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The purpose of this paper is to redesign the layout of production floor by considering lean manufacturing in order to eliminate the waste and using Block Layout Overview with Layout Planning (BLOCPLAN) algorithm to attain new layout of facilities in Indonesian home-food industry.

The common problems that might be appearing in home-food industry, especially in the developing countries like Indonesia are unstandardized production process and unorganized work environment which could produce the waste. One of many solutions to handle this problem is improving the work area (work station) in production floor by rearranging and designing standard operating procedure (SOP) by using lean manufacturing concept. The initial data to minimize the waste is motion time study (data) to identify production standard time. The next step is identifying the common waste(s). Meanwhile, the production floor layout used in this research is designed by using BLOCPLAN algorithm.

The recommendation of shop floor facility layout is based on identified waste, which is excess transportation. Subsequently, standard operational procedure (SOP) is developed to support the recommended facility layout as the reference for cookie production process so it can minimize the waste.

Lean concept is one of method that is widely implemented to reduce the occurrence of defective products and waste that do not provide added value. Based on previous researches, it was found that the concept of lean manufacturing can be applied in various types of service and manufacturing industries, both large companies and small and medium enterprises. Home-food industry competition nowadays is getting intense. This condition makes the stakeholders (of home-food industry, especially in Indonesia) need high performance and productivity to keep their business stable in winning the competition. The new layout can reduce the disadvantages of actual condition.

This research is useful for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia especially for home-food industry. The BLOCPLAN layout (as the recommendation) has displacement moment with reduction of 40 percent.

This research believed that it can help SMEs improve their productivity in producing cake and cookies in terms of better layout which can reduce worker movement and standardized working procedure. The design of the production facility layout is a method used to rearrange the production process area so that the distance between processes can be minimized. SOPs was provided as the direction and supervision of workers to work according to standards.

SOP design can support recommended layout as the reference on making the cake (product) to eliminate wastes, which are motion/movement (alternating in production process flow) and long waiting time due to process delays.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of the component assemblies redesign on the material handling costs associated with the facility layout and also, on the productivity of the assembly process. Component assemblies are the sub‐assemblies that are incorporated into the manufactured house as it progresses on the assembly line.

Floor assembly is used as an example to demonstrate the impact of the component assembly redesign process. A step‐by‐step process of assembling a floor in the case study factory is described and changes to the process are proposed. The existing and redesigned floor assemblies are analyzed using the factory layout analysis models and the production simulation models.

The proposed redesign resulted in a small savings of less than 1 per cent in the material handling costs and a substantial savings of around 20 per cent in the production time.

The work described in this paper is based on the existing floor assembly process in a case study factory. Due to the practical limitations, material handling routes and production activities associated with the redesigned assemblies were estimated. The results from this research show that redesign of component assemblies can provide potential avenues of savings for the manufactured housing industry. Such analysis can be performed for any component assembly individually or in combination with other assemblies in order to realize potential savings with relatively minor changes.

Production‐related research in manufactured housing has traditionally focused on either improving the facility layout or the assembly line process but not the combined impact of these two aspects. This paper presents a possible approach to investigating the combined impact by analyzing the impact of redesigned floor assembly.

Overview All organisations are, in one sense or another, involved in operations; an activity implying transformation or transfer. The major portion of the body of knowledge concerning operations relates to production in manufacturing industry but, increasingly, similar problems are to be found confronting managers in service industry. It is only in the last decade or so that new technology, involving, in particular, the computer, has encouraged an integrated view to be taken of the total business. This has led to greater recognition being given to the strategic potential of the operations function. In order to provide greater insight into operations a number of classifications have been proposed. One of these, which places operations into categories termed factory, job shop, mass service and professional service, is examined. The elements of operations management are introduced under the headings of product, plant, process, procedures and people.

The purpose of this paper is to review, evaluate and classify the academic research that has been published in facility layout problems (FLPs) and to analyse how researches and practices on FLPs are.

