This course covers concepts and techniques of planning, design, and operation within a facility, with special emphasis on flows of people and materials, and storage/retrieval operations.  Major topics include:  0) Framing the question:  What is the nature of the problem, including impacts of the Covid-19 crisis,  1) Processing requirements analysis: how many to produce/process and what variety,  2) Activity relationships: which areas should be adjacent/close, apart,  
3) Quantitative measures of flows among departments,  4) Traditional layout planning using simple graphics software,  5) Computer-aided layout planning using smart software,  6) Single-criterion and multi-criteria evaluation, 
7) Technologies/topologies for material flow systems in manufacturing/distribution and analytic techniques,  
8) Technologies/topologies for storage systems, 9) Distribution center operations, material and information transformations,  10)  Ergonomic aids, NIOSH guidelines and evaluation techniques, emergency egress,   
11) Economic analysis for capital-intensive projects.  Case examples will be from bottling plants, printing operations, distribution centers, office buildings, repair shops, and other types.  The focus is on two-dimensional representations.