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7 6 G R A P H I C S P R O S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 1 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M of materials throughout your facility. The process flow chart can help you maintain a lean manufacturing linear flow. Creating a more linear flow reduces the number of times that materials crossover each other and bottleneck through the plant. Start your layout by identifying your ship- ping and receiving areas. In many buildings, you will be limited by the entry and exit points of goods. Shipping and receiving of- ten accounts for 15% to 20% of your floor space, but that number can greatly depend on your business model and processes. Some of your assets will have restricting factors that should be taken into consider- ation as you lay out your different business functional areas. It's critical to use your list of future plans and equipment when organizing your layout. You may, for example, plan on adding warehouse racking, but some areas of your building may have lower ceilings. If you don't take this into consideration now, you could face a considerable expense to relo- cate equipment when the time comes to implement your future project. PHYSICAL CONSIDERATIONS The screen development and reclaim areas are some of the first elements placed on most layouts due to the physical plumb- ing restrictions of the building. Cutting up flooring to relocate floor drains or water lines can be expensive, and many landlords restrict this type of invasive plumbing. De- velopment areas require a dark room with humidity and climate control to operate well, while reclaim areas require good ven- tilation along with safety considerations for solvent usage and wastewater disposal. Automatic screen print presses and dry- ers will likely be the hardest things to relocate on your production floor. Put a lot of consideration into how you move forward with their placement. The electri- cal infrastructure in the screen print area is often critical, and careful planning can greatly reduce your layout cost. Something as simple as adding extra length to your electrical and air connections may elimi- nate the expense of electricians if you need to move things around to accommodate a larger press in the future. When you plan your general layout, con- sider shortening electrical runs for higher amperage equipment that may save sub- stantial amounts of cost when setting up a new layout. Electrical infrastructure is high on my list when shopping for a new building purchase. Make sure you have taken your building's electrical capacity into consideration in your plans as it is often overlooked and can potentially result in unsolvable problems in the future if not planned for accordingly. After developing a general layout, con- tinue working on one functional area at a Using rolling job carts, apparel carts, and screen carts can eliminate clutter areas and make your production space more organized, versatile, and safe. (Image courtesy GPX/Regan Dickinson) Some of your assets will have restricting factors that should be taken into consideration as you lay out your different business functional areas. It's critical to use your list of future plans and equipment when organizing your layout. (Im- age courtesy GPX/Regan Dickinson)