Development of Cellular Layout for a Pump Manufacturing Industry

The development of optimal layout and its alternatives is a critical step in the facilities planning process. A good layout reduces accidents, labor costs, minimizes the movement between work centers, facilitates uninterrupted flow of the materials and helps to carry production activities within the predetermined time period with effectiveness. In this paper, a small-scale pump manufacturing industry is analyzed for its existing layout. The existing layout is found to be a process layout, and an attempt is made to study the possible benefits from the implementation of a cellular layout. The case specifically deals with the layout analysis of the production line of two different models of submersible pump. Multiple identical machines are involved in this process. An algorithm, involving operation allocation to machines rather than part allocation to cells, proposed by Xambre and Vilarinho (2003) is used to obtain the starting solution. Further betterment of the solution is achieved using the heuristic approach. The whole manufacturing process, for both existing and modified layouts, is simulated using the simulation software WITNESS, and the improvement in various parameters like material handling, Work-in-Process (WIP), waiting time, etc. is observed and presented in the paper.