abstract: Nowadays ports play a critic role in the supply chains of contemporary companies and global commerce. Since the ports' operational effectiveness is critical on the development of competitive supply chains, their contribution to regional economies is essential. With the globalization of markets, the traffic of containers flowing through the different ports has increased significantly in the last decades. In order to attract additional container traffic and improve their comparative advantages over the competition, ports serving same hinterlands explore ways to improve their operations to become more attractive to shippers. This research explores the hypothesis that lowering the variability of the service time observed in the handling of containers, a port reduces the total logistics costs of their customers, increase its competiveness and that of their customers. This thesis proposes a methodology that allows the quantification of the variability existing in the services of a port derived from factors like inefficient internal operations, vessel congestion or external disruptions scenarios. It focuses on assessing the impact of this variability on the user's logistic costs. The methodology also allows a port to define competitive strategies that take into account its variability and that of competing ports. These competitive strategies are also translated into specific parameters that can be used to design and adjust internal operations. The methodology includes (1) a definition of a proper economic model to measure the logistic impact of port's variability, (2) a network analysis approach to the defined problem and (3) a systematic procedure to determine competitive service time parameters for a port. After the methodology is developed, a case study is presented where it is applied to the Port of Guaymas. This is done by finding service time parameters for this port that yield lower logistic costs than the observed in other competing ports. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Industrial Engineering 2011

This bachelor thesis was composed by the initiative of a large aluminium profile producer in southern Sweden. Together, the authors and the company analyzed and mapped the current production flow of a selected item. The lead time and total output for a selected article was determined in order to examine the possibility of reducing the amount of tied up capital and related costs. Findings showed that reducing tied up capital and associated costs could be done through adjustment of production layout, production efficiency as well as alterations of produced quantities. By combining these three proposals for improvement, an overall recommendation for future course of action for the company was composed. / Bakgrund: Det problem som utgör grunden för uppsatsen är förankrat i ProfilGruppens osäkerhet gällande vart i en artikels flödesväg kapitalbindning uppstår. Flödesvägar anses kunna ha onödiga delprocesser, samtidigt som använd lager- samt produktionskvantitet inte är teoretiskt förankrad. Potentiellt skulle kapitalbindning och kapitalkostnad kunna reduceras genom analys av dessa aspekter.   Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att utreda förbättringsmöjligheter i termer av reducerad kapitalbindning och kapitalkostnad inom en typartikels flödesväg.   Metod: Studien följer en kombination av de kvalitativa och kvantitativa forskningsstrategierna. Arbetet präglas av ett positivistiskt synsätt, eftersom målet är att nå en kvantitativ reduktion av företagets kostnader. Samtidigt är uppsatsen en fallstudie, en design tätt kopplad till kvalitativ forskning. Studien utmärks av ett ständig förhållande till teoretisk relevans, i syfte att kunna applicera genomförd analys på andra företag försatta i liknande situation.    Slutsats: Forskningens resultat visar att tre av de fyra analyserade förbättringsförslagen är av intresse att implementera i företagets verksamhet. Genom att kombinera samtliga förslag till en sammanställd rekommendation presenteras en övergripande framtida handlingsplan för ProfilGruppen att vidta.

