Directorate of distance education

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Activity Matrix for Continuous Flow Process
Continuous Flow Processes and Service Industries
Many continuous flow operations are found in the production 
of goods because many service operations lack the volume required to 
support the large fixed investment in facilities necessary for continuous 
flow operations. 
There are some notable exceptions, how-ever. The U.S. Postal 
Service handles billions of pieces of correspondence with thousands of 
expensive and sophisticated sorting machines and handling systems. 
FedEx handles packages and mail in the same way.
Large banks also have continuous flow processes. Most customers 
see only the small branch operations, which tend to be tailored to the 
individual customer’s needs and thus are more like job shop operations. 
But the central processing area is a continuous flow operation that can 
handle hundreds or thousands of transaction each day. Here, checks 
written against deposits in the bank are processed and the information 
entered into the computer system.
The approach to facility layout for handling mail or processing 
checks is similar to the approach to facility layout for making steel or 
refining oil. Once the sequence of operations is determined, the layout 
will follow.

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Notes
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Assembly Lines
As assembly line is designed to arrange various components into 
a final product that conforms to standards set in product design. The 
purpose of an assembly line is to divide complex tasks into small, easy-to-
learn segments that can be repeated over and over. An assembly line usually 
consists of a series of workstations or work centers at which individuals 
perform these tasks on each product. Most assembly lines are designed to 
produce large volumes of one product that have limited options.