The Newsletter of Lean Manufacturing Strategy
Don't Pave the Cowpath! |
Designing Aisles for Industrial & Working Facilities |
|
Kansas City |
20 OCT 2021 |
Issue# 100 |
Aisles are usually an after-thought in facility planning; dropped into whatever interstitial space remains after the "important" areas are located. This negatively affects handling cost, flexibility, communication, housekeeping, safety and even morale. A more rationalized approach treats the aisle design, material handling design and facility layout as concurrent. This triple concurrency is difficult humans to deal with. Even more so for quantitative algorithms. This is why computerized space planning programs ignore the issue or produce poor or primitive outputs.
In Boston Town
of old reknown
The gentle cows
The pathways made
Which grew to streets which keep
The stranger quite dismayed
Ever drive around Boston? The city is infamous for it's convoluted streets and chaotic traffic. I have noticed that the aisles in many industrial plants and office buildings are about like Boston's streets. I wonder if they have the same origin?
Our new page on aisle design offers some guiding principles and a methodology for designing aisles that meet OSHA requirements while optimizing traffic and material handling. I presented these ideas at the Institute for Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE) annual conference in 2020 and the full paper is available in a pdf file.
I have been lax in sending these newsletters recently bu thope to do better. Consulting projects, covid, and a classic car restoration seemed to get in the way. As always, feel free to send an email or call.
Best Regards,
Quarterman Lee
816-931-1414
