Title:

AN ENTERPRISE LOGISTICS VIEW OF MANUFACTURING FACILITIES AND MATERIAL HANDLING SYSTEMS

ABSTRACT This paper uses two case studies to highlight the modern perspectives of manufacturing facilities design. The first case describes the design of a mo dern manufacturing facility that is required to respond to changing market demand. Its configuration depends on a number of manufacturing control parameters and not just simply on material flow. The second case is concerned with the design of a material handling system. It is revealed that modern material handling should be significantly enhanced to embody aspects of enterprise logistics. These case studies are characterized by stochastic and interdependent system variables, requiring the use of discrete-event simulation to effectively evaluate system performance. Keywords: Discrete-event simulation, facilities design, material handling, manufacturing focus, enterprise logistics, just-in-time production 1. INTRODUCTION Facilities design, which includes layout planning and material handling systems, is a complex and knowledge intensive process, and especially so if facilities design is project based and non-recurrent. Over the years, workers such as Muther[1], Apple [2], and more recently, Lee et al.[3] have contributed to this field by proposing methods that tackling such problems. Particularly, Muther’s SLP has been deeply embedded in the fields of facilities design. Actually, a number of computer-aided layout planning techniques and algorithms are developed due to SLP. SLP has been applied successfully in some facilities design projects. It uses procedures, conventions, and phases to help layout planners with each stage of the project. It saves time and effort by providing layout planning within a system structure. A more recent and is in itself significant contribution is by Lee et al.[3], who advocate a strategic aspect that involves the rationalization of products and processes in the facility so as to achieve manufacturing focus, considered crucial in today's competitive and distributed manufacturing environment. While the values of the approaches (especially the traditional ones) described above are duly recognized, they unfortunately impose a static and stereotypical view on the problems. To put the words of Lee et al., “many layouts created with such systematic methodologies are simply slightly improvements on of what went before. The primary concern is how to arrange blocks of space.” In other words, the approach might fail to address the actual needs of the facility.

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