Effektiviseringar inom företagen är en viktig del för företagens överlevnad, under de senaste decennierna har intresset för effektiva materialflöden ökat allt mer. Genom att ständigt effektivisera sparar företagen både tid och pengar. Denna studie fokuserar på att effektivisera ett produktionsflöde i ett företag. En litteraturstudie genomfördes för att lyfta fram olika nyckelfaktorer för en effektiv process, skapa förståelse för olika begrep och lade grunden för olika typer av analyser som senare används i studien. För att få en helhetsbild av den verkliga processen som skall studeras användes fallstudie som metod vilket innefattar intervjuer och observationer. Tre förslag på nya produktionsflöden arbetades fram genom att granska de nyckelfaktorer som togs fram under litteraturstudien, genom analysen av intervjuerna och analysen av observationerna. Faktorer som även beaktades var hur dessa nyckelfaktorer påverkar varandra. Förslagen utvärderades genom en Pugh-matris där ett av förslagen framträdde som det starkaste, som sedan rekommenderas till fallföretaget. Det rekommenderade produktionsflödet förväntas minska ledtiden från nuvarande produktionsflöden vilket är 114 respektive 196 minuter till den nya beräknade ledtiden på tolv minuter för respektive flöde. Med det rekommenderade produktionsflödet reduceras tiden för både transporter och hantering av detaljerna och detta motsvarar en minskning på 4,25 personer, vilka kan frigöras för andra arbetsuppgifter inom företaget samt att det frigörs mer uppställningsyta för inkommande gods. / Business efficiency enhancements are an important part of corporate survival, in recent decades, interest in efficient material flows has increased more and more. By constantly improving, companies save time and money. This work focusses on streamlining a production flow in a company. A literature study was conducted to highlight different key factors for an effective process, to create an understanding of different concepts and to lay the foundation for different types of analyzes later used in the study. In order to get an overall picture of the actual process to be studied, case study was used as a method which includes interviews and observations. Three proposals were dealt with by examining the key factors that emerged during the literature study, through the analysis of the interviews and the analysis of observations. Factors that were also considered were how these key factors relate to each other. The proposals were evaluated through a Pugh-matrix where one of the proposals emerged as the strongest, which is then recommended to use by the company. The recommended production flow is expected to reduce lead time from current production flows, which is 114 and 196 minutes to the new estimated lead time which is twelve minutes for each production flow. With the recommended production flow, both the transport and management of the part items decrease, and 4.25 people are released from the work stations, which means that these resources can be used to within other applications within the company and that more loading space for incoming goods is released.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3120.pdf: 1379151 bytes, checksum: 666a216cfd62f5c4648ecf103e01efa4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-06-18 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / Nowadays, with the competitive environment dominating the world scene, companies need to be alert to continuous improvement opportunities. In this scene lead time reduction arises as one of the greatest goal to be accomplished. Within this context, the main goal of this research is to study the effect of continuous improvement in shop floor variables (such as variability, setup time, defect rate, among others) on lead time reduction for two productive environments: one with single machine and another flow shop environment. This is done using a quantitative model, which uses a hybrid System Dynamics factory Physics approach. This model was created by Godinho Filho and Uzsoy (2008a, 2008b, 2009). In this research this single machine model is extended by means of adding more workstations in order to create flow shop environment. Besides to the main goal, this research has the following specifics goals: (1) Check if the results found by Godinho Filho e Uzsoy (2008a, 2008b, 2009) are the same for scenes with different characteristics of productive system. (2) Determine if the positive effect in lead time of a continuous improvement action in the shop floor variables is sensitive to characteristics of productive system. If so, how is the relationship between the improvement action and the productive system. (3)Compare the results related with the two previous objectives for the single machine and flow shop cases. The results found in this research proved that conclusions made by Godinho Filho e Uzsoy (2008a, 2008b, 2009) are robusts for different characteristics of productive system in the single machine and flow shop environments studied in this research. In simulated scenes for these environments, the continuous improvements actions in processing time variability and setup time are the most effective in lead time reduction. Furthermore, the positive effect made by the improvement action in lead time is proved sensitive to almost the same characteristics of productive system for single machine and flow shop environments. For these environments, improvement actions in time to failures and repair time are the most sensitive to different characteristics and the most appropriate in productive systems with negative characteristics (e.g. high setup times, high processing time variability, among others). Results generated by quantitative model in this research were analyzed using design of experiments to obtain conclusions. / Nos dias de hoje, onde o ambiente competitivo domina o panorama mundial, as empresas precisam estar sempre atentas a oportunidades de melhoria contínua em suas funções. Nesse cenário a redução do lead time surge como um dos grandes objetivos a serem alcançados. É exatamente dentro deste contexto que este trabalho se insere, tendo como principal objetivo avaliar o efeito da implantação de ações de melhoria contínua em variáveis do chão de fábrica (variabilidade no tempo de processamento, tempo médio de setup, taxa de defeitos, dentre outras) na redução do lead time para dois ambientes produtivos: ambiente com máquina única e ambiente flow shop. Para isso pretende-se utilizar um modelo quantitativo que utiliza as abordagens Factory Physics System Dynamics de forma híbrida, modelo este originalmente criado por Godinho Filho e Uzsoy (2008a, 2008b, 2009). No presente trabalho esse modelo, que é de máquina única será ampliado por meio da inclusão de mais estações de trabalho para criação do ambiente flow shop. Além do objetivo principal, a presente pesquisa tem os seguintes objetivos específicos: (1) Verificar se os resultados encontrados por Godinho Filho e Uzsoy (2008a, 2008b, 2009) são os mesmos para cenários com diferentes características do sistema produtivo. (2) Determinar se o efeito positivo no lead time de uma ação de melhoria nas variáveis do chão de fábrica estudadas é sensível a características do sistema produtivo e se sim, como é o relacionamento entre a ação de melhoria e o sistema em questão. (3) Comparar os resultados com relação aos dois objetivos anteriores para os casos de máquina única e flow shop. Os resultados encontrados no presente trabalho mostram que as conclusões extraídas por Godinho Filho e Uzsoy (2008a, 2008b, 2009) são robustas para diferentes características do sistema produtivo nos ambientes de máquina única e flow shop simulados. Nos cenários simulados para esses dois ambientes, as ações de melhoria na variabilidade do tempo de processamento e no tempo de setup são as que se mostraram melhores para redução do lead time. Além disso, o efeito positivo no lead time de uma ação de melhoria mostra-se sensível a quase as mesmas características do sistema para os ambientes de máquina única e flow shop. Para esses dois ambientes, as ações de melhoria no tempo entre falhas e no tempo de reparo são as que se apresentam mais sensíveis a diferentes características do sistema produtivo, e também como melhores alternativas em sistemas com certas características negativas (por exemplo, altos tempos de setup, entre outras). Os resultados gerados pelo modelo quantitativo foram analisados por meio de técnicas de planejamento de experimentos para obtenção das conclusões.

