Fitting 26 Staff, One Pillar and One Door into 1,400 sq ft
Kavitha is office manager at Sri Balaji Traders, a wholesale stationery distributor in Coimbatore with 26 employees on a single 1,400 sq ft floor. The floor has one entrance, a load-bearing pillar near the centre and a west-facing window wall that cannot be altered. Purchase, sales, accounts, godown despatch and the cash counter all sit in one undivided hall. Delivery staff walk through the accounts section about forty times a day to reach the godown. Retail customers queue at the cash counter, which stands beside the accounts desks, and their conversations are overheard by the billing staff. Two accounts clerks complain of glare and headaches after 2 p.m. The accountant says she cannot discuss salaries without being overheard, and cupboards of confidential records stand in the walkway. Management has approved a modest refit but will not move premises or remove the pillar, and the landlord refuses a second door. The owner insists on a fully open plan because open plans are modern.
1. Identify four layout defects in the present office. For each, state the office-layout principle it violates and the operating cost it imposes on the business.
Read the worked answer
1. Despatch traffic routed through accounts. The principle of straight-line work flow and shortest travel distance is broken. Forty crossings a day means roughly 200 lost minutes of concentrated work weekly, plus a constant disturbance risk to posting and reconciliation. Cost: errors in entries that no one notices until the auditor does.
2. Cash counter beside accounts desks. The principle of separating public contact areas from confidential work is broken. Customers hear salary and credit discussions; staff cannot challenge a customer without an audience. Cost: confidentiality risk and slower dispute handling.
3. Confidential cupboards in the walkway. Violates both storage-at-point-of-use and unobstructed movement/safety. Cost: files are exposed to anyone passing, and the walkway is a collision and fire-escape hazard.
4. West window glare on accounts desks. Violates the principle of glare-free, correctly oriented lighting. Screens facing or backed by an unshaded window force constant brightness changes.
The reasoning pattern the examiner wants: name the principle, then convert it into a measurable loss (time, errors, confidentiality, safety). A defect is only a defect because it produces a cost.
2. The owner wants a fully open hall. Draft a zoning plan for the 1,400 sq ft and state which activities must be enclosed, with reasons.
Read the worked answer
Zone 1 - Entrance/reception and cash counter. Place immediately at the single door so visitors never enter the work area. Counter faces the door, not the accounts desks, so the queue forms outward.
Zone 2 - Sales and purchase. Adjacent to reception and near the counter, because the workflow is enquiry, order, invoice, cash. Keeping sales and purchase neighbours removes the present need to cross accounts.
Zone 3 - Godown despatch. At the rear on the side that gives the shortest route from the door, using the pillar as a natural corner. Delivery staff then walk a perimeter route, not through accounts.
Zone 4 - Accounts. The quietest corner, farthest from the door and counter, away from the west window or with desks set perpendicular to it and storage against the glass to kill glare.
Must be enclosed or screened: the accountant's cabin (salary and credit discussions) and the confidential records store - lockable, not a walkway cupboard. Low partitions of 1.2-1.5 m elsewhere preserve supervision while cutting noise.
Constraints handled, not ignored: the pillar becomes an enclosure corner rather than a mid-hall obstruction; the single door is kept with a clear 1.2 m aisle from every desk, which is a safety asset; blinds or film handle the fixed window.
3. Two accounts clerks report glare and headaches. Suggest low-cost remedies and explain how you would verify that the remedies actually worked.
Read the worked answer
Diagnosis first, not remedy first. Check whether the monitor faces or is backed by the west window, whether desks are within 1 m of the glass, and whether tubes are flickering or unshielded. Headaches after 2 p.m. point strongly to solar glare plus tired eye muscles, not to a medical cause.
Low-cost remedies, in order of effect:
- Re-orient desks so the window is to the side of the monitor, at 90 degrees to the line of sight.
- Fit roller blinds or reflective film on the west glass; close them only from 1.30 p.m. to avoid darkening the room all day.
- Move storage racks or a tall cupboard along the lower window to block low-angle sun.
- Replace flickering tubes and old magnetic ballasts; add task lamps instead of over-lighting the whole hall.
- Set monitor brightness to match the room, keep the screen 50-70 cm away, and enforce the 20-20-20 rule (every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds) with a 5-minute break each hour.
Verification: measure illuminance at the desk with a lux meter (about 300-500 lux for screen work), re-survey the two clerks after two weeks, and log complaints in a simple register. If complaints continue after the window and lighting changes, the cause is likely workload or seating rather than glare, and the plan must shift. Remedies without measurement are opinions.