The review is based on 166 papers published from 1953 to 2021 in international peer-reviewed journals. The literature review on FLPs is presented under broader headings of discrete space and continuous space FLPs. The important formulations of FLPs under static and dynamic environments represented in the discrete and continuous space are presented. The articles reported in the literature on various representations of facilities for the continuous space Unequal Area Facility Layout Problems (UA-FLPs) are summarized. Discussed and commented on adaptive and robust approaches for dynamic environment FLPs. Highlighted the application of meta-heuristic solution methods for FLPs of a larger size.

It is found that most of the earlier research adopted the discrete space for the formulation of FLPs. This type of space representation for FLPs mostly assumes an equal area for all facilities. UA-FLPs represented in discrete space yield irregular shape facilities. It is also observed that the recent works consider the UA-FLPs in continuous space. The solution of continuous space UA-FLPs is more accurate and realistic. Some of the recent works on UA-FLPs consider the flexible bay structure (FBS) due to its advantages over the other representations. FBS helps the proper design of aisle structure in the detailed layout plan. Further, the recent articles reported in the literature consider the dynamic environment for both equal and unequal area FLPs to cope with the changing market environment. It is also found that FLPs are Non-deterministic Polynomial-complete problems, and hence, they set the challenges to researchers to develop efficient meta-heuristic methods to solve the bigger size FLPs in a reasonable time.

Due to the extremely large number of papers on FLPs, a few papers may have inadvertently been missed. The facility layout design research domain is extremely vast which covers other areas such as cellular layouts, pick and drop points and aisle structure design. This research review on FLPs did not consider the papers published on cellular layouts, pick and drop points and aisle structure design. Despite the possibility of not being all-inclusive, the authors firmly believe that most of the papers published on FLPs are covered and the general picture presented on various approaches and parameters of FLPs in this paper are precise and trustworthy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper reviews and classifies the literature on FLPs for the first time under the broader headings of discrete space and continuous space representations. Many important formulations of FLPs under static and dynamic environments represented in the discrete and continuous space are presented. This paper also provides the observations from the literature review and identifies the prospective future directions.

The purpose of this study is to develop a modular garment assembly line simulator that can be used for various production methods such as traditional mass production or modern small quantity batch production.

For realistic simulation, the actual shape and sewing information of the garment patterns were used. The assembly line consists of process units including the cutter, preprocessor, module assembly, final assembly, finish, and stack units. Any number of units can be arranged and connected to form various layouts. The simulation can be run at an arbitrary speed.

This system can be used to estimate the time required to process the given order for a specific layout. Therefore, it can be utilized as the basis for optimum production line design.

This system is expected to be utilized by garment manufacturers for obtaining the productivity improvement, production cost reduction, and increased competitiveness.

Lean manufacturing, a philosophy that revolutionized the manufacturing industry, is often linked to the Toyota Production System (TPS). At the core of a lean company, one can observe proper implementation of lean manufacturing tools and practices such as just-in-time, work teams, cellular manufacturing, lean layout, etc. The goal of lean production is to minimize the waste producing activities while offering the same or enhanced quality to customers.

The aim of this research is to investigate the implementation degree of lean manufacturing and its tools and practices focusing on the case of an SME in Albania as a concrete example. Higher attention is given to some of the pillars of lean manufacturing such as just-in-time and cellular manufacturing.

In this case study, researchers observed a variety of features of lean production. Just-in-time was implemented to a certain extent and cellular manufacturing at a more surprising level, which was facilitated especially by the U-shaped facility layout designs observed during the site visits. The value stream mapping showed a proper group technology in place and the management displayed signs of engagement and future advancement desire regarding this philosophy.

There is much that is unsatisfactory in the way in which the production function is viewed and described in the literature. This article defines four dimensions along which aspects of the production function can be measured. The dimensions are elaborated upon and their usefulness for describing real‐life situations is explored. Possible directions for both empirical and theoretical research using the concept are suggested.

