DESIGN OF PLANT LAYOUT ALTERNATIVES FOR THE FRUIT AND VEGETABLE PROCESSING INDUSTRY

Abstract

             The purpose of this research were to analyze the plant layout of the fruit and vegetable processing industry. In the present, there were some inappropriate situations that occurred in the process, such as the high material handling distance, accidents or unsafe conditions, occurred, and so on. It could be investigated that the cause was due to the inappropriate plant layout and space allocation. The Principle of Systematic Layout Planning (SLP) developed by Richard Muther was applied to construct the Activity Relationship Chart (REL Chart). Then, the closeness rating in the REL chart was determined with the consideration of the intensity of material flows and the constraints of the food industry.  In this research, the three alternative designs of plant layouts were proposed. The first layout was designed corresponding to the practical limitations and the expansion of the processing capacity. It could be found that there was a minor change in the department location in this layout. For the second one, the area of the packing department was expanded. For the last one, it was designed due to the omission of the constraint of the building structure. After that, the effectiveness of each design was calculated according to Dileep R. Sule’s Theory.  As shown in the results, the effectiveness value of the three new designs was 246, 304, and 126, respectively, while the effectiveness value of the present layout was 334.  As can be seen, the consistency in the closeness rating of the proposed designs was better. Moreover, the material handing distance of each layout tended to reduce.