Your organization can use plant layout principles to
resolve these challenges:

Consolidate operations or facilities; merge

Relieve a jam-packed plant

Rearrange to cut through a wasteful "spaghetti" flow

Adapt the operating layout to your lean practices

Grow, add output, technology, new products, capacity or utilization

Plan and start up an entirely new operation

Concentrate on a function; a maintenance shop,
a pick area, a warehouse, an office

Relocate operations locally or to a new community

Plant Design, Layout Plant,
Factory Layout Design, Plant Layout

or the arrangement of people, materials and machines
is at the very heart of business productivity
in an organization of any size, engaged in just about any endeavor.
In all of these challenges, a good layout is part of the answer. Please read on.

What Next?

JPR can help you to accomplish new or revised facility floor layout planning, manufacturing plant, shop or factory design, for good flow, space utilization, growth.

We are experienced, objective, and quick. We have the time and ability that perhaps your team doesn't have right now.

Jack Greene has headed Industrial Engineering for ITT Latin America and RayBan Sunglasses, and worldwide IE for Abbott Labs. Now as president of JPR, Jack can work with your organization, from strategic guidance at the executive level to practical, hands-on application of factory design and plant layout techniques.

Good layout primciples apply just as well in office, lab, maintenance shop, and the warehouse as on a production floor.

When you need a hand, let's talk.

Call Jack Greene at 843-422-1298

or, e-mail us

JPR can assist to create layouts to meet your physical circumstances, objectives, timetable, budget.There is no cost nor obligation for preliminary discussion. Layout projects can be lengthy and complex, but often are smaller and quite straightforward. JPR welcomes your inquiry about either variety.

Key layout concepts

Plant layouts tend to be infrequent, designed to catch up to changes in equipment, products, volumes, and flow. Get it right, the next one may not occur for a while.

JPR applies these concepts as it assists with layout projects. We have done this before, and our experience is a valuable asset. We'll apply the concepts that will contribute the most to your specific objectives, because all layout projects are not the same.

• For an effective new layout, first pull out all of the waste movement, unnecessary material handling. Material flow, or routing through the process, will then dictate the sequence of equipment as it does with any successful layout, as you:
  Create plans that satisfy not only current but also future space demands.
  Place work stations and inventory to amplify their interactions
  Arrange for short and direct material flow paths.


• Simplify organization of material from receiving through shipping. Don't forget safety, and access for equipment operation and upkeep.


• The keyword is utilization; of space or course but also of equipment where it can serve multiple products; of storage through low inventories; of work through intelligent process flow and proximity of functions.


• A lean layout will tend to have a straight-line flow, little in-process inventory, more special purpose machines and ready access to all ancillary materials for quick changeover and flexible operations. Some people ask about a "lean" layout, when they don't have a "lean" process. My advice is to achieve a lean operation first, and then lay it out. You won't be successful if you don't have a lean operation, but try to attain it just through layout.


• When you include all the stake holders in the development process, the new layout will very likely be more well suited to real conditions, and you'll put it into effect more smoothly.


• Create layouts to accommodate new technology, additional products or volume. Apply productivity principles to create an effective arrangement, to minimize space constraints.


• It is very common to execute a relocation with a "checkers" game, a series of sequential moves. But there has to be an empty space on your checkerboard to start with. First move into the empty space, then move something else into the just-vacated space, and so on. Phased projects are common, as are sequential moves.


• Corporate strategy may suggest a move from point A to point B. When this happens, take advantage of the move to create a point B layout with advantageous operating practices, tailoring your process to the facility dimensions.


• Office layouts are a special case because they usually are quite visible, and affect both clients and executives. Timing to cut business interference is usually critical and employees can really contribute with planning and execution.


• Layouts for a particular function, perhaps maintenance or storage or office, require less time but utilize the same basic layout principles as a larger project.


• If there is a need for building modifications to accommodate a layout, that may control the timeline. Permits, approvals, and the modifications themselves tend to take more time than anticipated.



Free Layout Guide

JPR offers a free layout guide, five articles and nineteen pages, Perhaps this summary will be enough for your project. Please click on the link to receive the free articles by email, providing your name and address. Tell me some information about your situation and layout objectives, and I'll include other information focused on that feature. Request a no-obligation discussion if you'd like.

Our Amazon book

Jack Greene has just published, on Amazon: Plant Design, Facility Layout, Floor Planning. For information on this book, both print and Kindle, please click on the link to the left, top.

Oh yes. If you want a universal template or layout or formula, this book won't help much. I'm sorry but there is no single quick fix, because equipment, process, flow, and building plans have such a major effect on layout and they vary idely. Twenty six layout examples are included however which offer guidance, but the variable factors in your facility will be unique, so your layout will be unique. A good reason to use a consultant.



Should you use consultant services, or design a layout in house?

The answer depends on your own resources. And it is not just a question of their technical ability. Do they have time available to devote to the project?

And, your reaction time may be short and, as with most complex issues experience is valuable and a wrong answer is costly.

JPR is experienced, and our priority is to perform the project.



Layout Projects Are Not All The Same

Layout is not just about fitting workstations into a building floor plan, because no two facilities or processes are the same. There will not be a template on the web, or a standard floor plan, that matches your situation. But together we can find a better layout.

JPR services include hands-on layout, or we can lead or participate in a project, or train your resources so that you will have an in-house capability. We also provide for the inevitable result of a new layout, the move itself. Our checklists and plans will ease the subsequent move to a successful, non-intrusive result.

Please call to discuss what fits for your organization at 843-422-1298.