Optimization of Plant Layout for a State Road Transport Corporation

Facility layout design is a strategic issue and has a significant and lasting impact on the efficiency of a manufacturing system. An ideal facility layout provides the optimum relationship among output, floor area and manufacturing process. Traditionally, the facility layout problem is solved using many methods like heuristics, Mathematical programming, Knowledge based approaches etc. This paper presents a case study for optimizing the layout with minimum cost in an automobile manufacturing company. Since it is an automobile assembly plant, the company has both process as well as product layouts. The first visit to the company revealed a variety of problems due to its improper layout. For optimizing the present layout of the plant Graph theory and assembly line balancing principle is used. This work studies the impacts of implementing the modified layout based on Graph theory in a transport corporation, in terms of cost and production line efficiency. The cost analysis shows a savings of about 15% per bus in manufacturing by this method. The proposed layout does not require so much of restructuring. By investing an amount of around 25 Lakhs, restructuring can be done also, the profit can be attained within a short payback period of two months. The implementation of proposed model will help in the overall improvement of production performance of the bus body building unit of corporation.