Toyota Material Handling Europe, TMHE, is one of the worlds leading forklift manufacturers, who produces both warehouse and counterbalanced forklifts at three production sites across Europe. At each of the three production sites, there are three central warehouses, CWs, which stores spare parts to the forklifts. These CWs are managed by Toyota Material Handling Europe Logistics, TMHEL. TMHEL are responsible for all CWs and regional warehouses, RWs of spare parts, so that spare parts is available to service technicians in Europe within 24 hours. The current distribution structure of the spare parts is that the items from the suppliers are first transported to one of the three CWs before they are distributed further to the RWs. The identified problem with this distribution structure is the few CWs, which sometimes leads to longer transportation routes. For example, a RW in Germany can not order items directly from a supplier in Germany. It means that the goods first needs to be transported to a CW, before it can be transported to the RW in Germany. TMHEL thereby wants to investigate if the total cost could be reduced, if the supplier could deliver directly to either a CW or a RW. This means that the possible inbound delivery points from the supplier increases from three warehouses to six. The purpose of the thesis was thereby formulated as: ”The purpose of the thesis is to investigate if a change in inbound delivery point from three suppliers of spare parts can reduce the total cost.” The current total cost and the total cost for the five alternative inbound delivery points were thereby calculated and compared. The total cost were calculated based on a general total cost model by Oskarsson et al. (2013), which includes transportation cost, inventory carrying costs, warehousing costs, administration costs and other costs. After the total costs were calculated, a sensitivity analysis was made regarding changes in the input data, to see how changes would affect the total cost and which warehouse that would be the most cost efficient inbound delivery point. The results in this thesis showed that all three investigated suppliers should keep the existing inbound delivery point in Mjölby, since it gives the lowest total cost. The results also showed that the transportation cost was the largest cost parameter, which also affected the results the most. The current inbound delivery point gave the lowest total cost mainly due to the low transportation cost when transporting together with the production site, and the large demand at the current inbound delivery point. However, the sensitivity analysis showed that the most cost efficient inbound delivery point would change, for all investigated suppliers, if the input parameters changed. For one supplier, only small changes in the input data was required until another warehouse was more cost efficient to use as the inbound delivery point. For the two other investigated suppliers, large changes in the input data were required until another inbound delivery point was more cost efficient.

Studien syftade till att utreda potentialen av att införa en AGV-lösning vid inleverans av artiklar. Dessa AGV:er transporterar gods till ankommen artikels lagergång så att en manuell truck sedan kan lagerlägga godset på korrekt lagerplats. Skillnaden i genomloppstid mellan nuläget och en AGV-lösning studerades för att se om en automatiserad inleverans bidrog till en minskad genomloppstid från att artikeln var färdigbehandlad på inleveransytan tills att den låg på lagerplats. Det första experimentet var att göra en förändring i resurser där manuella resurser byttes ut mot AGV:er. Det andra experimentet var att ändra antalet tillgängliga AGV:er på lagret, där dessa varierade mellan en och fem. Det sista experimentet var att öka inleveransflödet av pallar till PN Herstadberg med 20 procent. Resultaten av de två första experimenten visade att genomloppstiden minskade från när en artikel var färdigbehandlad på inleveransen tills den låg på lagerplats när tre eller fler AGV:er användes. Resultatet för det sista experimentet visade att genomloppstiden ökade både för manuella resurser och AGV:er när fler artiklar ankom till lagret. Dock stod samma resultat kvar som tidigare, att tre eller fler AGV:er minskar genomloppstiden i jämförelse med manuella resurser. Resultatet för studien var att genomsnittstiden i nuläget för skjutstativsgods var 98,83 minuter och 222,23 minuter för V12-gods. När tre AGV:er används minskar dessa genomsnittstider till 67,87 minuter för skjutstativsgods samt till 127,04 minuter för V12-gods. Ytterligare minskning sker vid användande av fyra och fem AGV:er men denna minskning är betydligt mindre. Efter att potentialen av en AGV-lösning utretts är slutsatsen att AGV:er kan minska genomloppstiden. Antalet AGV:er som implementeras avgör om automatiseringen förbättrar genomloppstiden i jämförelse med manuella resurser. / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>