a characterization of design goals or what the product or service must achieve to meet customer attributes from the viewpoint of the designer. The physical domain consists of design parameters—the collection of physical characteristics or activities that are selected to meet functional goals. The process domain consists of process variables—the collection of process characteristics or resources that create the design parameters.

The development of products or services is highly iterative and involves selecting elements in each domain and mapping these elements from one domain to another. The better the mapping between these domains, the better the design.

The History and Evolution of Quality
The early history of quality in product development was based upon event thinking in the various design domains. After World War II, the primary way of assuring quality to customers was inspection after the process domain. Parts were produced, and then these parts were checked to see if they were good enough to ship. If the parts were not good, then an event occurred, resulting in rework or scrap and problem solving.

Popular and Powerful Methods
In subsequent years, about 120 different quality tools and methods have been created at the pattern level for designers to manage product development process trends, making inspection events a nonevent. Some of the most popular and powerful methods are SPC and QFD, include: failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) for both the product and process domains, Genichi Taguchi's methods of parameter design (for the product and process domains) and tolerance design (for the product domain), design for assembly (DFA) and design for manufacturing (DFM), which improve the mapping from the product to the process domain, and system engineering, value analysis (VA) and value engineering (VE) in the functional domain.

The transition from event thinking to pattern thinking is the transition from find and fix to prevent. In the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong.” So then why not do it right the first time? The payoff in warranty savings, customer satisfaction and productivity more than offset the relatively modest investment in longer-term thinking.

The transition from event thinking to pattern thinking is also the transition from Six Sigma to Design for Six Sigma (DFSS). Companies that rely on event thinking and utilize Six Sigma realize that about 80% of the problems they are fixing (and the money they are saving) are determined by design. DFSS is a rigorous approach to designing products and services from the very beginning to ensure that they meet customer expectations. DFSS is an integration of all the prevent quality tools across the pattern level domains. Use of DFSS results in sigma levels between 5 and 6. Further improvement requires implementation of structural thinking tools. The role of DFSS is to build quality into the design by implementing prevent thinking and tools in the product development process. DFSS is, in fact, an integration of prevent methods at the pattern level across all four domains.

The cost of holding a bearing in stock for a year is Rs. 2 and the set-up cost of a production run is Rs. 180. How frequently should production run be made?

2011-06-21T03:11:00.001-07:00

A contractor has to supply 10,000 bearings per day to an automobile manufacturer. When he started production runs, he can produce 25,000 bearings per day. The cost of holding a bearing in stock for a year is Rs. 2 and the set-up cost of a production run is Rs. 180. How frequently should production run be made?

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What is approximate probability that the job as per critical path will be completed in 24 days?

2011-06-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

The following table lists the jobs of a network along with their time estimates.

Activity T0 (Days) TM (Days) TP (Days)
1 - 2 1 3 5
1 - 3 2 5 6
2 – 4 4 6 7
2 - 5 8 10 12
3 - 5 0 0 0
3 - 6 4 8 9
4 - 7 5 7 14
5 - 7 7 10 16
6 - 7 0 0 0
6 - 8 6 9 12
7 - 9 1 3 7
8 - 9 3 5 7

i) Draw the project network
ii) Calculate the length and variance of the critical path.
iii) What is approximate probability that the job as per critical path will be completed in 24 days?

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Find the sequence that will minimize total completion time.

2011-06-21T03:05:00.000-07:00

Seven jobs are to be processed on two machines; each job must follow the same sequence beginning with machine A and moving to machine B. The processing time in hours is as follows:

Job 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Machine A 10 12 13 7 14 5 16
Machine B 15 11 8 9 6 7 16

i) Find the sequence that will minimize total completion time.
ii) Construct a chart of the resulting sequence and find machine B’s idle time.

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Calculate the following: i) Standard time per piece of a job whose normal time is 5 minutes. ii) Number of pieces to be produced per day. iii) Efficiency of worker, for 190 jobs, he produced in a shift.

2011-06-21T02:49:00.000-07:00

A worker in a manufacturing industry is expected to work for a minimum of 400 minutes, in an 8-hour shift. The remaining 80 minutes is meant for his personal and rest needs. Calculate the following:
i) Standard time per piece of a job whose normal time is 5 minutes.
ii) Number of pieces to be produced per day.
iii) Efficiency of worker, for 190 jobs, he produced in a shift.

Solution.

(i) Standard time per price of job = 5 x (480/400) = 6 minutes

(ii) Number of pieces to be produced per day = 480/6 = 80 piece of job or 400/5 = 80 piece

(iii) Efficiency of worker
= (190/80) x 100
= 237.50 %

Explain different types of maintenance giving suitable example. Suggest an organisation structure for the maintenance department of a medium- sized company.

2011-06-21T02:48:00.000-07:00

Explain different types of maintenance giving suitable example. Suggest an organisation structure for the maintenance department of a medium- sized company.

Answer. The different types of maintenance are listed below:

1. Planned Maintenance improves uptime and quality of output and reduces repair maintenance costs through the continuous quality improvement of equipment operation.
Planned Maintenance provides guidelines for a total system of activities in which all employees work to improve the quality of product output, increase production uptime, reduce costs of operations and reduce the amount and complexity of machinery required. It includes scheduled and unscheduled maintenance programs with strategies for responding to machinery and equipment failures. Planned maintenance includes two main activities:
a) Preventive maintenance is a schedule of planned maintenance actions aimed at the prevention of breakdowns and failures. The primary goal of preventive maintenance is to prevent the failure of equipment before it actually occurs. It is designed to preserve and enhance equipment reliability by replacing worn components before they actually fail. Preventive maintenance activities include equipment checks, partial or complete overhauls at specified periods, oil changes, lubrication and so on. In addition, workers can record equipment deterioration so they know to replace or repair worn parts before they cause system failure. Recent technological advances in tools for inspection and diagnosis have enabled even more accurate and effective equipment maintenance. The ideal preventive maintenance program would prevent all equipment failure before it occurs.
b) Corrective Maintenance: Corrective maintenance consists of the action(s) taken to restore a failed system to operational status. This usually involves replacing or repairing the component that is responsible for the failure of the overall system. Corrective maintenance is performed at unpredictable intervals because a component's failure time is not known a priori. The objective of corrective maintenance is to restore the system to satisfactory operation within the shortest possible time. Corrective maintenance is typically carried out in three steps:
• Diagnosis of the problem. The maintenance technician must take time to locate the failed parts or otherwise satisfactorily assess the cause of the system failure.
• Repair and/or replacement of faulty component(s). Once the cause of system failure has been determined, action must be taken to address the cause, usually by replacing or repairing the components that caused the system to fail.
• Verification of the repair action. Once the components in question have been repaired or replaced, the maintenance technician must verify that the system is again successfully operating.

2. Routine Maintenance: Routine maintenance is such activities as cleaning, dusting, lubricating, checkup of important parts such as battery. These activities are to be performed on a daily or weekly basis. Some of these form part of scheduled maintenance. Routine maintenance, normally does not involve any replacement of parts.

3. Scheduled Maintenance: Scheduled maintenance is a maintenance activity undertaken on equipments as per a plan of action, which gives the sequence in which various jobs would be attended. The schedule gives the calendar day and time at which a particular job is undertaken.

A maintenance schedule is prepared for a week. As the job content of maintenance activity is variable, the schedule for the next day is usually firmed up at the end of each day. The scheduled maintenance activities may be preventive or break down in nature. The maintenance schedule is prepared based on certain rules such as:
• First come first served
• Emergency priority job first
• Shortest competition time job first.
• Longest competition time job first
• Random

4. Predictive Maintenance: Predictive maintenance allows plant management to control the machinery and maintenance programs rather than vice versa. In a plant using predictive maintenance, the overall machinery condition at any time is known, and much more accurate planning is possible.

Predictive maintenance utilizes many different disciplines, by far the most important of which is periodic vibration analysis. It has been shown many times over that of all the non-destructive testing that can be done on a machine, the vibration signature provides the most information about its inner workings.

Certain machines, which would affect plant operations adversely if they were to fail, can be subjected to continuous vibration monitoring, in which an alarm is sounded if the vibration level exceeds a predetermined value. In this way, rapidly progressing faults are prevented from causing catastrophic failures. Most modern turbine-driven equipment is monitored in this way.

Oil analysis and wear particle analysis are important parts of modern predictive programs, especially in critical or very expensive equipment. Thermography is the measurement of surface temperature by infrared detection, and is very useful in detecting problems in electrical switchgear and other areas where access is difficult.

Motor current signature analysis is another technique that is very useful in detecting cracked or broken rotor bars while the motor is in operation, and electrical surge testing of motor stators is used for detecting incipient electrical insulation failure.

Example: Toyota Motor Corp. is no different than any other company. Like the rest, the automaker wants maximum uptime at the least cost possible. But it differs from many manufacturers in that it has an aggressive program aimed at cutting costs by tens of percentage points. And intelligent predictive maintenance is an important element of its strategy for doing so.

Toyota management proved the value of investing in maintenance on a machining line in Japan a few years ago. A team of engineers, technicians and operators there was able to cut downtime due to maintenance problems in half by applying the fundamentals of predictive maintenance. The machining line had been running at about 82 percent of the time that it was supposed to operate. About 12 percent of the downtime was due to maintenance problems.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
The Maintenance Department can be organized by trade classifications. This allows the two supervisors to provide technical assistance based on their specialized qualifications to their staff as well as develop and manage capital improvement projects in their areas of expertise. The individual technicians are either assigned regional area responsibilities or specific tasks such as emergency response or planned maintenance.

State those various evaluating criteria and discuss them by assuming suitable data to support your answer.

2011-06-21T02:35:00.000-07:00

Various factors are considered for site selection of an industrial plant and the evaluation of these factors is essential. Depending on the type of industry to be installed, different evaluating criteria were evolved. State those various evaluating criteria and discuss them by assuming suitable data to support your answer.

Answer. Facility location is the process of determining a geographic site for a firm’s operations. Managers of both service and manufacturing organizations must weigh many factors when assessing the desirability of a particular site, including proximity to customers and suppliers, labour costs, and transportation costs.

Location factors can be divided into two categories:
• Dominant factors
• Secondary factors

Dominant factors in manufacturing
Favorable labor climate: A favorable labor climate may be the most important factor in location decisions for labour-intensive firms in industries such as textiles, furniture, and consumer electronics. Labour climate includes wage rates, training requirements, attitudes toward work, worker productivity, and union strength. Many executives consider weak unions or al low probability of union organizing efforts as a distinct advantage.

Proximity to markets: After determining where the demand for goods and services is greatest, management must select a location for the facility that will supply that demand. Locating near markets is particularly important when the final goods are bulky or heavy and outbound transportation rates are high. For example, manufacturers of products such as plastic pipe and heavy metals all emphasize proximity to their markets.

Quality of life: Good schools, recreational facilities, cultural events, and an attractive lifestyle contribute to quality of life. This factor is relatively unimportant on its own, but it can make the difference in location decisions.

