Plant layout of a blackberry pulp production process

Abstract

An adequate plant layout expedites the production process, optimizing time and resources to improve the industrial system's performance. This work presents the plant layout of a blackberry pulp production process using the systematic layout planning (SLP) methodology, which allows for analysis and evaluation and renders all the elements involved in the productive process. This qualitative method allows for locating the internal components of the plant-based on different factors. Tools used include material flow analysis through the from/to chart; the Guerchet methodology makes it possible to determine the total area needed; the space relationship diagram allows fixing the proximity between the elements; finally, three alternatives are established and evaluated for the distribution. According to the scores obtained, the alternative improvement is selected, and the plant layout is virtualized using three different 3D design software that allows rendering of the plant layout.