Directorate of distance education

Microcomputers
—Gateway assembles personal computers.
Batch
➢
Medicine
—Merck creates a variety of medicines in large batches 
using the ssamd equipment.
➢
Surgery
—Shouldice Hospital specializes in hernia surgery.
➢
Lumber
—Weyerhaeuser cures lumber in specially design kilns 
(furnaces).
Manufacturing Cells and Flexible Manufacturing Systems
➢
Metal forming operations
—Wyman-Gordon forges many different 
parts for the automotive industry.
➢
Hospitals services
—Hospital wards group together patients with 
similar needs to improve service and lower costs.
Job Shop
➢
Offices
—Colleges of business strive to achieve a layout that locates 
colleagues with similar fields close together.
➢
Medical services
—emergency room layouts cope with a wide 
variety of medical problems.
Continuous Flow Processes
The layout for a continuous flow operation builds directly on the 
concept of minimizing the distance that people, information, and material 
move. An activity matrix for a continuous flow process is shown in Exhibit 
This matrix organizes and displays the movement of people, parts, or other 
things between departments. The zeros in Exhibit indicate no movements 
between those pairs of departments. 

---

Notes
204
The number ten represents ten items moving from one department 
to another. The items could be pieces of wood used to make furniture, 
stock purchase transactions, or even people moving from one point to 
another.
The matrix does not consider movements from department 1 
to department 1,2 to2, and so on. These interdependent moves would 
be considered as part of the layout within the department. As shown 
in the matrix in Exhibit, product movement follows the same sequence 
through the departments: 1-2-3-4-5. The flows between any other pair 
of departments or in any other sequence are zero. As a result, the layout 
that minimizes the costs of moving between departments is simple—it 
follows the product’s sequence of operations. This is why a continuous 
flow process and assembly lines are said to have product-oriented layouts.
Even in cases where other minor product movement exists, the 
dominant flow will govern the layout. It is only when these other flows 
become significant that the process is no longer a continuous flow or an 
assembly line. When many different paths or sequences occur, the process 
takes on characteristics typical of a job shop.
Because the layout for continuous flow processes follows the 
product’s sequence of operations, the technical aspects of the process 
selection ultimately dictate the layout. For example when crude oil is 
refined to make various products, including gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, 
and heating oil, the process follows a sequence of steps.
In the first step, distillation, crude oil is heated to 700 degrees F.A 
mixture of vapor and unvaporized oil passes from the heating furnace into 
a fractioning column that contains perforated trays. The vapor condenses 
at different trays, which means that different products come out of the 
column at different levels. Gasoline is lighter than heating oil and therefore 
condenses at a different (higher) level. 
In the next step, alteration, the remaining heavy oils, which have 
little economic value, are processed so their chemical structure is altered. 
These elements are recombined to make high-value products such as 
gasoline. In the final step, impurities, such as sulfur, are removed from 
the products. The layout of the oil refinery should follow the processing 

---

Notes
205
requirements so the equipment for distillation is close to the equipment 
for alteration, which, in turn, is close to the equipment for purification. In 
this way, material-handling costs are reduced.