The development of optimal layout and its alternatives is a critical step in the facilities planning process. A good layout reduces accidents, labor costs, minimizes the movement between work centers, facilitates uninterrupted flow of the materials and helps to carry production activities within the predetermined time period with effectiveness. In this paper, a small-scale pump manufacturing industry is analyzed for its existing layout. The existing layout is found to be a process layout, and an attempt is made to study the possible benefits from the implementation of a cellular layout. The case specifically deals with the layout analysis of the production line of two different models of submersible pump. Multiple identical machines are involved in this process. An algorithm, involving operation allocation to machines rather than part allocation to cells, proposed by Xambre and Vilarinho (2003) is used to obtain the starting solution. Further betterment of the solution is achieved using the heuristic approach. The whole manufacturing process, for both existing and modified layouts, is simulated using the simulation software WITNESS, and the improvement in various parameters like material handling, Work-in-Process (WIP), waiting time, etc. is observed and presented in the paper.

Plant layout is a technique of locating different machines and plant services within the factory so that the greatest possible output of high quality at the lowest possible cost is available. It is responsible for an orderly flow of materials, productivity, and moral of the worker. It is necessary to have systematic layout planning. Detailed information about the different types of layout can be obtained from the various publications on operations management and facilities planning (Krajewski and Ritzman, 2001; and Tompkins et al., 2002). Among the various types of layout, cellular layouts attempt to combine the flexibility of a process layout with the efficiency of a product layout. Based on the concept of Group Technology (GT), dissimilar machines are grouped into work centers, called cells, to process parts with similar shapes or processing requirements. The layout of the machines within each cell resembles a small flow line. Production Flow Analysis (PFA) is a GT technique that reorders part routing matrices to identify families of parts with similar processing requirements.

Cellular layouts have become popular in the past decade as the backbone of modern factories. Cellular Manufacturing (CM), an application of GT, utilizes the concept of divide and conquer and involves the grouping of machines, processes and people into cells responsible for manufacturing or assembly of similar parts or products. Significant improvements can be achieved in areas such as lead times, set-up times, Work-in-Process (WIP), quality, machine utilization and employee job satisfaction as a result of implementing CM (Heragu, 1994). First step in the design of a CM system is the cell formation which facilitates parts with similar processing requirements to be completely manufactured within the same cell. However, in practice, completely independent cells are usually difficult to generate, since some parts may need to be processed in more than one machine cell, leading to some intercellular flow. Thus, the major goal for the cell formation problem is to find the grouping of machines into cells that minimize intercellular flow (Heragu, 1994).

Operations Management Journal, Pump Manufacturing Industry, Cellular Layouts, Mathematical Programming, Graph Theoretic Methods, Traditional Production System, Mathematical Models, Multiple Identical Machines, Machine Utilization, Interoperation Flow Matrix, Core Machines.