Facility Design Assignment

Instructions:

The purpose of this assignment is to help the student understand the elements and complexities of designing and operating a logistics facility. Each student will be assigned to design a particular facility. The facilities represent differing product industries, and will be designated as to whether the facility as a unionized or non-unionized environment.

Each team (or student if individual assignments are designated as a team assignment) has several deliverable responsibilities to the instructor. They are as follows:

1 Each team will submit a bid form for the property that they desire to purchase in an industrial park designed for this project (see the worksheet identified "Industrial Park (Overview)"). This bid form (see the worksheet identified "Property Pricing & Bid Form") is to be submitted to the instructor during the designated class.

Teams will be competing against all other teams in designated classes. The instructor (real estate agent) is in the business of maximizing revenues from property sales, so all bids need to be price competitive. Bids not accepted by the instructor will be sent back for further consideration of other alternative properties and negotiation.

2 Once each team has purchased property for facility construction, decisions will be made on appropriate design and costs of the facility. Consideration must be given to how the total acreage purchased will be used. In addition, consideration should be given to external elements, as well as the internal elements of the facility.

To help understand this, a worksheet identified as "Diagram Samples" offers examples of how the complex can be broken down for visual presentation. In addition the "Decision Input Sheet" on the spreadsheet provides each team with the necessary information for each facility assignment. Decisions are made on the "Decision Input Sheet." All cells
are locked except for the orange cells on the sheet. Those are the cells that teams can use to determine the necessary construction and equipment characteristics and costs of the facility and complex.

3 Each team is also responsible for diagramming the facility in the grids provided on the "Facility Diagram Sheet." Starting in Row 21 are a series of grids (Highlighted in Red) each representing 160,000 square feet of space. For some designs, the majority of one of these grids may be enough to cover the property and building. However, I would expect that if more than three acres was purchased, then probably that design will require more than one Red level grid.

Therefore, each cell in these grids represents 4 feet on each side, and each cell can be considered the equivalent of one (horizontal) pallet position in the facility. In addition, for each grid created at this level, the corresponding "Orange" cells in Column A for each grid must be accurately completed, with proper building dimensions and ceiling heights. The accuracy of this information is critical to successful completion of the project.

Finally, within each grid, the student should paste relevant pictures of equipment which can be found on the internet to provide visual support for the various equipment selected and represented in each diagram. Those pictures can (and should be) imported as appropriate to help present what the facility would be appropriate to help present what it would look like and how it would operate.

For clarity purposes, teams are encouraged to include a "Key" at the top and to the right of each grid.

Note: Part of the evaluation will be a competitive assessment of the financial and customer service level outcomes at the top of the "Decision Input Sheet" indicating financial and service performance. Each team (student) will also be evaluated by the level of detail in the visual diagram information provided on the "Facility Diagram" Sheet.