The four core layout types — process, product, cellular, and fixed-position — the Systematic Layout Planning (SLP) method built on relationship charts, and the basics of material handling equipment selection.
Material handling can consume 20–50% of total manufacturing cost in a facility with a poor layout, and virtually none of it adds value the customer is paying for. This module works through when to use a process, product, cellular, or fixed-position layout, then applies Richard Muther's Systematic Layout Planning method — including a worked relationship-chart example rating which departments must be adjacent and which must be kept apart — before covering how layout type drives material handling equipment selection.
By the end of this module you should be able to explain the specific trade-off cellular layout makes between a process layout's flexibility and a product layout's flow efficiency, and why choosing the wrong material handling equipment for a layout's flow pattern is a costly, avoidable mistake.