A scientific criteria for determining a good Plant Layout: 1.

Integration: Integrates of men, materials and machines and support services in order to get the optimum output of resources. 2. Cubic space utilization: Utilization of both horizontal and vertical spaces and height is very important to use the space as much as possible. 3. Minimum distance: Minimum travel of men and material should be implemented means; the total distance travel by the men and material should be minimized as much as possible. Further straight line movements should be promoted. 3. Floor: Arranging the floor to move the material/finished products in forward direction towards the final stage. 4. Maximizing coordination: Entry into and disposal from any department should be in such manner that it is most convenient to the issuing or receiving departments. The layout should be consider as a whole. 5. Minimum flexibility: The layout should be able to modify when necessary. 6. Maximum accessibility: All servicing and maintenance points should be readily accessible. For example; equipment should not be placed against a wall because necessary servicing or maintenance cannot be carried out easily. Further; equipments or other necessary units keep in front of a fuse box will impede the work of the electrician. 7. Safety security: Due consideration to industrial safety methods is necessary. Care must be taken not only of the persons operating the equipment, but also of the passes-by, who may be required to go behind equipment as the back of which may be unsafe. 8. Minimum handling: Reduce the material handling to the minimum. Material being worked on should be kept at working height and never have to be placed on the floor if it is to be lifted later. The following principles also can be taken in to account when planning for a good plant layout;

The geographical limitations of the site; Interaction with existing or planned facilities on site such as existing roadways, drainage and utilities routings; Interaction with other plants on site; The need for plant operability and maintainability; The need to locate hazardous materials facilities as far as possible from site boundaries and people living in the local neighborhood; The need to prevent confinement where release of flammable substances may occur; The need to provide access for emergency services; The need to provide emergency escape routes for on-site personnel; The need to provide acceptable working conditions for operators.

What is Material Handling? A16. Material Handling can be defined as "efficient short-distance movement of goods that usually takes place within the confines of a building such as a plant or a warehouse or between a building and a transportation agency. Material Handling has four dimensions: Movement Time Quantity Space

Material Handling improves efficiency by making the logistics system respond quickly and effectively to plant and customer requirements. For efficient movement of goods into the warehouse, locating stock, accurately filling orders, and rapidly preparing orders for shipment to customers, materials handling is very important to outbound logistics. In inbound logistics terms, materials handling serves company plants in the same way. Firms need to integrate materials handling requirements not only for the company's departmental needs, but also for meeting their customers' needs.

PLANT LOCATION
Every entrepreneur is faced with the problem of deciding the best site for location of his plant or factory. What is plant location? Plant location refers to the choice of region and the selection of a particular site for setting up a business or factory. But the choice is made only after considering cost and benefits of different alternative sites. It is a strategic decision that cannot be changed once taken. If at all changed only at considerable loss, the location should be selected as per its own requirements and circumstances. Each individual plant is a case in itself. Businessman should try to make an attempt for optimum or ideal location. What is an ideal location? An ideal location is one where the cost of the product is kept to minimum, with a large market share, the least risk and the maximum social gain. It is the place of maximum net advantage or which gives lowest unit cost of production and distribution. For achieving this objective, small-scale entrepreneur can make use of locational analysis for this purpose. 94

7.2.1 LOCATIONAL ANALYSIS

(b) Trade Area Analysis: It is an analysis of the geographic area that provides continued clientele to the firm. He would also see the feasibility of accessing the trade area from alternative sites. (c) Competitive Analysis: It helps to judge the nature, location, size and quality of competition in a given trade area. (d) Traffic analysis: To have a rough idea about the number of potential customers passing by the proposed site during the working hours of the shop, the traffic analysis aims at judging the alternative sites in terms of pedestrian and vehicular traffic passing a site. (e) Site economics: Alternative sites are evaluated in terms of establishment costs and operational costs under this. Costs of establishment is basically cost incurred for permanent physical facilities but operational costs are incurred for running business on day to day basis, they are also called as running costs.

