Resolving Facility Layout Issues in an Ontario Bakery Using CRAFT with Numerous Departments and Probabilistic Rack Movement

A bakery in Ontario had rack disorder and storage issues due to facility layout problems. A Computerized Relative Allocation of Facilities Technique (CRAFT) analysis was performed with twenty departments and two conditional (probabilistic weighted) racking routes in a cost matrix to indicate the likelihood that a new rack would be needed on a given route. CRAFT’s revised layout had two racking areas (one nearby, one distant) that optimized the flow for all product routes with a 26 % improvement in total movement cost, which may increase production and reduce racking issues in the bakery.