facilities design study and then developing a design for the facility. This will determine the desired flow of material, the most economical arrangement of physical facilities, and will serve as the basis for the building design. Of course, the architect should be consulted in the early planning stages for advice on general building construction, but his actual design work should follow that of the plant layout engineer. In this regard, one prominent architectural engineer has said:Today's factory is no longer simply a consolidation of manufacturing activities it is

more commonly a supermachine. Its potential output may be enormous and its labor-

reducing efficiencies may be impressive. But this super-machine is also unusually complex,

sensitive, often rather inflexible, and quite frequently requires a substantial capital

investment. In many instances, this supermachine will have an unforeseen impact upon sales

policy, inventory levels, maintenance and control of downtime, and the work force. These

considerations mean that today's industrial manager must, in effect, actively design his

manufacturing and distribution facilities to meet the same economic objectives as his

marketing strategy. Here, too, he must call upon the finest professional engineering and

architectural team when embarking upon a facilities expansion program.

Facilities Design and Productivity

The continuing cry of businessmen is for ways of reducing costs to offset the ever-increasing prices they must pay for labor and material. One of the prime sources of cost-improvement opportunities is in the re-designing of facilities and the methods by which they turn out their products. Business Week has said:

Behind the scaling up and modernization of industrial plant and the changes in technology and organization that go with it there is one prime motivation: to produce more goods and services with less labor. Development of an affluent society brings with it a structure of costs that almost automatically forces management to economize on labor. What was median family income a generation ago is now the official "poverty line." And what was average hourly pay for industrial workers is now the legal minimum wage.

A substantial chunk of the fatter payroll is, to be sure, pure inflation, because management has tried to keep pace by boosting prices. But the practically universal expectation of a yearly increase in pay gives management no option when it comes to labor-saving. Industries that cannot achieve new standards of productivity to go along with the new standards of pay are caught in a vise.

And, following up this line of thought, one engineer has said:

A 10 per cent reduction (of labor payroll) can be anticipated under the minimum

conditions of plant relocation to a modern environment, even without significant

changes in methods or equipment.