A fixed position layout is usually adopted for large projects such as shipbuilding or road construction. Discuss why this is the case and why you feel that any other type of layout would be perhaps inappropriate. Definition Fixed position layout is one of the four basic types of layouts which are used in the production of goods or service deliveries. This layout is mainly used in the manufacturing, assembling and movement of the products that are too heavy, large or fragile to move (Mahadevan, 2010).
According to definition of Qin and Haung (2010) in the configuration of fixed position layout, the product is not moved from the place of manufacturing for its entire period. While workers, machines and materials keep moving to the site throughout the manufacturing period.
The term “fixed position” refers to the stationary position of materials, labors, equipments and instructions which are brought to the workplace and the services that are delivered to the location of customer. An example of fixed position production layout is the Boeing facility in Everett, Washington where some of the largest airliners of the world are built using fixed production layout (Pride, Hughes and Kapoor, 2011).
The airline manufacturing company does not move the product before finishing it because moving people, parts and machinery is much easier than moving such a large jet airliner. Explanation The use of fixed position layout becomes indispensible in the situations where other types of layouts are inappropriate. For instance, in the construction of oil rigs, the functional layout would not be appropriate layout where different parts of the product are manufactured in different departments, then shifted and compiled in another department (Miltenburg, 2005).
On the other hand in fixed position layout, all the required equipments and labor are essentially moved to the site in each step of job performance. Similarly, cellular layout or product layout would also be inappropriate in the construction of oil rigs because of the fix nature of job. Some other examples where fixed position layout is appropriate are: construction of buildings, dams or nuclear plants, road construction, movie studio, aircraft, shipbuilding, home repairing and drilling for oil. This layout requires portable sources of production in order to perform jobs on the spot.
Boyer and Verma (2009) mentioned a big challenge associated with the fixed position layout that scheduling workforce and equipments on the workplace in order to avoid conflicts or bump to each other. In the field of service delivery, fixed position layout refers to the fixed position of the customer where the position of customer remains stationary and the required elements of service are arranged to the place where customer is located. For example, in the hospital’s operation theater patient remains in the stationary position and all medical staff (doctors, nurses and others) and the required equipments are brought to the patient for the operation and treatment.
This service cannot be replaced by any other type of layout such as product layout, cellular layout or functional layout. Another example of fixed position layout in the servicing industry is construction of house. All construction workforce (such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians and others), materials and equipments are collected at the place of construction rather than building different parts of house in different workplaces.
Application As mentioned above, fixed position layout is applied mainly in the manufacturing of too large or heavy products that are fragile to move (Mahadevan, 2010). The appropriate application of fixed position layout is observed in the construction of buildings, aerospace, roads, shipyards, jet airliner and other giant projects. Whilst in servicing side, operation theaters of the hospitals are good example of the application of fixed position layout where patient remains constant at his or her position and the medical staff approaches the patient for the operation.
The case study of eye surgeon, Svyatoslav Fyodorov also refers to the appropriate application of fixed position layout whose operation theater and operating methods are closer to the automobile assembly plant. Eight patients lie on moving tables which are arranged like the spokes of a wheel around central axis with only their eyes uncovered. Six surgeons are positioned around the rim of wheel to access patients’ eyes.
Patients remain stationary on their positions and wheel shifts them to the next stage of treatment. The application of fixed position layout has made Fyodorov’s eye clinic more successful and unique than other eye clinics where surgeons use conventional methods and procedures for eye surgery. Reference Boyer, K.and Verma, R. 2009. Operations and supply chain management for the 21st century.
Mason: Cengage Learning. Mahadevan, B. , 2010. Operations management: theory and practice. 2nd ed. Noida: Pearson Education India. Miltenburg, J. 2005. Manufacturing strategy: how to formulate and implement a winning plan. 2nd ed. NY: Productivity Press. Pride, W. , Hughes, R. and Kapoor, J. 2011. Business. 11th ed. Mason: Cengage Learning. Qin, W. and Huang, G. Q. 2010. A two-level genetic algorithm for scheduling in assembly islands with fixed-position layouts. Journal of System Science and System Engineering, 19(2), pp. 150-161.