Proximity to suppliers and resources: In many companies, plants supply parts to other facilities or rely on other facilities for management and staff support. These require frequent coordination and communication, which can become more difficult as distance increases.

Utilities, taxes, and real estate costs: Other important factors that may emerge include utility costs (telephone, energy, and water), local and state taxes, financing incentives offered by local or state governments, relocation costs, and land costs.

Other factors: There are some other factors needed to be considered, including room for expansion, construction costs, accessibility to multiple modes of transportation, the cost of shuffling people and materials between plants, competition from other firms for the workforce, community attitudes, and many others. For global operations, firms are emphasizing local employee skills and education and the local infrastructure.

Location Factors
Materials, markets and transportation: Factories which produce products for different markets usually are threatened by transportation costs. These costs include procurement costs, i.e. the costs considered for bringing raw materials or semi products to the company. On the other hand the finished products needs to be distributed to the markets, which incurs distribution costs. Therefore locations near inputs lower procurement costs and locations near markets lower distribution costs. Transportation costs comprise direct freight charges, while transfer costs refer to both direct costs and indirect costs such as insurance costs and losses resulting from damage in transit. Basically transportation costs are determined by physical characteristics like value of product and quantity of goods on the one hand and are determined also by freight rates on the other hand. Consequently, average transport costs decline significantly with distance.

Labor: Labor costs comprise wages and non-wage benefits, like contributions to medical plans, vacation time and pay, and pension schemes. Labor costs vary by industry, country, region, unionized and non-unionized sectors. In a country with high taxes and wages you usually will find sophisticated infrastructure and educational system and therefore skilled workers. By focusing on China, India and the US we can recognize how low wages do not necessarily mean high competitiveness and high living standards. The main figure which determines competitiveness is productivity.

External economies of scale: External economies of scale can be described as urbanization and locational economies of scale. It refers to advantages of a company by setting up operations in a large city while the second one refers to the “settling down” among other companies of related Industries. In the case of urbanization economies, firms derive from locating in larger cities rather than in smaller ones in a search of having access to a large pool of labor, transport facilities, and as well to increase their markets for selling their products and have access to a much wider range of business services.

Energy: Energy sources were a significant factor of location before the Industrial Revolutions. Companies needed access to water energy, electricity for their operations. Now electricity and other energy sources like oil can be transformed and shipped very easily and cheaply and therefore Energy as being a main factor of location has decreased in its meaning.

Community infrastructure and amenity: All manufacturing activities require access to a community infrastructure, most notably economic overhead capital, such as roads, railways, port facilities, power lines and service facilities and social overhead capital like schools, universities and hospitals. These factors are also needed to be considered by location decisions as infrastructure is enormously expensive to build and for most manufacturing activities the existing stock of infrastructure provides physical restrictions on location possibilities.

Capital: By looking at capital as a location condition, it is important to distinguish the physiology of fixed capital in buildings and equipment from financial capital. Fixed capital costs as building and construction costs vary from region to region. But on the other hand buildings can also be rented and existing plants can be expanded. Financial capital is highly mobile and does not very much influence decisions. For example, large Multinational Corporations such as Coca-Cola operate in many different countries and can raise capital where interest rates are lowest and conditions are most suitable. Capital becomes a main factor when it comes to venture capital. In that case young, fast growing (or not) high tech firms are concerned which usually have not many fixed assets. These firms particularly need access to financial capital and also skilled educated employees (i.e. Silicon Valley).

Example: Global Facility Location at DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) is a large computer manufacturer based in the United States. More than half of its revenues comes from over 80 countries outside the United States, principally Europe. DEC has operated over 30 plants in more than a dozen countries.
In deciding on the international locations of new manufacturing plants and distribution centers, DEC considers a number of factors:
• Location of customers and suppliers
• Location and availability of inexpensive skilled labour
• Length of material pipeline in distance in distance and time
• Transit time and cost of various transportation modes
• Cost of materials in different nations
• Significance and location of tax havens (taxfree trade zones)
• Offset trade (value of goods and services purchased in a country to balance the sale of products in that country)
• Local content targets (percentage of components, by value, for a product)
• Export regulations, duty rates, and drawback policies

Based on these factors, DEC uses a linear programmingbased approach to develop 18 month and fiveyear plans for facility locations, capacity plans, and sourcing strategies around the world.

Discuss the role of the operations manager in today’s context. Do you agree that operations management is a multi-disciplinary function? Discuss.

2011-06-21T02:34:00.000-07:00

Discuss the role of the operations manager in today’s context. Do you agree that operations management is a multi-disciplinary function? Discuss.

Answer. Operations managers are required to take a series of decisions in the production function. Some functions of production manager are listed below:

• New product research and development -- Operations managers are involved in decisions about the logistics of producing the new product, the costs, the skills necessary, the equipment, and the staff training to make it happen.
• Manufacturing and production -- It is here that operations managers will often have the most impact (depending on the type of business). Manufacturing and production processes need constant review and continuous improvement.
• Supply Chain -- Purchasing prices and levels, as well as, storage of raw materials, inventory, and other product components is part of the job of the operations manager. From an operations standpoint, these are all processes that must be reviewed frequently and improved.
• Quality Management -- Tying back once again to customer satisfaction is the level of quality that must be maintained in both the product produced and the environment in which it is produced. (i.e. Happy workers produce better products.) Operations plays a big part in analyzing and improving quality in every facet of the business.
• Sales and Marketing -- Market research and feedback from customers is critical to creating successful marketing programs, as well as for development of new products. By working with marketing, operations can help the company better fulfill customer needs.
• Finance -- Budget information is important for every department of the company. The operations manager may need to be able to provide costs for each phase of the operation in order to prepare proper budgets and forecast accurate profit/loss information. Replacement and repair of capital equipment is also an issue here.
• Human Resources -- Identifying the optimum number of employees for each department, as well as the overall organization of staff and reporting structures can also be part of the operations manager's role.
• Facility Management -- Environmental regulations, waste removal (or elimination of waste from processes), site locations, and employee safety and health are all issues the operations manager may be involved in.

Example Case: Operations manager function at Reprise Media
Reprise Media is a full-service Search Engine Marketing agency headquartered in downtown New York City. The company combines cutting edge search marketing techniques with proven tools and processes, all focused on a singular goal: Building our clients' businesses.

Role: The Operations Manager will help coordinate, traffic and implement Search Engine Marketing campaigns across a variety of search engines and web portals. Candidate will work with cross-functional teams and be expected to handle mid-to-high level accounts. The Operations Manager will oversee the launch process and streamline communication between each department. By working directly with in-house and 3rd party technologies, the Operations department is at the core of the Reprise Media team.

Responsibilities
Production
• Develop a strong rapport with search engine account teams and technology vendors
• Maintain daily contact with vendor-side production managers to implement campaign changes
• Trafficking and quality-assurance of new campaigns
• Create and implement campaign tracking tags
• Reconciliation of vendor invoices, to ensure billing accuracy

Cross-Departmental Contact
• Daily interaction with and support for Media and Client Services teams
• Assist in development and execution of testing across campaign variables
• Troubleshoot potential operational issues throughout campaign cycle
• Develop and implement operational processes to improve workflow between the Operations, Client Services and Media divisions.

Reporting and Analysis
• Generation and assembly of weekly reports
• Assist Media team with ongoing optimization to improve campaign performance
• Support Client Services team with weekly updates on status of all campaigns

Operations management is a multi-disciplinary field that focuses on managing all aspects of an organization's operations. The typical organization consists of the integration of many different functions. The two most obvious functions are to provide the product or service and to sell the product or service. Operations management focuses on the function of providing the product or service. It is concerned with the planning and controlling of all activities necessary for the provision of the firm's product or service. Aspects of operations management, then, include products or services to emphasize; facility size and location with respect to customers and suppliers; marketing strategies to attract clients/custmers; techniques and equipment to use to make the goods or to provide the services; work force management and training; and measurements of quality assurance. Operations managers apply ideas and technologies to increase productivity and reduce costs, improve flexibility to meet rapidly changing customer needs, enhance product quality, and improve customer service.

Determine each alternative’s break-even point in unit

2011-06-21T02:28:00.000-07:00

A small firm intends to increase the capacity of a bottleneck operation by adding a new machine. Two, alternatives, A and B have been identified and the associated costs and revenues have been estimated. Annual fixed costs, would be Rs. 84,00,000 for A and Rs. 60,00,000 for B ; variable costs per unit would be Rs. 120 for A and Rs. 150 for B; and revenue per unit would be Rs. 180 for A and Rs. 200 for B.
i) Determine each alternative’s break-even point in unit
ii) At what volume of output would the two alternatives yield the same profit?
iii) If expected annual demand is 300000 units, which alternative would yield the higher profit?

Solution.

(i) Break even point = fixed cost/contribution per unit
Alternative:
A= 8400000 / (180 - 120) = 140000 units
B= 6000000 / (200 - 150) = 120000 units

(ii) Let the level at which the two alternative yield same profit is ‘X’

Profit:
A = X * 60 - 84,00,000
B = X * 50 - 60,00,000
60X - 84,00,000 = 50X - 60,00,000
10X = 24,00,000
X = 24,00,000/10
X = 2,40,000 units

(iii) Profit when demand is 3,00,000 units

A = 3,00,000 x 60 - 84,00,000 = 96,00,000
B = 3,00,000 x 50 - 60,00,000 = 90,00,000

A yields higher profit

What are the factors considered to decide the effective capacity of a plant? Give some examples.

2011-06-21T02:26:00.000-07:00

What are the factors considered to decide the effective capacity of a plant? Give some examples.
Answer. Capacity planning is the process of adjusting the capacity of an organization to do work in response to changing or predicted demands.

In the context of capacity planning, capacity is taken to mean the amount work that an organization is capable of completing in a given period of time. In a simple model, it might be calculated as (number of machines and/or workers) x (number of shifts) x (utilization) x (efficiency).

The demand for work of organization experiences will vary under many circumstances. Notable events that might cause the demand for work to vary greatly include starting a new organization, extending the operations of an existing business, considering additions or modifications to product lines, and introducing new techniques, equipment and materials.

Discrepancy between capacity of an organization and the demands of its customers results in an inefficiency, either in under-utilized resources or unfulfilled customers. The goal of capacity planning is to therefore minimize this discrepancy.

The broad classes of capacity planning are lead strategy, lag strategy, and match strategy.
• The lead capacity strategy is adding capacity in anticipation of an increase in demand. Lead strategy is an aggressive strategy with the goal of luring customers away from the company’s competitors. The possible disadvantage to this strategy is that it often results in excess inventory, which is costly and often wasteful.
• Lag strategy refers to adding capacity only after the company is running at full capacity or beyond due to increase in demand. This is a more conservative strategy that decreases the risk of waste but may result in the loss of possible customers.
• The match strategy (also known as the tracking strategy) is adding capacity in small amounts in response to changing demand in the market. This is a more moderate strategy.

