Factory Layout from the From-To Matrix
About this app
A 3D production hall with ten areas: from-to matrix, transport effort Σ intensity × distance and Sankey bands on the floor. Drag areas, run the triangle method, transfer to a real layout with columns, doors, crane, paint zone and noise distance, then pairwise exchange with a falling effort curve. Finally walk through the hall as in a VR lab.
With explain mode: an AI tutor walks you through the app, points out what matters in the scene and answers your questions.
From material flow to layout
The from-to matrix counts how many transports per day occur between two areas of a factory. Transport effort is the sum of intensity times distance over all flows. The triangle method after Schmigalla places areas with high intensity on adjacent nodes of a triangular grid and gives an ideal layout. A real building adds columns, doors, crane runway, media routes and special zones. The ideal layout is therefore transferred into a feasible real layout. A pairwise exchange procedure on the CRAFT principle then swaps areas as long as the effort drops and ends in a local optimum.
What the app shows
In the entirely fictional plant Werk Echaz, a sheet metal shop for control cabinet enclosures, ten areas stand in a 72 × 48 m hall, from goods receipt via fibre laser, press brake and powder coating to shipping. The flows lie on the floor as Sankey bands, and forklifts and a tugger train drive them. The initial layout comes to 6.15 km of transport per day. The ideal layout reaches about 3.19 km but has 12 conflicts with the building. Transfer into the real layout gives 4.82 km, and after eight exchanges it is 4.08 km.
What you can try
Drag and rotate the areas on a 1 m grid. The app blocks overlaps, aisles that are too narrow and columns inside an area, and reports violated constraints. Follow the procedure step by step with the timeline slider from the triangle method to the last swap while the effort curve falls. Change entries of the from-to matrix and watch the bands shift. Finally, walk through the hall at eye level, similar to a VR lab. The constraints are teaching values.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a from-to matrix?
- A table that gives the number of transports per time unit for each pair of areas, rows for the source and columns for the destination. In the app there are 15 flows per day, the strongest from the sheet store to the laser with 22 transports.
- How is transport effort calculated?
- As the sum over all flows of intensity times distance, T = Σ m_ij · d_ij. The app measures distance rectilinearly on a 1 m grid across the free travel area between output and input points.
- Can the ideal layout be built directly?
- Usually not, because it is created without regard to the building. In the app columns stand in five areas, goods receipt and shipping are not at a door and powder coating lies outside the paint zone, 12 conflicts in total.
- Does the exchange procedure find the best layout?
- It finds a local optimum: no single swap lowers the effort any further. In the app it ends after eight swaps at 4.08 km per day; swapping directly from the initial layout gives 4.37 km.
Subject: Warehouse and factory planning
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