Development of a flexible process layout for a Nigerian beverage industry

Product design is changing everyday as a result of changing in taste of the customers. Production layout must be flexible to cater for these changes. Production layout is flexible if it can accommodate change in flow of workers, material and machines in compliance with the new product demand. In this study, flexible process layout was developed for a Nigerian beverage industry to take care of future change in product design. In the industry, flexibility was considered in redesigning of old production layout in the areas of industrial facility, and operational planning. It was discovered that old layout was deficient in the area of flexibility by 90% of the set standards of the criteria for plant layout. The findings have indicated that the flexibility in plant layout is cardinal in combarting the challenge of changing industrial environment