Some products are manufactured at high speed in a continuous process. This may be true of the products that you create in your operation. Usually the steps in such a production process are fast paced and have about the same time allocated to each step as the tasks are completed. A manufacturer who has the types of products that are created this way usually only has a small variation in the different types of products that are made. All the products are part of the same family. For instance a drug manufacturer may only produce products that are placed into glass bottles for sale to customers. All the products are of the same family because they are placed in glass bottles, but there is a wide variation in the contents of those bottles. During a given production run the contents of the bottles may be aspirin, while in another run the contents of the bottles may be quinine. The production steps for creating these products is basically the same, while the labeling and contents are totally different. This is called the product layout.
The entire production process for such an operation is laid out in a straight line from start to finish. At each of these stages along the production line the product receives attention for a given phase of production that contributes to the product manufacture. Each of the stages are connected together by a conveyor system that moves products from one stage to another. In the drug production operation empty 
bottles are moved to the beginning of the production line and may go through a stage that verifies the useability of each bottle. Those bottles that not useable are removed from the line by an automated process. Bottles that pass inspection are then moved to the next phase of production. This type of operation is one that is called paced because each of the work locations on the production line has a specified amount of time for the task to be performed on each product that goes by it. There are other types of production lines that are unpaced where there are some areas on the line that accumulate in-process inventory between the production stages. The paced production line is sometimes better suited for the creation of small products that are easily handled by conveyor systems, while the unpaced line is sometimes better for bulkier products. Sometimes the paced and unpaced types of layout are called timed and untimed.
The paced layout is directly tied to the amount of time it takes for each production task to be completed on the line. Industrial engineering usually sets up the time allocations for each work station on a production line. This time is the optimum time for each task to be completed during a given production run. Sometimes the number of units that is produced on a production line is directly tied to an incentive for the workers that have responsibilities on the line. This type incentive encourages the workers to keep the line running at an optimum rate and complete production jobs as quickly as possible. Line balancing of the phases on the production line equals out the time that each work area will have to complete the production tasks that it is assigned. Often there will be groups of similar automation devices on the production line that are required to work together to complete a given task. In the drug production operation this could be a group of bottle filling devices that work together to fill a given number of bottles with product in an allotted time. In small manufacturing shops it may be possible to utilize the product layout if the product type and production environment makes it possible.
The product layout for manufacturing has great advantages. The output of products that comes off the end of the production line can be very high volume in a short period of time. This high unit volume will result in a low cost per unit of production. The amount of time and the cost that is required for training is reduced because of the specialization of tasks on the line. Supervision can spread over a larger number of employees thus reducing management expense. Equipment and employee utilization is continuously high. Delivery of products to customers is consistently on-time. Uniformity of this type of layout spread even to the inventory levels that are required, the purchasing cycles of raw materials, and inventory control that is required in the warehouses. All of these are managed more easily which reduces overall operating costs.
The main drawback of the product layout is its inflexibility. If a manufacturer needs to move into the production of other types of products that are not part of the current product family it can be expensive. Such a change in production would require the replacement of an existing line or the addition of a new line in another location to add new products to those manufactured.
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