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Modern factory planning - design, planning, and optimization

factory-planning

Besides location, size, and construction factors here, for example, the link to transportation, logistics and traffic routes are essential, the gearing with other connected production facilities, the bearing capacity, employees, and resources and the engaged machinery, vehicles, and work tools. Also aspects like security, waste disposal, and environment protection will be considered in the forefront of designing a factory.

What does factory design actually mean?

Sound of the lexical definition mean factory design:
The “systematic, on towards goals orientate and for targets defined and structured in coherent phase process for the planning of factory buildings". This process begins with the original idea and extends from all planning stages inclusive of the integration of all desired productions stages up to actual launch.

There are differences:

  • The complete new construction of a factory with all fastened instances and transportation routes,
  • The extension and development of an available plant,
  • Or the reorganization, if for example an available factory site a complete new production other merchandise and goods will be planned and implemented

How does the factory design in industry and logistics look like?

The tasks of the designer will be conducted in many modern industrial factories from special department and counted to the long term projects of the planning process. There are specialized business that will be commissioned externally for these operations.

Especially in industry, manufacturing and logistics, internal logistics factory planning is an indispensable ingredient. In this planning all manufacturing and assembly processes are taken into account, as well as the necessary maintenance and repairs.

Other area of operations of the factory design

The factory design plays a roll and all relevant factor of industrial productions technology. Count the distribution and factory capacity, conveyor system, and transportation route, that actual production planning, personal rooms, and workshops and full connection of the traffic routes like streets, railway, airport, reloading stations, and container and boat harbor.

Even with the factory planning the course for the purpose of an object can be determined. Unlike many other construction projects, a production site is characterized by high investment, through a high maintenance and repair demand, larger safety measures, and also often a longer lifespan.

Which disciplines cover the design of factories?

  1. This includes securing a favorable production and manufacturing flows (for instance through material flow simulation or flow of material planning).
  2. The guarantee of humane and social working conditions
  3. An optimal and adequate utilization of work surfaces and spaces
  4. As well as the guarantee of a high flexibility of the total construction and equipment

The flexibility especially needs to be capitalized in the planning of factories today. A manufacturing plant in the 20th century was still a statistical and monolithic building, today many mobile and flexible factors play a roll.  These include the demands of global competition as well as the shorter life cycles of most products, higher consumer and environmental awareness, quick production time and a bigger choice of varieties in the market.

Which tasks will be managed with the help of factory design?

The goal of factory planning is combined to create a complete unit inserted to meet production numbers and goals, inclusive of the compliance of all economic, financial, social, and ecological objective and surrounding conditions. Thereby, in a factory the proper technical sequence of all process must be guaranteed – by the creation of better working conditions for the employees and the observance of all resources.

A progressive factory planning may also include inter-company planning of industrial plants as well as the integration and implementation of municipal or state concepts. Regularly the factory planning occurs after the principle top down, spoken from the implementation from the master plan to the smallest, unique details.

The main objective of this plan is to implement the manufacturing and assembly, where, for example, storage, transportation, flow of material and supply, research and energy use take an even higher significance. In the last few years and decades, the factory planning has therefore developed out of pure construction of buildings for the establishment of complete production processes.

Which advantages does good factory planning bring?

A good factory represents as it were in advance of a factory simulation. With help from special simulation software, the designer can develop a complete simulation model, which the guidelines and figures are based on. Therefore the complete production, the resources and the transportation routes will be calculated – and therefore also the required staff and operating funds.

In addition through a three dimensional model, not only can the spatial requirements be calculated, but also for example the turnaround time, utilization of the plant, or the sequence of operations. Hence resulting in earlier calculations and the possibility through a factory simulation the production stages to optimize and if necessary show an alternative.

Which disadvantages does faulty factory design bring?

The best factory planning also has its disadvantages. In order to implement a realistic planning, the factory simulation must consider as many scenarios as possible, for instance discrepancies, shortages, crisis´, scarcities and layoffs must be considered. That can never happen completely, but rather only with the general experience. Every planner needs possible versatile and complete figures and factors, to keep the uncertainties low for the simulation of a factory.

What are the barriers for factory design?

The barriers in the factory planning are located in the final creation of a flexible model. Where the case of a purely spatial simulation of the factory was still easily possible, exists by the productions planning too many flexible and many changes and deviations underlying factors. Even with all the rock-solid engineering data therefore should be set by the factory planning always also value good research, realistic emergency scenarios, and experiences of the past.

How can factory design be supported or bettered with software?

Software for factory simulation takes in the meantime an important place in the work of the engineer, designer, and strategist. The strategy of the digital factory enables a complete calculation and graphic representation of the construction as well as from complex productions processes. Simultaneously with this, extensive elements like pictures, graphics, videos, tables, and 2D or 3D simulations to choose. Thereby, the calculation can be displayed in clear models, which the outsiders can better understand.

The production, with the visualization software, can be played out further in multifaceted scenarios and compared with one another. The biggest advantage, if existing or ongoing factories are rebuilt or expanded while they are in service, possible failure scenarios can also be calculated here. This also applies to changes in logistics, manufacturing, resources and material flow analysis. In this respect, factory planning software has long been a fundamental building block in the construction of modern factories.