EFFECTIVE CAPACITY OF A PLANT
Ultimately, the output from a production facility or system is not determined simply by the physical size of the facility, the sizes or types of machines, or the number of employees working. Production capacity, especially effective capacity, is affected by the design of the products and processes, the training of employees, the management of quality, and many other factors. The most important factors affecting effective production capacity are:
1. Process design. In multistage production processes the maximum rate of output that can be achieved is governed by the slowest lowest capacity stage.
2. Product design. With exactly the same personnel and equipment, the capacity for making a product that is well designed for production will be greater than for a poorly designed one.
3. Product variety. The fewer types of products made by a production unit and the more similar they are, the more specialized equipment and jobs can be, and the less time lost on product changeovers and machine set-ups.
4. Product quality. The way products are made, tested, and inspected will affect the rate at which products of acceptable quality can be produced.
5. Production scheduling. Scheduling that keeps product flows well balanced and synchronized and unproductive time minimized will utilize machines and personnel better and result in greater effective capacity.
6. Materials management. Shortages of materials can cause work stoppages, while excess inventories can cause congestion and wasted time searching for materials.
7. Maintenance. Equipment breakdowns and defects due to machine wear are two majors sources of lost production.
8. Job design and personnel management. The amount of output a production system actually produces is greatly determined by the personnel operating the system. Inadequate training, poor job design, overwork, and absenteeism all lead to lost production.

Examples - The agony of too much – and too little – capacity
Carnival Cruise Line has a fleet of cruise ships that ply the waters off Florida. The capacity of these ships is huge. The Destiny is its largest, which displaces 1,00,000 tons and can carry over 3,100 passengers. But Carnival has been sailing in choppy seas during the last year, plagued by three onboard fires and technical problems. The most pressing problem, however, is the glut of new ships being added throughout the industry. Carnival alone is bringing in a cadre of 15 new amenity-filled ships, boosting its fleet to 61. With other cruise lines also adding to their fleets, the number of available beds jumped by 12 percent in 2000. But historically, passenger volume has grown at only about 8 percent annually. Carnival argues that with the baby boomers now approaching their peak cruise-vacation years, the industry has lots of room to grow beyond the 6.5 million people who will book a cruise this year. “What is important to us is that we are building over the next five years $6.5 billion worth of new ships”, says COO Frank. “We are going to continue
to grow our business, and we are going to grow it profitably”. Not everyone is convinced. Some experts worry about the over-capacity issue and Carnival’s decreasing return on investment. For now, Carnival is filling its berths by slashing prices. After years of rising prices in this industry, the capacity glut is causing the steep discounts. For a seven-day cruise, the cheapest fare has dropped from $599 to $549, and discounted tickets have gone as low as $359. Carnival is also adding a variety of shorter and cheaper voyages as a way to expand the market, because high utilization is a key to success when its resources are so capital-intensive.

The aircraft industry experienced the opposite problem in the late 1980s – not enough capacity. The world’s airlines re-equipped their fleets to carry more passengers on existing planes and vie to buy a record number of new commercial passenger jets. Orders received by Boeing, Airbus, and McDonnell Douglas surged to more than 2,600 planes. McDonnell Douglas alone had a backlog of some $18 billion in firm orders for its MD-80 and new MD-11 wide body – enough to keep its plant fully utilized for more than three years. Despite the number of orders, Douglas’s commercial aircraft division announced a startling loss; Airbus struggled to make money, and even mighty Boeing fought to improve sub par margins. Capacity shortage caused many problems for McDonnell Douglas: Its suppliers were unable to keep pace, its doubled workforce was inexperienced and less productive, and considerable work had to be subcontracted to other plants. The result was that costs skyrocketed and profits plummeted. In 1997, Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas.

If 850 pallet loads must be moved during each 8- hour shift, how many lift trucks are required?

2011-06-21T02:23:00.000-07:00

Northwest product company uses forklift trucks to transport lumber from the mill to a storage warehouse 0.5 km away. The lift trucks can move three loaded pallets per trip and travel at an average speed of 8 km per hour (allowing for loading, delays and travel). If 850 pallet loads must be moved during each 8- hour shift, how many lift trucks are required?

Solution.
Time taken by truck to move to storage = (60 minutes/8) x 0.5 = 3.75 minutes

Number of pallets moved in a truck per day =

8*60*3 / 3.75 = 384

Number of trucks required = 850/384 = 2.21

Three lift trucks are required.

Define FMS. What is the general field of FMS application? Is the field of FMS application significant in terms of the potential market size for its capability? State with reference to any production unit.

2011-06-21T02:21:00.000-07:00

Define FMS. What is the general field of FMS application? Is the field of FMS application significant in terms of the potential market size for its capability? State with reference to any production unit.

Answer. A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a manufacturing system in which there is some amount of flexibility which allows the system to react in the case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted. This flexibility is generally considered to fall into two categories, within which are numerous other subcategories.

A Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) consists of several machine tools along with part and tool handling devices such as robots, arranged so that it can handle any family of parts for which it has been designed and developed.

While variations abound in what specifically constitutes flexibility, there is a general consensus about the core elements. There are three levels of manufacturing flexibility.

(a) Basic flexibilities
• Machine flexibility - the ease with which a machine can process various operations
• Material handling flexibility - a measure of the ease with which different part types can be transported and properly positioned at the various machine tools in a system
• Operation flexibility - a measure of the ease with which alternative operation sequences can be used for processing a part type

(b) System flexibilities
• Volume flexibility - a measure of a system’s capability to be operated profitably at different volumes of the existing part types
• Expansion flexibility - the ability to build a system and expand it incrementally
• Routing flexibility - a measure of the alternative paths that a part can effectively follow through a system for a given process plan
• Process flexibility - a measure of the volume of the set of part types that a system can produce without incurring any setup
• Product flexibility - the volume of the set of part types that can be manufactured in a system with minor setup

(c) Aggregate flexibilities
• Program flexibility - the ability of a system to run for reasonably long periods without external intervention
• Production flexibility - the volume of the set of part types that a system can produce without major investment in capital equipment
• Market flexibility - the ability of a system to efficiently adapt to changing market conditions

Different FMSs levels are
• Flexible Manufacturing Module (FMM). Example : a NC machine, a pallet changer and a part buffer;
• Flexible Manufacturing (Assembly) Cell (F(M/A)C). Example : Four FMMs and an AGV(automated guided vehicle);
• Flexible Manufacturing Group (FMG). Example : Two FMCs, a FMM and two AGVs which will transport parts from a Part Loading area, through machines, to a Part Unloading Area;
• Flexible Production Systems (FPS). Example : A FMG and a FAC, two AGVs, an Automated Tool Storage, and an Automated Part/assembly Storage;
• Flexible Manufacturing Line (FML). Example : multiple stations in a line layout and AGVs.

FMS systems are intended to solve the following problems
• Production of families of workparts, often based on group technology
• Random launching of workparts into system is OK, because setup time is reduced with FMS.
• Reduced manufacturing lead time - this is possible because FMS has organization, and fast setup.
• Reduced work in process
• Increased machine utilization
• Reduced direct and indirect labor
• Better management control

The most common problems in an FMS are:
• Scheduled maintenance
• Scheduled tool changeovers
• Tooling problems (failures and adjustments)
• Electrical Failures
• Mechanical Problems (e.g., oil leaks)

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF FMSS IMPLEMENTATION

Advantages
• Faster, lower- cost changes from one part to another which will improve capital utilization
• Lower direct labor cost, due to the reduction in number of workers
• Reduced inventory, due to the planning and programming precision
• Consistent and better quality, due to the automated control
• Lower cost/unit of output, due to the greater productivity using the same number of workers
• Savings from the indirect labor, from reduced errors, rework, repairs and rejects

Disadvantages
• Limited ability to adapt to changes in product or product mix (ex. machines are of limited capacity and the tooling necessary for products, even of the same family, is not always feasible in a given FMS)
• Substantial pre-planning activity
• Expensive, costing millions of dollars
• Technological problems of exact component positioning and precise timing necessary to process a component
• Sophisticated manufacturing systems

Assuming that replacement rate is instantaneous determine the optimum order quantity.

2009-06-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

The demand for an item is 18000 units per year. The holding cost is Rs. 1.20 per unit time and the cost of storage is Rs. 5.00. The production cost is Rs. 400.00 assuming that replacement rate is instantaneous determine the optimum order quantity.

Solution:
Annual Demand = 18000 Units
Holding cost = Rs 1.20 per unit
Storage cost = Rs 5 per unit
Total Storage cost = Rs 6.20 per unit
Cost of Placing an order = Rs 400

Economic Order Quality = sqrt of 2v * p/s
Where U = Annual Demand
P = Cost of Placing an order
S = Storage cost

= sqrt of 2 * 18000 * 400/6.20
= 1524 Units

What is work design? What are its constituents?

2009-06-11T06:36:00.000-07:00

What is work design? What are its constituents? Explain using a schematic diagram. What is job design? What are the behavioral aspects in job design?

Answer. Work design is concerned with the study of design of the work system in an organization or an institution. Work system design is the systematic investigation of contemplated and present work systems to formulate through the ideal system concept, the easiest and the most effective systems and methods for achieving necessary functions/goals/purpose.
Work systems involve people, machines, tools, documents, and facilities interacting in activities over time. These activities produce goods, services or scientific data. Many work systems we encounter everyday have existed over a long period of time. Improvement of such work systems is often done through business process analysis and reengineering. But managers must also design work systems de novo. One of the challenges of work system design is that work systems are often large and complex and persist over a long period of time. This makes the design process complex and non-deterministic.

EXAMPLE OF WORK SYSTEM DESIGN
Victoria is the name of a proposed long-term semiautonomous robotic mission to the South Pole region of the Moon. The primary mission objective of Victoria is to verify the presence of water ice and other volatiles within permanently shadowed regions on the Moon. This will be accomplished by gathering the necessary lunar data for analyzing the history of water and other volatiles on the Moon, and by implication in the inner solar system. The Victoria team has decided to use a high-speed semi-autonomous rover. One of the biggest constraints in any robotic mission is power consumption of the robot. In every activity the rover uses energy, therefore the sequence of activities for the rover is constrained by the amount of power available to complete the sequence. When the robot's batteries are low, it needs to return to a sun-exposed spot to recharge its batteries. During the Victoria mission the rover will traverse into permanently dark regions on the Moon. During these traverses the rover will use its neutron detector instrument to detect hydrogen and the Sample Acquisition and Transfer Mechanism (SATM) to drill into the lunar surface and take surface samples to be investigated using an array of science instruments. The work system design problem is to configure the mission operations so the robot's activities inside the permanent dark region are most efficient (i.e. consume the least amount of energy).

To develop a simulation of the Victoria work system, we used a collaborative modeling approach with the Victoria mission designers. First, we created informal static models of the activities of the people, robot, and artifacts, the communication and geography, in informal design meetings and modeling sessions. Next, we translated these descriptions into formal Brahms models, producing simulation results. The following figure shows the Victoria work system.

Job design is the consciously planned structuring of work effort performed by an individual or a team of persons. Various factors that must be addressed in job design can be grouped into various categories such as human factors, design factors, environmental factors, organisational factors, technical factors, behavioural factors, etc.

