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Waunakee, Wisconsin

Articles

	NAPL's Executive Insights
	Assessing Your Space Requirements
	By Hal Ettinger

 

"Exactly how much space do I really need?"

"Do I have enough space in this plant to expand, or should I look elsewhere?"

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Available space, or the lack of it, is the primary factor to consider when upgrading, expanding or relocating your printing operations. Therefore understanding what you do have becomes critical as you move forward with any expansion or plant upgrade plans.

The pinch will come when you physically run out of room. That new press or bindery line just won't fit, no matter how important it is for new, or worse, current business. Actually, other less-obvious signs indicated you were running out of room may have been around for some time. Among them were inadequate staging areas for first- and second-pass stock to your sheetfed presses; not enough room for work in process going to bindery; and double-handling of raw materials, WIP, or finished goods because all available space was fair game for dropping whatever the lift operator had at that moment. These signs along with increasing waste factors, poor quality, and late deliveries all indicated that you needed more room. Or the room you did have needed to be made into a more efficient plant layout.

When it comes to setting the iron on the floor, physical space is not debatable, no matter how important the equipment may be to sales. Rather than constantly fighting the turf battle between equipment and materials, step back and determine how much space you actually need now and in the foreseeable future, say three to five years out. After all, if you get it right now, you might be able to avoid "space paralysis" in the future.

Documenting What You Have

To assess present and future space requirements you will need to first document your existing department square footages (spreadsheet works well). Then talk to plant floor personnel to assess department vs. management perceptions of just how much area you actually operate from.

First start by finding that old, dog-eared roll of building drawings ("Where was the last place I saw those?").

You or Doug in maintenance, or possibly someone from outside the company, should bring the old drawings up-to-date. If building drawings don’t exist, start from scratch. Actually, when considering the benefits, particularly if you are planning an expansion at the existing location, you'll need to do this anyway. Once you have the drawings, locate on them the overall operating areas for prep, press & bindery equipment, fulfillment and warehousing.

Correctly documenting existing department boundaries helps establish benchmarks that will be key for future expansion. Before you can know where you're going, you need to benchmark where you are. Because people spend most of their waking hours at work, everyone at the plant can relate to their existing work conditions as they relate to total area.

Establishing a point of reference like a department’s square footage becomes important when a person attempts to relate where they work to the actual physical area they know so well. You need to quantify the space by finding its’ square footage. And while you’re at it document the clear height of pressroom and warehousing, and record overall department shapes (rectangular,”T” or I ). This information will give everyone a much better idea not only of what they have but also of what they don't want to repeat in any future expansion and the reasons behind what they DO require.

The Importance of Site: Life Beyond the Walls

Documenting the existing or potential site for any expansion can be as important as documenting the existing building conditions. Doing so may avoid possible project delays and unexpected construction costs.

The first step is to obtain a plat of survey. This document will show property lines and easements, which will impact the size of an expansion. It also will show the location and size of the sanitary, storm water, gas, electric, and water lines. In the case of sanitary lines, another survey will be required that calls out the invert elevations below grade. This information is particularly important when an expansion includes new drains, work sinks or toilets. Their locations will determine how they are tied into existing sanitary lines and whether a lift station is required.

A topographic survey should be the next step in documenting existing site conditions. This survey is a map of existing grade elevations and therefore very important when evaluating the extent of site-grading work. If a new warehouse and standard 4-ft. recessed truck docks are part of the expansion, the topographic survey will be instrumental in determining cut-and-fill requirements for preparing the site. Keep in mind existing slopes (re: grades) can be very misleading when you're trying to eyeball their rise or fall of property.

A soils report (Geotechnical) analyzing the soil characteristics would also be very beneficial to have prior to any construction.

Interviewing Plant Personnel to Find Out the Real Scoop

When you get serious about assessing your space requirements you’ll need to ask the people on the floor what's needed. It's amazing what you'll find out. It makes sense. After all, the people working in the crowded conditions you're trying to improve will best be able to assess future space requirements. Plant floor personnel are the resources you need to tap when determining just how much space is required to do a particular task everyday.

Avoid the trap of assessing space requirements from the front offices or by management perception. Often serious discrepancies occur between what management perceives are space requirements and what personnel on the floor say is needed. Typically, answers to space requirement questions fall somewhere between the front office's perception and people in the plant.

A word of caution: when inviting staff to participate in the expansion process. Make sure you realize that working in crowded conditions often causes people to overreact when determining how much space they need. It's human nature. We all overreact ("Has to be three times what we have" is to be expected) when given an opportunity to improve our workplace. We tend to feel additional space is the cure for what ails us. It takes effort to determine if "three times what we have" is accurate or just an overreaction.

Encourage plant personnel to participate in the expansion planning process. You might learn that it's not space you need, but a change in the way materials or people circulate through a department.

Is throwing more space at the problem of production inefficiencies the answer? Not necessarily. It could be that the root of the problem is the way the department is laid out? Or the major factor contributing to plant inefficiencies is because the only way to get from one area of the plant to the next is through a department. Which always leads to material handling bottlenecks and disruptions. Learn to be a bit of a detective and find out the real cause of production problems.

Equipment Dolls Don't Lie

So you want to quickly see if there’s enough space in the pressroom or bindery for that piece of equipment hopefully before the purchase. Simple make a copy of its plan view (sometimes called "general arrangement drawing" by the manufacturer). Make sure you create this plan in the same drawing scale as your building plan (You do have a building plan, don't you?).

Cut out the equipment plan to use as a template or "doll." Place this scaled replica on the building plan in the area where you plan to install the equipment. You can begin to see just how much room you’ll need. Be sure to account for space for material handling aisles, work in process, and support equipment (sometimes called "ancillaries" like compressors, electrical panel, etc.).

You can use the same process to assess space requirements for a proposed expansion. Assemble the equipment plans of equipment you intend to locate in the new expansion, e.g., presses, cutters, folders, bindery lines. Make scaled equipment dolls, and place them in the vicinity of the proposed expansion plan (remembering to use the same drawing scale). When you include space for aisles, WIP, and support equipment, you may find out more area is required. A good rule of thumb is that a press requires an area up to 3 times its’ physical footprint and that material handling aisles can account for up to 12-15% of total square footage of a plant.

 

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