ACTIVPLAN provides Engineering Services in the areas of productivity improvement, industrial engineering and material handling systems design and engineering.

Specific areas of expertise and examples of work are:

Facilities Planning

Systems integration focusing on material handling allows workers and equipment to operate at peak effectiveness and efficiency. Simulation and other performance evaluation models are used to judge how operational costs and productivity are influenced by the selection of a material handling system design concept.

ACTIVPLAN staff can assist with:

  • Plant layout and material handling design process 
  • Material handling systems equipment selection guidelines
  • Fundamentals of material flow analysis
  • Fundamentals of layout planning and design
  • Material handling system performance evaluation
  • Modeling the behavior of material handling systems

Productivity improvements in clients’ facilities have been achieved through the design of manufacturing facilities and the integration of manufacturing processes through engineered material handling solutions: die handling systems, gravity and powered roller conveyors, overhead power and power and free monorail, bulk handling belt, bucket and screw conveyors, pneumatic tube conveyors, in-floor towline conveyors, package, order picking, sorting and accumulation conveyors.

Production Systems Engineering

Optimization of the production planning cycle, from the receipt of the product design or customer order to completion will improve an enterprise’s ability to compete and deliver product to the customer in the shortest possible time. The optimization steps include analyzing the process plan, designing work areas, considering quality and processing requirements, and integrating the work areas into a functional, group technology, manufacturing cell, or synchronous production system.

Principles applied include:

  • Quick Response Manufacturing Principles to reduce process cycle and customer delivery times
  • Creating product-focused organizations
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Other areas of Production Systems Engineering include:

  • Quality management systems for conformance to ISO 9000
  • Statistical systems for monitoring process capability
  • Workflow and productivity improvement
  • Human resource development and training
  • Wage incentive and profit sharing plans

Work Design

ACTIVPLAN staff have a fundamental understanding of work design and performance improvement concepts, tools, and techniques including applied anthropometry, charting techniques, value stream mapping, work methods and waste analysis, performance measurement and learning curves, workplace organization and visual controls, human factors, and physiological stress.

Supply and Delivery Chain Engineering

Supply and Delivery Chain Engineering considers the enterprise beyond its borders, and interrelates the enterprise directly to the functions and processes of external enterprises such as suppliers of components and services, distributors and customers.

Inter-organizational process linkages are achieved through the investigation and application of emerging technologies of supply chain and delivery chain engineering, including:

  • Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software evaluation and selection
  • Designing supply chain and delivery chain infrastructures
  • Inventory management systems across the supply chain and delivery chain
  • Re-engineering supply chain and delivery chain logistics
  • Use of internet-based emerging technologies for the integration of suppliers and customers to an enterprise
  • Applying supply and delivery chain engineering concepts to the effective and efficient implementation of lean manufacturing systems
  • Designing and modeling the flow of goods and information between enterprises
  • Performance measurement of supply chains
  • Impact and cost analysis of supply and delivery chain technologies

Please contact us so we may discuss your productivity improvement, design and engineering needs.