In design factors, one must consider the layout of equipment and seating arrangement. Ideally, the equipment design should start with the operator by laying out the areas for vision, for controls, for sitting, for leg room etc. by taking note of standard anthropometric data of men and women, as the case may be. Job design should consider whether the job is to be done standing or sitting or in both the ways. It is the requirements of good seating that the person while sitting should be able to maintain a good posture which will not cause overstrain of any particular group of muscles.

Environmental factors in general affect the job design significantly. For instance, if the temperature level is high one need frequent intervals of rest in between a particular job. On the contrary, if the temperature level is low, fatigue is less and human endurance to do a particular job continuously increases and thus number of intervals required for rest is reduced. Similar is the case with humidity. High level of humidity causes sweating and demands frequent intervals for rest. Hence in such situations of heat and humidity, work requires air conditioning and proper ventilation. When it is not possible, workman should be removed from the environment at appropriate times to allow him/her to cool off.

BEHAVIORAL ASPECTS IN JOB DESIGN
Traditionally jobs were designed to minimize immediate cost and maximize immediate productivity. But not behavioural factors also play a major role in job design.

Jobs are set of tasks, each task being associated with as set of stimuli-auditory, visual and or tactile. A job consisting of varied tasks provides varied stimuli; a job with routine repetitive tasks usually provides few stimuli.

Job Rotation: Job rotation moves employees from one task to another. It distributes the group tasks among a number of employees. On the positive side, it may said that job rotation is likely to increase intrinsic reward potential of a job because different skills and abilities needed to perform. On the negative side, it may stated that job rotation may not have much impact on employee enthusiasm and efficiency.

Job Enlargement: If jobs become too specialized, workers perceive their job to be monotonous and this leads to dissatisfaction. Job enlargement changes the jobs to include more and/or different tasks. Job enlargement should add interest to the work but may or may not give employees more responsibility. Job enlargement is opposite to work simplification. Job enlargement is said to contribute to employee motivation.

Job Enrichment: Job enrichment is the process redesigning work content to make the job more meaningful and enjoyable by involving employees in planning, organizing and controlling their work. Job enrichment allows employees to assume more responsibility, accountability, and independence when learning new tasks or to allow for greater participation and new opportunities.

Prepare a REL chart for the different departments of a typical hospital.

2009-06-11T06:32:00.001-07:00

How can the relationships of different departments be considered in preparing a layout? Prepare a REL chart for the different departments of a typical hospital.

A layout is a physical configuration of departments, work stations, and equipment in the conversion process. It is a spatial arrangement of physical resources used to create the product. The following chart shows an REL chart.

An REL chart indicates the relationship between different departments which is required to be considered in preparing a layout plain. The physical closeness of location of two different departments depends on the activities carried out by the departments and their activities being inter dependent.

How the relationship of different departments are to be considered in preparing layout:
Several commonly used approaches for facility layout design include:
(i) Distance minimization layout procedure
(ii) Interdependent activities of different departments
(iii) Computer software systems
(iv) Line balancing procedures
(v) Performance ratios

Hospitals are the most complex of building types. Each hospital is comprised of a wide range of services and functional units. These include diagnostic and treatment functions, such as clinical laboratories, imaging, emergency rooms, and surgery; hospitality functions, such as food service and housekeeping; and the fundamental inpatient care or bed-related function. This diversity is reflected in the breadth and specificity of regulations, codes, and oversight that govern hospital construction and operations. Each of the wide-ranging and constantly evolving functions of a hospital, including highly complicated mechanical, electrical, and telecommunications systems, requires specialized knowledge and expertise. No one person can reasonably have complete knowledge, which is why specialized consultants play an important role in hospital planning and design. The functional units within the hospital can have competing needs and priorities. Idealized scenarios and strongly-held individual preferences must be balanced against mandatory requirements, actual functional needs (internal traffic and relationship to other departments), and the financial status of the organization.
In addition to the wide range of services that must be accommodated, hospitals must serve and support many different users and stakeholders. Ideally, the design process incorporates direct input from the owner and from key hospital staff early on in the process. The designer also has to be an advocate for the patients, visitors, support staff, volunteers, and suppliers who do not generally have direct input into the design. Good hospital design integrates functional requirements with the human needs of its varied users.
The basic form of a hospital is, ideally, based on its functions:
• bed-related inpatient functions
• outpatient-related functions
• diagnostic and treatment functions
• administrative functions
• service functions (food, supply)
• research and teaching functions

Physical relationships between these functions determine the configuration of the hospital. Certain relationships between the various functions are required—as in the following flow diagrams.

These flow diagrams show the movement and communication of people, materials, and waste. Thus the physical configuration of a hospital and its transportation and logistic systems are inextricably intertwined. The transportation systems are influenced by the building configuration, and the configuration is heavily dependent on the transportation systems. The hospital configuration is also influenced by site restraints and opportunities, climate, surrounding facilities, budget, and available technology. New alternatives are generated by new medical needs and new technology.

In a large hospital, the form of the typical nursing unit, since it may be repeated many times, is a principal element of the overall configuration. Nursing units today tend to be more compact shapes than the elongated rectangles of the past. Compact rectangles, modified triangles, or even circles have been used in an attempt to shorten the distance between the nurse station and the patient's bed. The chosen solution is heavily dependent on program issues such as organization of the nursing program, number of beds to a nursing unit, and number of beds to a patient room.

An efficient hospital layout should:
• Promote staff efficiency by minimizing distance of necessary travel between frequently used spaces
• Allow easy visual supervision of patients by limited staff
• Include all needed spaces, but no redundant ones. This requires careful pre-design programming.
• Provide an efficient logistics system, which might include elevators, pneumatic tubes, box conveyors, manual or automated carts, and gravity or pneumatic chutes, for the efficient handling of food and clean supplies and the removal of waste, recyclables, and soiled material
• Make efficient use of space by locating support spaces so that they may be shared by adjacent functional areas, and by making prudent use of multi-purpose spaces
• Consolidate outpatient functions for more efficient operation—on first floor, if possible—for direct access by outpatients
• Group or combine functional areas with similar system requirements
• Provide optimal functional adjacencies, such as locating the surgical intensive care unit adjacent to the operating suite. These adjacencies should be based on a detailed functional program which describes the hospital's intended operations from the standpoint of patients, staff, and supplies.

Prepare a short working paper outlining your suggestions to improve the systems operations.

2009-06-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

Consider the following situation:
You have been asked to look into the operations of a company, which is in business of repairing and overhauling automobiles. Current practices have led to an extreme amount of customer dissatisfaction due to very high waiting time, discourteous behavior of work force with the clients, poor quality of workmanship and high cost of repairing automobiles. As a result the customers have started getting their services elsewhere. The owner is very keen to improve the situation but he finds that his people are not motivated by a spirit of service basically because of poor wages and indifferent supervision. This operation is located in an environmentally alert community and they have been complaining to local municipal authorities that the nasty way in which operations are handled and waste water disposed off, is causing lot of inconvenience in the locality. The owner-manager wants your help in improving the effectiveness of systems operations.
How will you analyze the situation? What further information you would need? Prepare a short working paper outlining your suggestions to improve the systems operations.

The company is in a very bad shape. The given situation shows the following problems:
1) Poor job structuring.
2) High amount of waiting time.
3) Discourteous behaviors of work force with clients.
4) Poor quality of workmanship.
5) High cost of repairing automobiles.
6) Low level of motivation among staff
7) Poor wages
8) Bad leadership
9) Employee behavioural problems.
10) Power and politics related problems in the company
11) Improper rewards and incentives schemes
12) Low level of customer satisfaction.
13) Low level of customer support services.
14) Regular complaints about nasty way of operation and wastewater disposal.

Future information required is:
1) Causes of low customer satisfaction.
2) Causes of high Waiting time.
3) Causes of poor quality of workmanship.
4) Cause of high cost of repairing automobiles.
5) Data about cost of pollution control equipments, its usage, nature and life.
6) Cost and benefits of capital equipment to reduce cost of repairing automobiles.
7) Cases of discourteous behavior with clients.
8) More information about the leadership style in the company.
9) Causes of low level of motivation among employees.
10) More information about work structuring.

Suggestions
Employees are of both strategic and tactical importance Employees are of strategically importance because they directly affect product costs, product quality, customer satisfaction, and the successful implementation of such strategic initiatives as installing high tech production systems, JIT, and TQM. So to improve organization’s conditions employee support is a must. The following are required:
• Improve employees working conditions.
• Supervisor-subordinate relationship improvement techniques.
• Job restructuring and work restructuring should be done.
• Employees should be motivated.
• Proper reward and incentive schemes should be implemented.
• To attain significant improvements labour productivity, quality must be improve. The worker must be provided with the latest tools, machines, and production technology.
• Installation of proper pollution control equipment and proper wastewater disposal or recycle plant to reduce the Community Complaints.
• Removal of discourteous staff from the concern and engagement of high qualified, courteous and polite staff.
• Increment of motivation among the staff by using any of the following methods: Promotion plans, Increment in salary, Hygienic environment, Better Working conditions, pension plans, career development, etc.
• Employment of high quality staff, even at high cost, to increase the quality of workmanship.
• Installation of suitable capital equipment to reduce the cost of repairing automobiles as well as to reduce the amount of waiting time so that processing work can be speeded up.
• Taking customer feed back.
• Lowering the waiting time of customers.

What is FMS ? What is the general field of FMS application?

2009-06-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

What is FMS ? What is the general field of FMS application? Is the flehi of FMS application significant in terms of the potential market size for its capability? State with reference to any production unit.

An FMS is a totally automated manufacturing system that consists of machining centers with automated loading and unloading of parts, an automated guided vehicle system for moving parts between machines, and other automated elements to allow unattended production of parts. In a FMS, a comprehensive computer control system is used to run the entire system. A good example of an FMS is the Cincinnati Milacron facility in Mt. Grab, Ohio, which has been in operation for over 20 years. Exhibit SC.4 is a layout of this FMS. In this system, parts are loaded onto standardized fixtures (these are called ("risers"), which are mounted on pallets that can be moved by the AGVs. Workers load and unload tools and parts onto the standardized fixtures at the workstations. Most of this loading and unloading is done during a single shift. The system can operate virtually unattended for the other two shifts each day. Within the system there are areas for the storage of tools (area?) and for parts (areaS). This system is designed to machine large castings used in the production of the machine tools made by Cincinnati Milacron. The machining is done by the four CNC machining centers (areal). When the machining has been completed on a part, it is sent to the parts washing station (area 4) where it is cleaned. The part is then seen to the automated inspection station (area 6) for a quality check. The system is capable of producing hundreds of different parts.

