Gearworks, Inc., manufactures parts for industrial machinery. The manufacturing process requires a variety of machines that grind, heat treat, and polish steel into various shapes. Three different product lines are produced using a traditional process-oriented plant layout as follows:

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A. Discuss the differences in traditional process-oriented plant layouts and cellular productoriented plant layouts.
B. Draw a revised plant layout for Gearworks, assuming management wishes to redesign the plant layout to use three manufacturing cells.
C. Why are product-oriented plant layouts more efficient than process-oriented plant layouts? Explain.
D. What types of savings would managers expect to realize by redesigning the plant layout from process-oriented to product-oriented?