Plant types describe how materials flow through a factory. In Theory of Constraints, this is called the VATI analysis, and can help with scheduling problems.
Draw the diagram from the bottom of your page to the top of your page.
V Plant (One to Many): One material can become many things, a flow of one-to-many. Examples include parts that become radios or milk that becomes ice cream, cheddar cheese, and sour cream. One process may rob resources from another process. After processing begins, it can’t move back through the line to feed another process.
A Plant (Many to One): This is the true assembly line, where different material or components converge to build one product. Feeding lines must then be timed properly, so the final product has enough materials.
T Plant (Multiple Lines or Many to Many): One general material flow can split to make many different products. T Plant is true of many manufactured parts, including computers with customizations, such as different colored cases and different speeds of CD/DVD players. Poor synchronization and the robbing difficulties (as one line takes materials from another) can plague T Plants.
I Plant (Flows in a Sequence): Workflows, as in an assembly line, with steps in sequence. Work moves from one step to the next (one to one). The main constraint is the slowest step. An example of workflow might be a fine-jewelry workshop. Rings are formed, soldered, set with a stone, burnished, and polished.