Diagram exhibit SC.4.
Yes, the field of application is significant in terms of the potential market size for its capacity. The general field of applications are :
1: Although technological changes have occurred in almost every industry, many may be unique to an industry. For instance, a prestressed concrete block is a technological advance unique to the constructive industry. Major developments in the design of automobiles will result in cars that are made from recycle parts.
2: Some technological advances in recent decades have had a significant, widespread impact on manufacturing firms in many industries.
3: Hard ware technologies have generally resulted in greater automation of process; they perform labor-intensive tasks originally performed by humans, Example of these major types of hardware technologies are numerically controlled machine tools, maching centers, industrial robots, automated materials handling systems, and flexible manufacturing of systems. These are all computer- controlled devices that can be used in the manufacturing systems of products.
4: Software - based technologies aid in the design of manufacturing products and in the analysis and planning of manufacturing activities. These technologies include computer-aided design and automated manufacturing planning and control systems. And the reference to any production unit is:
Automated materials handling (AMH) system improve efficiency of transportation, storage, and retrieval of materials. Examples are computerized conveyers and automated storage and retrieval systems in which computers direct automatic loaders to pick and place items. Automated guided vehicle system use- embedded floor wires to direct driverless vehicles to various locations in the plant. Benefits of AMH systems include quicker material movement, lower inventories and storage space, reduced product damage, and higher labor productivity.

What do you understand by automated storage and retrieval ?

2009-06-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

What do you understand by automated storage and retrieval ? For what kinds of goods and in which companies in India do you think such systems would be appropriate ?

The concept of a totally automated storage and retrieval system has been inviting the attention of professionals to match the storage with the rapid developments in the technology. High-rise storage systems have been commonly used in advanced countries. Automated material handling systems are used for the unit load type storage retrieval system. But for the systems in which different quantities of different items are to be retrieved the semi-automatic kind of material handling with manual operator are used. The operator carries with him the list of items to be retrieved. By making use of pre-defined system he goes through the storeroom, stops the handling equipment at respective bin and completes the list in a picking tour. He may go aisle-by-aisle or according to items in list or by any other system. Operation Research techniques of sequencing, routing, etc., can be applied to determine the optimal locations of items and optimal locations of items and optimal route in a picking tour. Some of the systems to improve the efficiency of automated storage / retrieval systems are as follows:
i) Sequencing in an optimal way by picking stops in a single picking tour.
ii) Allowing a single operator to perform all storage and order picking operations
in an aisle.
iii) Generating a picking list based on a single customer's order,
iv) Storing items in pairs, e.g. nuts and bolts.
v) Locating items from the rack as per the structure and importance of orders.
vi) Allocating all items related to a specific facility to a single aisle.
The storage system forms the key component of any materials managements system. The efficient planning and design of the store system is very much important for the efficient and smooth operation of any plant. Due consideration should be given to the Design of the store system of both physical and information processing. The stores system closely interacts with other sub-systems and these interactions must be clearly understood and interpreted. Efforts should be 'made to incorporate the latest developments in the area of stores management so as to provide the right kind of service at the right time with adequate preservation of the items and minimum blockage of capital.

What is the major difference between aggregate planning in manufacturing and aggregate planning in services ?

2009-06-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

What is the major difference between aggregate planning in manufacturing and aggregate planning in services ?

Manufacturing planning strategies: there are essentially three production planning strategies. These strategies involve trade- offs among the workforce size, work hours, inventory and backlogs.
1 Chase strategy: Match the production rate to the order rate by hiring and laying off employees as the order rate varies. The success of this strategy depends on having a pool of easily trained applicants to draw on as order volumes increase. There are obvious motivational impacts. When order backlogs are low, employees may feel compelled to slow down out of fear of being laid off as soon as existing orders are completed.
2 Stable workforce- variable work hours. Vary the output by varying the number of hours worked through flexible work schedules or overtime. By varying the number of work hours, you can match production quantities to orders. This strategy provides workforce continuity and avoids many of the emotional and tangible costs of hiring and firing associated with the chase strategy.
3 Level strategy, Maintain a stable workforce working at a constant output rate. Shortages and surpluses are absorbed by fluctuating inventory levels, order backlogs, and lost sales. Employee's benefit from stable work hours at the costs of potentially decreased customer service levels and increased inventory costs. Another concern is the possibility of inventoried products becoming obsolete.
Relevant costs
Four costs are relevant to the aggregate production plan . These relate to the production cost itself as well as the cost to hold inventory and to have unfilled orders. More specifically, these are
1.basic production costs. These are the fixed and variable costs incurred in producing given product type in a given time period. Included are direct and indirect labour costs and regular as well as overtime compensation.
2.Costs associated with changes in the production rate. Typical costs in this category are those involved in hiring, training, and lying off personnel. Hiring temporary helped is a way of avoiding these costs. See the box titled " Paying the price" that details the impact on labor productivity of high labor turnover rates.

4 Inventory holding cost. Usually components are very hard to measure and include costs of expediting, loss of customer good will, and loss of sales revenue resulting from backordering.
Aggregate planning applied to services: Tucson parks and recreation department
Charting and graphic techniques are also useful for aggregate planning in service applications. The following example shows how a city's parks and recreation department could use the alternatives full - time employees, part - time employees, and subcontracting to meet its commitment to provide a service to the city. Tucson parks and Recreation Department has an operation and maintenance budget of$ 9,760,OOO.The department is responsible for developing and maintaining open space , all public recreational programs, adult sports leagues, golf courses , tennis courts, pools ,and so forth , there are 336 full- time equivalent employees. Of these, 216 are full - time permanent personnel who provides the administration and year- round maintenance to all areas. The remaining 120 FTE positions are stuffed with part timers; about three quarters cf them are used during the summer and the remaining quarter in the fall , winter, and spring seasons. The three- fourth show up as approximately 800 part- time summer jobs came from 90 FTEs because many last only for a month or two, while the FTEs are a year long. Currently, the only parks and recreation work subcontracted amounts to less than $ 100,OOO.This is for the golf and tennis pros and for grounds maintenance at the libraries and veterans' cemetery. Because of the nature of city employment, the probable bad public image, and civil service rules, the option to hire and fire help daily or weekly to meet seasonal demand is out of the question. However, temporary part- time help is authorized and traditional. Also, it is virtually impossible to have regular staff for all the summer jobs. During the summer months, the approximately 800 part- time employees are staffing many programs that occur simultaneously, prohibiting level scheduling over a normal 40- hour week. A wider variety of skills are required (such as umpires, coaches, lifeguards, and teachers of ceramics, guitar, karate, belly dancing, and yoga) than can be expected from full- time employees.
Three options are open to the department in its aggregate planning:
1 The present method, which is to maintain a medium- level full- time staff schedule work during off-seasons (such as rebuilding base ball fields during the winter months) and to m use part-time help during peak demands.
2 Maintain a lower level of staff over the year and subcontract all additional work presently done by full - time staff ( still using part-time help ).
3 Maintain an administrative staff only and subcontract all work, including part-time help(this would entail contracts to landscaping firms and pool maintenance companies as well as to newly created private firms to employ and supply part- time help.

What are the general conditions for which preventive maintenance is appropriate ?

2009-06-11T05:58:00.000-07:00

What are the general conditions for which preventive maintenance is appropriate ?

Maintenance work can be either planned or unplanned! Let us now discuss the different types of maintenance systems.
Emergency Maintenance: An un planned maintenance which is necessary to put in hand immediately to avoid serious consequences, for instance loss of production, extensive damage to assets or for safety reasons. Emergencies should remain exceptions rather than the rule. To ensure such a possibility, it is better to have planned maintenance systems.
Planned Maintenance: Maintenance Organised and carried out with forethought, control and records to a predetermined plan. Planned maintenance can be split up into essentially two main activities namely preventive and corrective.
Preventive Maintenance: Also termed ' Diagnostic or Predictive Maintenance' is maintenance carried out at pre determined intervals, or to other prescribed criteria and is intended to reduce the likelihood of an equipment's condition falling below a required level of acceptability. You try to anticipate failure and then attempt to prevent its occurrence by taking preventive actions. The proverbial saying ' Prevention is better than cure' or 'A stitch in time saves nine' is the basic philosophy of Preventive Maintenance. Preventive maintenance can be done on machines either when running or during shut down.
Running Maintenance: Maintenance, which can be carried out when the item is in service.

Shut down Maintenance: Maintenance, which can only be carried out when the item is out of service. Further preventive maintenance can be time- based or condition- based.
A Time -Based Preventive Maintenance: This policy is effective when the failure of any item of an equipment is time dependent and the item is expected to wear out within the life of the equipment . Moreover the total costs of replacement of the item should be-substantially less than those of failure replacement repair.
Condition-based Maintenance : is carried out in response to a significant deterioration in unit as indicated by a change in a monitored parameter of the unit condition or performance. It is here that one can make use of predictive maintenance by using a technique called SIGNATURE ANALYSIS which is intended to continually monitor the health of the equipment by recording systematically signals or information derived from the form of mechanical vibrations, noise signals, acoustic and thermal emissions, change in chemical compositions, smell, pressure, relative displacement and so on. Scientific collection of these informative signals or signatures, diagnosis and detection of the faults, if any, present by a thorough analysis of these signatures based on the knowledge hitherto acquired in the field , and judging the severity of the faults for decision-making , all put together , is called ' Signature Analysis'. The technique involves the use of electronic instrumentation specially designed for the purpose of varied capacities, modes of application and design features. Vibration and noise signals are the most versatile parameters in machine condition monitoring techniques. Periodic vibration signature analysis is somewhat similar to vibration analysis. A stock pulse meter is used o monitor the condition of roller bearings.
Condition-based maintenance thus reduces injuries and fatal accidents caused by machinery as the condition of machinery are indicated well before hand. It enables the plant to be stopped safely when instant shutdown is not permissible. Moreover, it permits advanced planning to reduce the effect of impending breakdowns and be in time to have necessary spare parts available. However, condition monitoring is not always used because it involves high manpower and monitoring costs and , further more, it is difficult to monitor some parameters.
Corrective Maintenance : Maintenance carried out to restore an item which has ceased to meet an acceptable condition. It involves minor repairs that may crop up between inspections.
Design- out Maintenance is yet another policy, which is practiced frequently in, developed countries. This is discussed in greater detail later on in this unit. The policy here aims at minimising the effect of failure and at eliminating the cause of maintenance . In essence, an attempt is made to pinpoint the defects in the design of the equipment. Poor design of many equipment leads to frequent breakdowns.
Also an appropriate choice of terminological materials might eliminate the needs fro subsequent lubrication frequencies.

Total maintenance planning embraces all activities necessary to plan, control and record all work done in connection with keeping an installation to the acceptable standard by devising appropriate maintenance systems. In a fully controlled situation, the time spent on emergency work, viz, the 'unplanned' portion, could well be less than ten per cent of the available man-hours in the maintenance department. The administrative control of maintenance work is very significantly altered when changing from emergency maintenance methods to a policy of planned maintenance. This brings in some increased amount of paperwork.
Maintenance Request
The most important single document in the organisation of maintenance we shall henceforth call the 'maintenance request', which is alternatively termed as work order, work requisition, job card or work ticket etc. As prerequisite for planning the maintenance function, it is necessary to know exactly what the labour force is doing, and how long each task takes.
The maintenance request by the production staff details the defect or work believed to be required. Hopefully, the 'cause' should have been identified ' before' or' after' rectifying the fault so as to help planners for conducting subsequently studies for critical analysis and the all important function of 'designing-out' maintenance .The maintenance request provides all the information necessary as regards the type of labour employed, and the time labour has taken to do the job.
Assets/Facility Register
The first step of a planned maintenance procedure is to establish what is to be maintained. This requires the need to establish an Asset/ Facility Register. Each asset must be identified I terms of name and code; description; 'reference numbers pertaining to manufacturers, suppliers, users, location with provision for changes if item is interchangeable or mobile and supplier's details. When the items are recorded either in a register or in a card- index form, they could be classified and sub-divided in terms of asset usage / availability, technical groups or maintenance methods. Sometimes certain items may be subject to statutory inspections. The assets-register is the information centre of the planned maintenance system.

