Study of Plant Layout by Fixed-Position Based on Project Type Using Simulation

Abstract

Determining the factors to be taken into account when designing a fixed-position plant layout is a difficult and important decision when dealing with the production of single products, such as in the case of fixed-position manufacturing projects. In this type of project, the most important factors to take into account are the arrangement of materials during manufacturing, the scheduling of activities and the order of operations, among others. Within this type of projects, the most complex manufacturing projects can be included, such as shipbuilding or aeronautical projects where, within the same project, different manufacturing plants are involved, located in different places, to be assembled in the Dock, in the case of shipbuilding, or in the Final Assembly Line (FAL), in the case of aeronau-tical construction. The purpose of this article focuses on the analysis phase of the SLP (Systematic Layout Planning) method and aims to design and analyze the dif-ferent types of plant layouts that can be used for the execution of a manufacturing project. Through the realization of different simulation models, according to the state variables, using FlexSim software, it is intended to adapt the different scenar-ios and combinations in order to optimize the different processes by performing repeated iterations until the optimal solution is reached, identifying the most ap-propriate type of plant layout for each case or even the combination of several types, adapted to different locations.