Dave

Chapter

8

Process Layout

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Layout performance measures

a. Airport—customer convenience, requirements for materials handling, capital

investment

b. For a bank layout, important criteria would include customer convenience,

atmosphere, sales (loan applications), communication, and capital investment.

c. Classroom—flexibility, communication.

d. Product Design—communication with production, work environment.

e. For a law firm, important criteria would include client convenience, capital

investment, communication, flexibility, atmosphere, organizational structure, and

employee attitudes.

f. Metal fabricator—important criteria would include capital investment, materials

handling, flexibility, labor productivity, ease of maintenance, work environment, and

employee attitudes.

g. For a parking lot, important criteria would include capital investment, material

handling (flow of cars), and safety.

h. Human resources—proximity to entrance, privacy of communications.

2. Student answers will vary - here are two examples. The Lower Florida Keys Health

System (LFKHS) offers a broad range of services to its patients, using a process choice

that matches its small size and low volume. The flexible-flow layout of the main hospital

facility is such that activities are grouped according to function, which is typical of such a

process. The customized services provided to each patient cause jumbled patient flows,

with lots of individual handling. This layout is particularly appropriate for LFKHS, as

demand levels are too low or unpredictable for management to set aside human and

capital resources exclusively for a particular type of patient—except for maternity

patients.

Chapparal Steel is a high-volume producer of standardized products. The strategy

used for the Bar Mill is a line flow in which products follow a one-directional route from

the reheat furnace to storage of the finished product. Due to the capital-intensive nature...