Maintenance Schedules

Next we must decide how these assets or facilities are to be maintained .A' maintenance schedule' must be prepared fro every item listed in the asset/ facility register. A typical maintenance schedule card indicates grade of labour required, frequency of the work to be done, details of the work to be done and estimated time for the execution of the work. A mistake so often made is when companies setting up a planned maintenance scheme for first time prepare the maintenance schedule fro all the plant first, and then endeavour to apply these to a maintenance programme on a specific starting date. In the absence of plant- history records, this method of approach is doomed to failure, since it is just not

possible to switch from emergency maintenance methods to planned preventive maintenance overnight.

Work/ Job Specifications

Having prepared our maintenance schedules we must prepare the work/ job specifications, which are compiled from the maintenance schedules and are a means of communication between the engineer and the tradesman. Precise specifications for the activities on the maintenance schedule vary in depth and presentation for according to the system, the local labour requirements, the complexity of the items to be maintained etc. It should define specific items on the machine requiring attention and clearly indicate the required action e.g. inspect, check, gauge. It should give guidance in respect of method, however appropriate it might be. The objective is it maintain to a required standard without forgetting on the safety aspect concerning both the tradesman and operators.
Programming Annual and Weekly Planned Maintenance Programmes
Having prepared our maintenance schedules and build up a workload from our job specifications, we are now in a position to commence the preparation of an annual maintenance programme to decide when the planned productive maintenance jobs shall be carried out. Over a period of time, planned maintenance significantly reduces the demands on the during annual shutdown periods. The weekly planning maintenance programme can be derived from the annual planned maintenance programme. However, tactical planning is required at the weekly level by interacting with the production planning and control section especially. Unforeseen circumstances sometimes arise, however careful the forward planning, which make it impossible to release a machine /asset according to the weekly programme charted out. It is important to communicate the weekly planning programme, at least a week a head, to all concerned.

Inspection Report
One of the important forms of maintenance is to carry out inspection at the right time and duly record the data so as to produce an inspection report. This form/document is used only for reporting the results of planned productive maintenance inspections, as set out in the job/ work specifications. The in specification report closely resembles the maintenance request, discussed earlier on. It is imperative that inspection reports must be used by and for maintenance supervision and planned maintenance controller and his prior to filling the history records.

History Records
The last operation in our planned maintenance procedure is to build up a detailed historical records of the results of maintenance on every machine receiving it . Plant history records should be properly updated so that they can be referred to and made use of more meaningfully. Traditionally, history records have been 'written up' by records clerks from timesheets or work orders.

The operations of an effective maintenance records system provides information about: (1) the percentage of planned work achieved in the period, (ii) ratio of planned to unplanned work, (iii) down time for the period, (iv) maintenance requirement assets, 9vO indicators for reliability of the products of particular manufacturers, (viO trends in spare-parts consumption, (viiO equipment failure patterns, (viii) performance details fro personnel, by individual or by trade group.
Records are kept in many different ways ranging from card files to computerized devices. Planned Lubrication
Some form of lubrication routine is rightly considered to be an essential part of plant maintenance by most firms, yet this is a responsibility which is frequently relegated to an oiler greaser gun and a dubious supply of lubricants .: Lubrication schedules are usually provided by the planning engineers of oil companies. The schedules include information about the number of application points, frequency of each application, method to be used e.g. grease gun, oil can etc, the amount and type of lubricant required. Planned lubrication should be an integral part of planned maintenance, and , because of its utmost importance , daily and weekly lubrication tasks should usually be carried out separately from the mechanical and electrical schedules. Monthly lubrication tasks and oil changing should be usually fully integrated with the maintenance schedules.

To ensure a smooth implementation of planned lubrication techniques, you could adopt a3- phase procedure. In the first_phase, a survey of all plant that requires lubrication is carried out to establish WHAT has to be lubricated. The second phase establishes WHEN lubrication has to be done and the third phase is to conduct the OPERATION by establishing HOWLUBRICATION IS TO BE CARRIED OUT.

Work Priority
Most of us, at some time to a greater or lesser degree, come up against the problems of deciding job priority. Obviously maintenance work of an n emergency nature required to keep production going or to reduce downtime, once incurred, should be given the first or topmost priority. However, with planned maintenance, hopefully, emergency cases are reduced to just about 10% of all cases. But still some method of priority fixing must be established preferably. After 'emergency', a 'machine running' priority could be thought of. In this case the machine is running, but attention is required to maintain efficient operation or for safety reasons. Yet the least priority could be labeled 'not applicable' if the request for maintenance work is not relevant to a machine stoppage, and also for most work involving civil and building trades. It is usually found that these three priority levels are found to be adequate and acceptable in most instances. If however, the problem persists, it becomes necessary to devise a PRIORITY INDEX based on two important group factors, namely.

a) Work priority factors where all work done by maintenance department personnel is separated into 10 classes, most important being class 1.

Emergency Maintenance-1,1 land 111, Modification, Capital, Sundry and Special Maintenance, and Housekeeping are respectively ranked from 10 down to 1.
b) Facility priority factor in which each facility, plant, building etc. is placed in one of 10 classes, most important being class 1. key services, key production plant, flow line or process plant, multi-production machines, standby services, mobile transport, buildings and roads, machines ,building, roads, offices and furniture fittings re respectively ranked from 10 down to 1.
c) To obtain the priority index for any job, multiply ' work priority' class by the 'facility/ machine priority' class. You can note that 10 classes have been chosen so that the priority index for each job can be expressed as a percentage priority.
d) For example, emergency maintenance for a key service sub-station equipment, the priority index would be (10*10) = 100%. For an emergency repair to a leaking roof (building) over a production machine, the priority index would be (10*4) = 40%.
Safety
The observance of safety ay work is essential at all times. The general rule is always ' 'safety first'. Some of the main safety considerations when carrying out a maintenance management task are the following:
a) Guards are supplied by plant manufactures or subsequently fitted by the company. Safety steps should be taken to ensure that these are not tampered with resulting in potential hazards. In fact, condition and security of easily accessible guards fnust always be included in job specification as items fro-regular checks at planned preventive -maintenance inspections.
b) Protective Clothing such as helmets, gloves, goggles gasmasks etc. must be given full consideration especially in chemical and allied industries. You must preferably include the need for wearing protective clothing in the maintenance request or the work/job specification.
c) Power isolation by the use of appropriate fuses might be necessary while effecting certain types of maintenance tasks. Water and compressed air supplies can usually be isolated and locked off where necessary. Gas lines may have to be purged before any welding is permitted.
d) Pressure vessels, piped power, lifting appliance should have some type of a 'permit' system to open and / or blank off.
e) Permit to work for carrying out maintenance tasks should remain valid for a specific appropriate period only. A copy of the certificate should be posted or affixed in such a place that it is not possible for anyone to start up or machine before referring to it.

What are the characteristics of large-scale projects that focus managerial efforts on the detailed scheduling of activities.

2009-06-11T05:34:00.000-07:00

What are the characteristics of large-scale projects that focus managerial efforts on the detailed scheduling of activities and on project completion dates ?

Project management deals with time- scheduling and resource allocation for these
activities. If the activity times are deterministic then critical path Method can be used as a
systematic method to compute early state and late start times of activities and to identify
critical activitiesTThe slacks associated with each activity can be used for better control
of the project. When activity times are probabilistic, PERT is an effective tool. In this
method three time estimate are made for each activity and these are used to compute
expected project completion time and its variance A project cost-time relationship can be
obtained using project crashing. This can also be used to obtain the optimal project
duration. Resource allocation is one of the major problems in project management. A
simple heuristic is suggested to handle this problem. Now we will study each process in
detail.
Critical path Method (CPM) is an effective tool for project planning and control when
activity times are known with certainty. However, in certain projects like Research and
Development Projects, it seems realistic unrealistic to assume that we can know with
certainty the time durations in which the activities can be completed. In such cases PERT
can be used.
Time Estimates in PERT
In PERT for each activity, three time estimates are made. These estimates are :
a) Most likely Time(TM): the time, which is taken most frequently by the activity.
b) OptiSmistic Time (TO): The time by which activity can be completed, if everything went well.
c) Pessimistic Time (TP): the time by which the activity will get completed even under adverse conditions.

Time the Project Completion
Unlike CPM, in the case when there is uncertainty in activity times, it is not possible to compute the time of completion of the project with certainty. Instead, we shall estimate the expected time and variance of the project completion time. The expected project completion time E (t), can be computed as the length of critical path in the CPM, when activity times are replaced by the expected times (TE) of the activities.
Time cost Relationship And Project Crashing
In addition to time- management, cost plays an important role in any project. The projects costs can be classified in two groups: direct activity costs and indirect project costs. Direct activity costs are those components of the cost, which can be directly linked with the activity, thus direct labour, material consumed , rental charges for the equipment etc. will form part of these costs. For example, by asking the labour to work with OT or with effiency bonus for faster work etc. Crash time is the minimum possible time in which the activity can be completed and the costs associated with this time is the crash cost. Normal cost is the cost incurred when activity is completed in its normal time (or the time used activity time in the critical path computations).
On the other hand, indirect costs are the overheads associated with the entire project including loss of revenue/ benefits due to late completion of the project. This cost will decrease directly with the decrease in the project. Completion time. An optimal project completion time will be the time for which sum of these two costs is minimum. To obtain the optimal time, we have to compute direct activities cost when project duration is reduced by one unit time each time. This is called project crashing.
We summarise the method-4br reducing project completion time as follows:
Stepl: compute for each activity
Cost of reducing activity time by one unit time.
= Crash cost - Normal cost
Normal time — Crash time
Step 2: Identify all the critical paths. Select one activity on each critical path such that the total cost of crashing all these activities by one unit time is minimum among all such that their current activity time is higher than the crash time, i.e. no activity reduction in activity duration can make place beyond its crash time. If there is at least one critical path, on which none of the activities can be crashed, then no further reduction in the project completion time can take place. In that case stop.
Step 3: reduce the activity time for the activities selected for crashing by unit time period and recomputed the early start time, late start Time critical path for the network
Resource Allocation
The analysis up to this point has been based on the assumption that if its predecessors were completed, an activity could begin. Underlying this assumption is the fact that sufficient resources will be available to start activities simultaneously. However, in actual

practice some of the resources may be available in limited quantities. Examples of such resources are expensive equipment, skilled manpower, finances etc. A simple heuristic rule will be as follows:
Stepl; Allocate resources seriously in time. That is start on the first time period and schedules all activities possible with the resources available, then do the same for the second time period and so on.
Step2: When several activities compete for the same resources, give preference to the activities with the least slack. Recomputed the slacks in all the activities.
Step 3: reschedule non-critical activities, if possible, to free resources for scheduling critical or non-slack activities.
Project Updating And Monitoring
For effective use of the above techniques it is essential that project progress should be continuously monitored .As and when there is a change in time schedule of any activity, the project network should be updated and new time schedule finalized. Now days with most of the computers, including PCs, well written CPM/ PERT packages including project crashing and resource allocation are available. These packages will provide all the necessary information needed for efficient project management.

