Apr 7, 2024 · Plant layout is the overall arrangement of the production process, store-room, stock-room, tool-room, material handling equipment, aisles, racks and sub-stores, employee services and all other accessories required for facilitation of the production in the factory.

Plant layout is a plan for effective utilisation of facilities for the manufacture of products; involving a most efficient and economical arrangement of machines, materials, personnel, storage space and all supporting services, within available floor space. More defines plant layout as follows:

Definition: Plant Layout involves the optimum physical arrangement of the economic activity centres so that they are easily manageable. It aims at finding the quickest route for efficient material flow at minimum cost.

A lean plant layout streamlines your smart factory workflow, cuts waste, and enhances value, leading to reduced costs and improved quality. It’s all about arranging your processes with the end-to-end flow in mind—turning raw materials into customer-ready products efficiently.

In this article we will be discussing about types of plant layouts and how to select those. In this layout all machines, equipment and work stations are arranged according to sequence of operation of products and closer to each other. It is also called as Line Layout.

Plant layout is the most effective physical arrangement, either existing or in plans of industrial facilities i.e. arrangement of machines, processing equipment and service departments to achieve greatest co-ordination and efficiency of 4 M’s (Men, Materials, Machines and Methods) in a plant.