The important considerations for selecting a suitable location are given as follows: a) Natural or climatic conditions. b) Availability and nearness to the sources of raw material. c) Transport costs-in obtaining raw material and also distribution or marketing finished products to the ultimate users. d) Access to market: small businesses in retail or wholesale or services should be located within the vicinity of densely populated areas. e) Availability of Infrastructural facilities such as developed industrial sheds or sites, link roads, nearness to railway stations, airports or sea ports, availability of electricity, water, public utilities, civil amenities and means of communication are important, especially for small scale businesses. f) Availability of skilled and non-skilled labour and technically qualified and trained managers. g) Banking and financial institutions are located nearby. h) Locations with links: to develop industrial areas or business centers result in savings and cost reductions in transport overheads, miscellaneous expenses. i) Strategic considerations of safety and security should be given due importance. j) Government influences: Both positive and negative incentives to motivate an entrepreneur to choose a particular location are made available. Positive includes cheap overhead facilities like electricity, banking transport, tax relief, subsidies and liberalization. Negative incentives are in form of restrictions for setting up industries in urban areas for reasons of pollution control and decentralization of industries. k) Residence of small business entrepreneurs want to set up nearby their homelands 1) Process layout (2) Product layout (3) Combined layout (4) Static product layout or Project layout (5) Cellular layout (6) Job Shop layout. Each layout is explained in brief in the following paragraphs:

Process layout: It is also called functional layout. All machines performing similar type of operations are grouped at one location in the process layout e.g. all lathes, milling machines, cutting machines etc in the engineering shop will be clustered in their like groups. Thus all forging will be done in one area and all the lathes will be placed in another area. In this layout, several products may share a machine to make its full use. The sequential arrangement of the machine group is generally, but not necessarily made on the basis of labor operations. In this type of layout the process rather than the product has a dominating role. The product is given secondary consideration and is moved for the purpose of operations to the process section with like machines stationed at a particular point. This type of process is more suitable to job order type of production. In such production the operation differs from product to product. So, it is desirable to arrange the machines on the basis of process rather than on the products. The typical arrangement of the machines in the process layout will be as under: Product A and Product B with their differential sequence will be routed for the processing in the manner. Advantages: The process layout avails of the following advantages: 1) Like product layout it eliminates the duplication of machines an enables the optimum use of installed capacity. 2) It facilitates the flexibility in production. It is more flexible than a line layout. Different products can be made without the changes in the arrangement of machine. The production capacity is not arranged in rigid sequence and fixed rated capacity with line balancing. 3) Like product layout, the break down of one machine does not interrupt the entire production flow. 4) Specialization in supervision becomes possible. 5) Individual incentive schemes can be developed. Disadvantages: The following are the main disadvantages of the process layout: 1) Due to lack of straight line sequence of production, it is impossible to maintain the line balancing in production. So the problems of bottleneck and waiting and idle capacity arise. 2) The cost of material handling increases due to long routing and back tracking between the processes. 3) The processing time is prolonged which reduces the inventory turnover and increase the investments in inventories. 4) The inspection cost increases. Due to frequent changes in the machine set-up inspection is required at each stage of the process. 5) The cost of supervision increase due to specialist supervisors and more number of supervisors are required at each process unit. 6) The production planning and control becomes difficult due to complexities arising in routing, scheduling, dispatching and follow up. 7) It is not possible to implement the group inventive schemes on the basis of quantity of the products manufacturing

8) More space is required for internal storing, reservoir of materials and provision for the expansion of the particular process section. Product layout: In this type of layout, the machines are arranged in the sequence as required by the particular product. All machines as required to balance the particular product the product line layout. In this layout, one product goes through all the machines lined up, in the order required by its manufacture. The best known example of this type of layout is seen in motor car production. To make this layout successful, the work load on the various machines must be balanced. The process of getting even loading at each stage of production is called line balancing. In this type of layout, the product is dominating over the process, in the sense that the product is given the primary importance and the process machine must remain present at a point where the product needs its services. Thus, unlike the process layout, the process is given secondary importance in relation to the product. Product layout suitable for continuous flow production with few items of production: It does not require frequent changes in machine set up. The typical arrangement of the machines in the product with the separate independent product lines for the Product A and Product B will be as shown. Advantages: The product layout is advantageous as under: 1) Reduced material handling cost due to straight line production flow. 2) Mechanization of material handling is possible due to handling between fixed points. 3) Line balancing may eliminate bottlenecks an idle capacity. 4) Shorter operating cycle due to shorter and speedier movement of materials. 5) Maximum utilization of machine and labor capacity through developing proper balance between them. 6) Effective control over production with reduced supervision by generalist supervisors. By reducing the manufacturing to simple steps we can often use less skilled labor. 7) Effective quality control with reduced inspection points. It does not require frequent changes in machine set-up. 8) Effective production planning and control. Unlike process layout, the routing, scheduling, dispatching and follow up are relatively easier. 9) Maximum use of space due to straight production flow and reduced need of interim storing. 10) It facilitates the implementation of the group inventive schemes for the workers. 11) It is relatively easy to control