Under what conditions is a group incentive plan generally more appropriate than an individual incentive plan?

2009-06-11T05:32:00.001-07:00

Under what conditions is a group incentive plan generally more appropriate than an individual incentive plan?

Group incentive plans
Individual and work group plans traditionally have rewarded performance by using output (often defined by piece rates) and quality measures. Quality is accounted for by a quality adjustment factor, say, a percentage of rework.
For example: Incentive pay = Total output .In recent years, skill development has also been rewarded. Sometimes called pay for knowledge, this means a worker is compensated for learning new tasks. This is particularly important in job shops using technology, as well as in banking, where supervisors' jobs require knowledge of new type of financial instruments and selling approaches.
AT&T, for example, instituted incentive programs for its managers- an individual incentive Award (IIA) and a Management Team Incentive Award (MTIA). The IIA provides lump-sum bonuses to outstanding performers; These outstanding performers arc determined by individual performance ratings accompanied by extensive documentation.
The lump-sum bonus can range between 15 and 3 On percent of base pay. MTIAS are granted to members of specific divisions or units. Appropriate division or unit goals are established at the beginning of the year. The goals include department service objectives and interdepartmental goals. A typical MTIA could call for a standard amount equivalent to 1.5 percent of wages plus overtime for the next years based on performance in the current year. Gain sharing also involves giving organisation v/ide bonuses, but it differs from profit sharing in two important respects. First, it typically measures controllable costs or units of outputs, not profits, in calculating a bonus. Second, gain sharing is always combined with a participative approach to management. The original and best - known gain-sharing plan is the Scanlon plan. Workers as a group were rewarded fr any reductions in labor cost within the firm.
The plan's success depended on comities of workers throughout the firm whose purpose was to search out areas for cost saving and to devise ways of improvement. There were many improvements, and the plan did, infact, save the company. Gain- sharing plans are now used by more than a thousand firms in the Us and Europe, and are growing in popularity. One survey in the Us indicated that about 13 percent of all firms have them, and that more than 70 percent were started after 1982.Thuogh originally established in small companies such as Lapionte, Lincoln Electric company, and Herman Miller, gain sharing has been installed by large firms such as TRW, General Electric, Motorola, and firestone. These companies apply gain sharing to organizational units, Motorola, for example, has virtually all its plant employees covered by gain - sharing. These plans are increasing because " they are more than just pay incentive plans; they are a participative approach to management and are often used as a way to install participative management".

Which view of job design do you think is most practical ?

2009-06-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

Which view of job design do you think is most practical ? Most humane ? Most likely to succeed in the long term ?

Job design is the consciously planned structuring of work effort performed by an individual or a team of persons. Various factors that must be addressed in job design can be grouped into various categories such as human factors, design factors, environmental factors, organisational factors, technical factors, behavioural factors, etc.
In design factors, one must consider the layout of equipment and seating arrangement. Ideally, the equipment design should start with the operator by laying out the areas for vision, for controls, for sitting, for leg room etc. by taking note of standard anthropometries data of men and women, as the case may be. Job design should consider whether the job is to be done standing or sitting or in both the ways. It is the requirements cf good seating that the person while sitting should be able to maintain a good pos'.ure, which will not cause overstrain of any particular group of muscles. For positioning conteels, general principles of motion economy as laid down by Gilbreth should be taken as guideline. Accurate positioning of manipulative movements should be made near the body and controls, which need fine adjustment, should be placed close to and opposite the hand, which will operate them. Appropriate attention should be given to instrument display design according to the situation and place where it is needed. Controls of the equipment should be compatible with the natural movements and hence natural movements should be kept in mind while designing instrumental knobs/controls.
Environmental factors in general affect the job design significantly. For instance, if the temperature level is high one need frequent intervals of rest in between a particular job. On the contrary, if tne temperature level is low, fatigue is less and human endurance to do a particular job continuously increases and thus number of intervals required for rest is reduced. Similar is the case with humidity. High level of humidity causes sweating and demands frequent intervals for rest. Hence in such situations of heat and humidity, work requires air conditioning and proper ventilation. When.it is not possible, workman should be removed from the environment at appropriate times to allow him/her to cool off.
Vibrations have different effect on human body depending upon the intensity of the vibration and it certain affects the efficiency of the individual. Noise is another important environmental factor, which could be a cause of fatigue and irritation resulting in loss of output. It has been observed that noise above 90 decibels can induce the commission of "Tors in those who are normally accustomed to noise. Noise may also interfere with oral

communication between persons and also between man and his equipment by masking the .sound of warning signals or bells. In such situations, auxiliary visual signal should al$o be considered.
Efficiency of industrial tasks also depends on adequate vision and therefore, lighting arrangements may play an important role in determining the efficiency with which tasks are carried out. The standards of lighting and recommended levels of illumination at work place are good aids for work and job designers. Generally, at normal levels of illumination, the ability to see increases in proportion to the logarithm of the illumination. Apart from direct lighting standards, there are some other important factors which can affect performance. The contrasts between the surroundings and the task being performed, the colour schemes and the presence or absence of glare could greatly influence the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the work. Generally, warm saturated colours such as yellows and reds tend to give a sense of warmth and an advancing effect. Conversely, cool shades of blues, greens and grays tend to give a sense of coldness and recession. Hence, a great deal can be achieved by good lighting, the use of colour, by the manipulation of contrasts to make a work place in the factory or office, a pleasant place where people will be happy to work and perhaps become more effective and efficient.
Among organisational factors, rules and regulations governing the break or rest pause, optimum arrangement of work and rest, working hours, job enrichment, job enlargement and job rotations are important issues which need to be addressed while designing job. When and how much breaks or rest pauses is to be given to an operator/worker is an important issue. Work should cease at the point in time at which lactic acid (responsible for muscle fatigue) starts to accumulate in the body. Organisational factors, which are also part of~t>ehavioural dimensions of job design, include job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation and participative job design. Job enlargement is the procedure of redesigning jobs or modifying work so that employees can feel more involved in and responsible for what they do. Job enrichment is a procedure of redesigning work content to make the job more meaningful and enjoyable by involving employees in planning, organizing and controlling their work. Job rotation is also an important aspect because many times working in a particular job gives rise to boredom. The operator/worker may also be involved in design procedure, which would mean greater success in implementing any changes that need to be done in the organisation.
Last but not the least; job design should adopt the socio-technical approach (consideration of both the technology of production and the social aspects of the work environment).______________________________________________
Socio-Technical Approach To job design:
The consideration of both then technology of production and the social aspects of the work environment is called the socio- approach to job design that provides for high levels of productivity and quality and at the same time ensures a satisfying job and work environment. The socio-economic approach emphasis the need for integrating the social consequences of work with the traditional cost versus quality considerations of production. The concept of socio-technical systems was first elucidated by Eric Trist and his colleagues at the Tavistock Institution of Social Research in London.

On the basis of studies carried out at the Tavistock Institution, the following guidelines for job design are offered at the level of the individual:
1. Optimum variety of tasks within the job.
2. A meaningful pattern of tasks that gives each jobs a semblance of a single, overall task. 3.Optimum length of work cycle.
4. Some scope fro setting standards of quality and quantity of production and a suitable feedback of knowledge of results.
5. Inclusion in the job of some of the auxiliary and preparatory tasks.
6. Inclusion in the job of some degree of care, skill, knowledge or effect that is worthy of respect I the community.
7. Perceivable contribution of the job to the utility of the consumer.
Some group level guidelines are:
8. Providing for ' interlocking' tasks, job rotation or physical proximity where
a) There is a necessary inter-dependence of jobs for technical or psychological reasons.
b) The individual jobs entail a relatively high degree of stress.
c) The individual jobs do not make obvious, perceivable contribution to the utility of the end product.
9 If a number of jobs are linked together by interlocking tasks or jobs rotation, they should, as a group, have some:
a) Semblance of an overall task that makes a contribution to the utility of the products,
b) Scope for setting standards and receiving knowledge results, and —c) Control over the ' boundary tasks'.
Some caution is however, needed in implementing the above guidelines, For example, a 'loose rein' situation of forming and functioning of autonomous groups might not be tolerated by certain job designers. Sufficient amount of top management support might be needed to make traditional job designers 'toe the line' of a socio-technical perspective.

Market Assessment of Home Computers

2009-05-30T12:07:00.000-07:00

Home computers are now the market. They are quite powerful, involving keyboard input, video output, and very substantial memory capacities and they are designed to use rather capable languages such as C++. Price ranges from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 60,000 and are declining.
If you were tooling up to produce such a product, how would you go about assessing the market for the next five years kinds of capacity strategies would you generate? What decision methodology would you use?
Home computers are very necessary for everyone now. They also are quite powerful, involving key board input, video output and very substantial memory capacity and they are designed to use rather capable languages such as C++, Java etc. Price singes from 30,000 pr Rs. 6000 and are dealing now.

If we were tooling up to produce such a product for neat five year. Then we should plan about capacity strategies. Any capacity plan that we prepare is heavily dependent an our assessment of the likely demand of outputs. However, petponing long, range forecasts of product is quite difficult. A part from the growth in demand of product due to then and cyclical effects, there can be contingencies can range from far love of monsoon to wons or major technologies break through his true should forecast due demand of total computers.
Long-term forecasts of the demand of computers are made by using causal forecasting methods like regression analysis and econometric models or by using predictive methods like Delphi, market serveys etc.
All productive methods, including Delphi techniques, one qualitative methods which can be used even whom historical data regarding past sales'etc one net available. They have a special pole in long term bore casting. Since quantitative methods have strong limitations in predicting contingencies. The Delphi method. Draws upon a panel of experts in a structured manner to eliminate He possible dominance of more vocal, more prestigious and better sales persons in the group.
Market serveys and other studies an consumer behaviour provide us with a lets of data which can provide insights on factors like what makes a customer buy the computers, what feathers have a high priority in the customers preface me structure, impact of price changes and so on, such insights can prove to be extremely useful while the long term demand of the product is being predicted. We should go about market serveys for assessing the market for next five years.

Capacity planning problem different for mature products than for product that are new.

2009-05-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

How is the capacity planning problem different for mature products that have relatively stable growth pattern than for product that are new or involve risky situations?