Retreat of the Critics. The publication, last month, of a series of six main articles on Work Study with an introductory leader in The Financial Times was yet further proof of the increasing interest and importance accorded by the nation at large to this decisive “tool of management” which has been, until comparatively recent years, the dream of a few, forward‐looking pioneers. During the past year or two, however, increasing references have been made to Work Study on the radio and television, and in the daily press. As The Financial Times points out: “The critical voices seem now to be growing fainter. For example, no less than 800 industrialists from every part of the country attended the recent conference on Work Study at Harrogate, organised by the British Institute of Management.”

The purpose of this paper is to develop a mathematical model for the design of robust layout for unequal area-dynamic facility layout problem with flexible bay structure (UA-DFLP with FBS) and test the suitability of generated robust layout in a dynamic environment.

This research adopts formulation of a mathematical model for generating a single layout for unequal area facility layout problems with flexible bay structure under dynamic environment. The formulated model for the robust layout formation is solved by developing a simulated annealing algorithm. The proposed robust approach model for UA-DFLP with FBS is validated by conducting numerical experiments on standard UA-DFLPs reported in the literature. The suitability of the generated robust layout in a dynamic environment is tested with total penalty cost criteria.

The proposed model has given a better solution for some UA-DFLPs with FBS in comparison with the adaptive approach’s solution reported in the literature. The total penalty cost is within the specified limit given in the literature, for most of the layouts generated for UA-DFLPs with FBS. In the proposed model, there is no rearrangement of facilities in various periods of planning horizon and thus no disruptions in operations.

The present work has limitations that when the area and aspect ratio of the facilities are required to change from one period to another, then it is not possible to make application of the robust approach-based formulation to the dynamic environment facility layout problems.

Rearrangement of facilities in adaptive approach disrupts the operations whereas in the proposed approach no disruption of production. The FBS approach is more suitable for layout planning where proper aisle structure is required. The solution of the proposed approach helps to create a proper aisle structure in the detailed layout plan. Thus, easy interaction of the material handling equipment, men and materials is possible.

This paper proposes a mathematical formulation for the design of robust layout for UA-FLPs with FBS in a dynamic environment and an efficient simulated annealing algorithm as its solution procedure. The proposed robust approach generates a single layout for the entire planning horizon. This approach is more useful for facilities which are difficult/sensitive to relocate in various periods of the planning horizon.

Using the weighted similarity coefficient (WSC) technique in the design of manufacturing facilities provides the system designer with a suitable method for the creation of efficient manufacturing cells. The formation of such well designed machine cells will then hopefully ensure that the achievable cost reduction benefits, in terms of lower operational costs incurred via the transfer of components between machines, are obtained by companies that wish to use cellular manufacturing in their approach to production operations. The aim of this paper is to outline and evaluate the application of a particular WSC equation to the formulation and design of cellular manufacturing systems.

By using a pragmatic approach, the paper chronicles the design and development of a particular weighted similarity coefficient as a means of defining a possibly useful methodology for cell design in manufacturing systems. The technique outlined is subsequently evaluated for its generic nature, applicability and effectiveness via the use of previously published synthetic production data and a comparison with the results of several alternative approaches.

The development of the proposed weighted similarity coefficient to manufacturing cellular design is outlined in the paper and the appropriateness of the technique is subsequently evaluated in order that the benefits obtainable by its use to a host organisation are highlighted. In addition, the results show how the approach can lead to useful improvements in cellular manufacturing performance if adopted by manufacturing system designers and implemented in their designs.

The design, development and application of the WSC proposed and its use in manufacturing cellular design provides a simple yet highly effective approach to achieving useful improvements in production system performance through improved work‐part transfer efficiency and associated cost savings. The paper offers practising manufacturing managers and engineers a technique whereby manufacturing cell productive efficiency and output can be improved whilst at the same time achieving a reduction in operational costs.

The paper focuses on the proposed WSC technique which contributes to the existing knowledge base on production cell design and may also provide impetus, guidance, support and encouragement for designers to achieve improved output performance and reduced costs in their manufacturing system designs.