Submitted by: Submitted by claraneo
Views: 159
Words: 3846
Pages: 16
Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 11/03/2013 05:46 PM
Lexmark Case Study Layout Planning Information Technology Essay
After a firm decided the location of its facility, the next important step is how to arrange people and equipment within that facility. The generation and planning of layout is a critical step in facilities design process as the layout will establish the physical relationships between different processes and activities.
Below shows a 3D CAD diagram which is a typical layout of a plant:
Furthermore, as layout planning decisions will have significant impacts on the flow of materials, utilization, costs, general efficiency, flexibility and productivity, it should be carefully planned and must satisfy the planned objectives, for example, minimize costs, delays, total travelling time (e.g. inter-departmental travel) and maximize space utilization, quality, productivity, flexibility, etc.
Lexmark Case Study
In the following part, based on the Lexmark printer, we are going to discuss the strategic implications of layout planning and how it affects different competitive factors in an organization such as capacity, processes, flexibility, costs, quality of work life, customer contact and image.
Capacity
Capacity usually means the production rate of a production line or a factory. Capacity of a factory is one of the most important concerns in the management level as the higher the production capacity, the more output the factory can generate and thus the more revenue it can make. Capacity exists because of the presence of constraints. Constraints limit the capacity of a factory as they impose bottlenecks to the factory. There are many sources of constraints and the most observable example is the size of the factory. With limited space, limited amount of machines can be put into the factory, and fewer materials can be inputted into and less work-in-progress can be kept in the production line.
Layout helps to improve or maximize the capacity of a factory within the constraints. Although layout cannot lift...