The alternate capacity plans developed will have to be analysed to find the one which is most desirable for our purpose . This involves a quantitative analysis to find the economic consequences of different capacity plans based on the assumptions made regarding what is going to happen in future. However there are uncertainties regarding future as well as many strategic effects flowing from capacity plans all ot which cannot be qualified precisely. That is why there is a need for quantities assessment of the risks and other strategic consequences.
Economic Analysis for Mature outputs with stable Demand Growth
Establishment of capacity is always an investment and the returns from it accrue over a period of time. That is why some kind of discounted cash flow analysis has to be used so that alternate capacity plan, the general procedure requires that all the cash flows occurring in different years up to the planning horizon have to be listed- All the costs incurred are cash outflows and the revenues earned are cash inflows. When all these cash flows are discounted at the cost of capital for the enterprise, we get the not present value (NPV) for each capacity plan. The capacity plan having the highest NPV will be the most attractive from an economic perspective. This basic methodology can be expanded by adding to the list of alternative capacity plans care of different locations e.g., when considering capacity expansions and even plans to have vertical integration- both backward ( to produce what we are buying from tour suppliers ) and forward ( to use in further processing and assembly what is currently our finished product).
Economic Analysis for outputs with Highly Uncertain Demand Growth
When the demand growth is highly uncertain, the consequent cash inflows any capacity plan are not reliable enough to make any conclusions. In such case, knowledge of the probability distribution of demand useful in the absence detailed distribution; one needs to know the optimistic expected and pessimistic predictions of demand. For these scenarios, the NPV for each alternative capacity plan can be computed- Different and appropriate capacity plans can turn out to be the most economic under each of these scenarios.
A formal approach for such a situation involves using a decision tree to analyze the various alternate plans. Both the alternatives and the uncertain outcomes are shown on the decision tree. Probabilities are assigned to each of the uncertain outcomes and finally, the tree is folded back to find the best capacity strategy,. which results in the highest value of some criterion like the expected NPV. When the demand growth is highly uncertain, the choice of a capacity plan is highly dependent on the strategic effects of having an over or an under- capacity.

Risk Analysis Of Alternate Capacity Plans
All capacity plans are based on prediction of probable demand and the future can never be predicted exactly. Thus, there is always some element of risk present are in ant planning process. What we have said above is that the risks are higher in the case of new outputs than in the case of mature outputs with stable demand.
If demand cannot be predicted exactly, the actual demand will either be low or higher than the predicted demand. In the first case, we are likely to suffer from an under capacity. We should analysis the likely consequences of both over capacity arid under capacity. In each of the following situations the organizations may plan for having an overcapacity rather than an under capacity if: (a) there are some, minimum economic capacity sizes, below which the process becomes uneconomic, (b) the cost involved in establishing capacity is relatively low, (c) subcontracting is very difficult or impossible, (d) the lead time required to establish new capacity is very long, (e) the demand growth is more likely is more likely to be nearer the optimistic prediction tan the pessimistic one, (f) cost sales are perceived by the trade very negatively and may amount to a more than proportionate drop in market share.
On the other hand, the organization may plan to add capacity on a conservative basis in each of the following situations if: (a) alternate sources of capacity are easily available, (b) the cost involved in establishing capacity is relatively low, (c) the lead time required to establish new capacity is relatively short (d) the customers are either expected to wail or the lost sales have no long term consequences if the demand cannot be satisfied. It is difficult to quantify many of the strategic consequences from having an under capacity or an overcapacity and what is important is to assess how these influence the competitive ability of the organization.

Many offices being built as multi-storey buildings whereas single-storey factories

2009-05-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

Why are many offices being built as multi-storey buildings whereas single-storey factories are more common ?

Location decisions are affected by many factors, both internal and external to the organization's operations. Internal factors include the technology used, the capacity, the financial position, and the work force required. External factors include the economic political and social conditions in the various localities. Most of the fixed and some of the variable costs are determined by the location decision. The efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and profitability of the facility are also affected by the location decision. Location decisions are based on a host of factors; some subjective, qualitative and intangible while some others are objective, quantitative and tangible.

Territory selection
Now I n step (1) for the general territory/ region/area selection, the following are some of the important factors that influence the selection decision.
Markets: there has to be some customer/ market for your product/ service. The market growth potential and the location of competitors are important factors that could influence the location. Locating a plant or facility nearer to the market is preferred if promptness of service required, if the product is fragile , or is susceptible to spoilage. Moreover, if the product is relatively inexpensive and transportation costs add substantially to the cost, a location close to the markets is desirable. Assembly type industries also tend to locate near markets.
Raw Materials and Supplies: Sometimes accessibility to vendors/suppliers of raw materials, parts supplies, tools, equipment etc. may be very important. The issue here is promptness and regularity of delivery and inward freight cost minimization. If the raw material is bulky or low in cost, or if it is greatly reduced in bulk viz. transformed into various products and by- products of it is perishable and processing makes it less so, then location near raw materials sources is important. If as to minimize total transportation costs. The costs vary depending upon specific routes, mode of transportation and specific Products classification.
Transportation Facilities: Adequate transportation facilities are essential for the economic operations of a production system. For companies that produce or buy heavy bulky and low value per ton commodities, water transportation could be an important factor in locating plants. It can be seen that civilizations grew along rivers/ waterways etc. Many facilities/ plants are located along riverbanks.
Manpower Supply: The availability of skilled manpower, the prevailing wage pattern, living costs and the industrial relations situation influence the location.
Infrastructure: This factors refers to the availability and reliability of power , water, fuel and communication facilities in addition to transportation facilities.

Legislation and Taxation: Factors such as financial and other incentives fro new industries in backward areas or no-industry -district centers, exemption from certain state and local taxes, octroi etc. are important.
Climate: Climatic factors could dictate the location of certain type of industries like textile industry, which requires high humidity zones.
Site/ Community selection: Having selected the general territory/ region, next we would have to go in for site/ community selection. Let us discuss some factors relevant for this stage.
Community Facilities: these involve factors such as quality of life which in turn depends on availability of facilities like schools, places of worship, medical services, police and fire stations, cultural, social, and recreation opportunities, housing, good streets and good communication and transportation facilities.
Community attitudes: These can be difficult to evaluate. Most communities usually welcome setting up of a new industry especially since it would provide opportunities to the local people directly or in directly. However, in case of polluting, or 'dirty' industries, they would try their utmost to locate them as far away as possible.
Sometimes because of prevailing lav/ and order situation, companies have been forced to relocate their units. The attitudes of the people as well as the state government have an impact on industrial location.
Waste Disposal: The facilities required for the disposal of process waste including solid, liquid and gaseous effluents need to be considered. The plant should be positioned so that prevailing winds carry any fumes away from populated areas and so that waste may be disposed off properly and at reasonable expense.
Ecology and Pollution: These days there is a great deal of awareness towards maintenance of natural ecological balance, There are quite a few agencies propagating the concepts to make the society at large more conscious of the dangers of certain avoidable actions.
Site size: The plot of land must be large enough to hold the proposed plant and parking and access facilities and provide room for future expansion. These days a lot of industrial Areas/ parks are being earmarked in which certain standard sheds are being provided to entrepreneurs.
Topography: the topography, soil structure and • drainage must be suitable. If considerable land improvement is required, low priced land might turn out to be expensive.
Transportation Facilities: The site should be accessible by road and rail preferably. The dependability and character of the available transport carriers, frequency of service and freight and terminal facilities is also worth considering.

Supporting Industries and Services: the availability of supporting services such as tool rooms, plant services etc. need to be considered.
Land costs: These are generally of lesser importance as they are recurring and possibly make up a relatively small proportion of the total cost .of locating a new plant. Generally speaking, the site will be in a city, suburb or country location. In general, the location for large-scale industries should be in rural areas, which helps in regional developments also. It is seen that once a large industry is set up, a lot of infrastructure develops around it as a result of the location decision. As for the location of medium scale industries, these could be preferably in the suburb urban/ semi- urban areas were the advantages of urban and rural areas are available. For the small -scale industries, the location could be urban areas where the infrastructural facilities are already available.

Five major types of materials handling methods

2009-05-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

Describe five major types of materials handling methods and name some advantages of each.

Five Major Types Of Materials Handling Methods:
Movement - involves the actual transportation or transfer of material from one point to the next.
Quantity - dictates the type and nature of the material handling equipment and also cost per unit for the conveyance of the goods.
Time -how quickly the material can move through the facility
Space - concerned with the required space for the storage of the material handling equipment and their movement, as well as the queuing or staging space for the material itself.
Control - tracking of the material, positive identification, and inventory management

A major competitive advantage,due to its impact on
quality,cost,productivity,inventory,andresponse time;
in sum,a revenue enhancer,not a cost contributor.
Advantages of correct materials handling
• Advantage
- - Savings in storage and operating space
- - Better stock control
- - Improved working conditions
- - Improved quality
- Lower risk of accidents
- - Reduced processing time
- - Lower production costs
- - Less waste of time and materials
In order to perform the activities of materials handling the basic goal is to minimise the production costs. This general objective can be further subdivided into specific objectives as follows :
i) To reduce the costs by decreasing inventories, minimising the distance to be handled and increasing productivity.
ii) To increase the production capacity by smoothing the work flow, iii) To minimise the waste during handling.
iv) To improve distribution through better location of facilities and improved routing.
v) To increase the equipment and space utilisation.
vi) To improve the working conditions. '
vii) To improve the customer service.
Basic Materials Handling Systems : The different material handling systems can be classified according to the type of equipment used, material handled, method used or the function performed.
Equipment-Oriented Systems : Depending upon the type of equipment used, there are several systems. :
i) Overhead systems
ii) Conveyer systems
iii) Tractor-trailor system
iv) Fork-life truck and pallet system
v) Industrial truck systems
vi) Underground systems.
Material Oriented Systems : These may be of the following types:i) Unit handling systemsii) Bulk handling systemsiii) Liquid handling systems
A unit load consists of a number of items so arranged that it can be picked up and moved as a single entity such as a box, bale, roll etc. Such a system in more flexible and requires less investment.
Method Oriented Systems : According to the method of handling and method of production, the material handling systems can be:
i) Manual systems
ii) Mechanized or automated systems
iii) Job-shop handling systems, or
iv) Mass-production handling systems
Function Oriented Systems : The systems can be defined according to the material handling function performed as follows:
i) Transportation systems
ii) Conveying systems
iii) Transferring systems
iv) Elevating systems
Selection and Design of Handling System : The selection and design of the material system should be done alongside the development of the layout as each one affects each other. Hence, an integrated approach to the design process is usable. A computerized technique known as COFAC (Computerized Facilities Design) has been developed for
integrated handling system and layout design. The steps to be followed in the selectionand design of handling systems are as follows :i) Identification of system
ii) Review of design criteria and objectives of the handling system iii) Data collection regarding flow pattern and flow requirements iv) Identification of activity relationships
v) Determining space requirement and establishing material flow pattern
vi) Analysis of material and building characteristics
vii) Preliminary selection of basic handling system and generation alternatives
considering feasibility of mechanization and equipment capabilities
viii) Evaluation of alternatives with respect to optimal material flow, utilizing gravity, minimum cost, flexibility, ease of maintenance, capacity utilisation and other objectives of the system design considering various tangible and intangible factors
ix) Selection of the best suited alternative and checking it for compatibility
x) Specification of the system
xi) Procurement of the equipment and implementation of the system