The objective of this thesis research is to expand on the research that Associate Professor E. Ralph Sims Jr., PE., is overseeing at Ohio University. It is part of an ongoing study to develop a business decision related computer based plant layout package. This is the first step towards development of a process oriented plant layout approach.
It is the objective of this work to introduce the concept of Group Technology into the process selection leading to a manufacturing layout, and the process cost into the layout decision criteria. The resulting process layout will be evaluated by applying the precision costing technique. The result of this procedure is then applied to the material handling based OUPLANT (CRAFT) program to define the best work flow and the best layout.
The resulting software, called "GTPLANT" is a user friendly program where an operation sheet is used as input to evaluate the "facility effect of the process". This effect includes definition of the space requirements, the arrangement of the operations, and the process cost. The time use of facility concept of costing, the machine cost, the space cost, the material handling cost and the labor cost can then be used in the evaluation of each process and layout plan. And by comparing various processes, the most appropriate process and layout can be selected.