配置 and 配列: assigned places and arrangements
Compare employees assigned to departments with a keyboard’s character layout to distinguish placement from the order or pattern among items.
Read the target and place of 配置
配置 (はいち) concerns placing people or objects in positions. In the example, identify who is assigned and where they are assigned.
“責任者は経験を考慮して職員を各部署に配置した。” says that the manager assigned employees to departments based on their experience. 職員 are the people assigned, and 各部署 are their assigned places.
Read the relationships among items in 配列
配列 (はいれつ) focuses on the order or pattern in which items are arranged. This example concerns the arrangement of characters on a keyboard.
In “キーボードの文字の配列を確認してから入力を始めた。”, the speaker checked the keyboard layout before beginning to type. What was checked was the arrangement of the characters, rather than a single character.
Do not divide the words by object type alone
配置 is not restricted to people, and 配列 is not restricted to characters. The distinction here is between assigning a place or role and examining the arrangement among items.
Assigning employees to departments foregrounds their places of work. The keyboard example separates the layout from the typing that followed; it does not teach tidying methods or a programming language’s array rules.
What does each sentence focus on: employees assigned to departments, or a keyboard’s character layout?
Show the answer and why
The 配置 sentence focuses on the departments assigned to the employees. The 配列 sentence focuses on the arrangement among keyboard characters. The words are not limited to people and characters respectively.