Title: Operational aspects associated with strategic layout designs and their effectiveness: a multiple case study

Authors: Alan D. Smith, O. Felix Offodile

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, PA 15219-3099, USA. ' Department of Management and Information Systems, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242-001, USA

Abstract: As part of this paper, five different organisations based in the Pittsburgh, PA area and their layout strategies were identified and analysed through both primary and secondary sources. United Parcel Service and their layout strategy for package cars and feeder trucks in and out of the facility were identified. Priority Healthcare Pharmacy is a mail-order pharmacy dedicated to providing patients with specialty medications through home-delivery services. Shipping medications in a timely fashion to patients in need and at the same time ensuring the quality of dispensing the prescription is extremely important to any health provider; hence, the layout of their pharmacy lends hand to meeting these requirements. Verizon Wireless has a number of different facilities in the Pittsburgh area that participate in customer service processes. Their inbound call centre was analysed to determine how their layout contributes to their daily operations. The Mellon Financial Corporation was explored to understand the impact of integrating new technology into their workspace and finally Del Monte|s food factory and their product-oriented layout is discussed for their baby food and soup production.

Keywords: case study; customer service; layout design; operations management; strategic layout; USA; United States; new technology; facilities layout.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2008.019187

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2008 Vol.4 No.6, pp.710 - 727

Published online: 02 Jul 2008 *

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