Denna rapport utreder möjligheterna till att reducera ledtiden, med en uppskattning av minst 10%, för plockprocessen på den utlevererande avdelningen som kallas den ”avgående avdelningen” hos EJOT Sverige AB i Örebro. Företaget vill i dagsläget skapa sig en tydlig helhetsbild av processen samt få underlag, för eventuell framtida implementering, i form av förbättringsförslag för en ledtidsreducering. Under arbetets gång beskrivs nuläget utifrån datainsamling, intervjuer och observationer, i kombination med ett spagettidiagram som presenteras. De möjliga rotorsakerna till problemen kartläggs genom att skapa ett fiskbensdiagram som sedan analyseras. Analyserna visar på att processen är komplex och därmed även problemen. Orsaker som valts för vidare analys är: layout, körslinga och placering av låga gods.  Tre förbättringsförslag har tagits fram utifrån analyserna och dessa handlar om att skapa en ny optimerad layout, en ny optimerad körslinga samt att eliminera placeringen av låga gods.  Det fortsatta arbetet bör vara att optimera en ny lagerlayout samt se över och standardisera en ny körslinga. Företaget bör också se över möjligheterna att eliminera placeringen av gods på markplan. / This report investigates the possibilities of reducing the lead time, with an estimate of at least 10%, for the picking process at the delivery unit called the “outgoing department” at EJOT Sverige AB in Örebro. The company currently wants to create an overall picture of the process and get a basis, for possible future implementation, in the form of improvement proposals for a lead time reduction. During the work, the current situation is described based on data collection, interviews and observations, in combination with a spaghetti diagram that is presented. The possible root causes of the problems are mapped by creating an Ishikawa diagram which is then analyzed. The analyses show that the process is complex and thus also the problems. Reasons chosen for further analysis are: layout, driving loop and placement of low goods. Three improvement proposals have been developed based on the analyses and these are about creating a new optimized layout, a new optimized driving loop and eliminating the placement of low goods. The continued work should be to optimize a new warehouse layout and review and standardize a new driving loop. The company should also review the possibilities of eliminating the placement of goods on the ground floor.

The process of color-matching any color product is a process that can be quite complicated and requires great skill from a color analyst. As the name suggests color-matching is the process in which the color of a standard is obtained from a sample through careful inspection and precision in order for the colors to match up. It is a process that can vary in length dependent of the amount of pigments used.  Foundations are a type of liquid emulsion cosmetic and consist of five main pigments; white (titanium dioxide), red, brown, yellow and black iron oxides. These five pigments can when mixed together result in hundreds of shades. One of the greatest challenges for cosmetics companies is to successfully manufacture these shades often from a benchmark, a desired shade, as well as maintaining this same shade when the batch is scaled up from lab production to factory.  Oriflame is a direct-selling cosmetics company in which the Marketing department and Color Cosmetic department work closely in order to produce new products and shades for each catalogue. Liquid foundation shades are decided by the Marketing department and given to the Color Cosmetic department to color-match.  Currently the process of color-matching is carried out through the visual assessment by the color analyst. In order to improve the efficiency and lead - time of the current method, Oriflame has drawn inspiration from other sectors dealing with color and taken the decision to color-match with the use of a spectrophotometer coupled with color-appropriate software. The method was divided into four separate processes; confirming a sample method presentation to the spectrophotometer, colorant file set-up & process, color-matching process with the color-appropriate software and color match comparison. The results showed that with an adequate sized colorant file a method for color-matching with a spectrophotometer was established. The lead-time could be decreased by, as much as 66.6 % and providing strong evidence that this is a valuable tool for color analysts working at Oriflame.

Most construction companies want to deliver the best possible results for their customers while spending the least possible resources. Nevertheless, the construction industry has traditionally been full of unnecessary inefficiency regarding workflows. One of the most successful methods to prevent inefficiency workflow is lean construction. Lean construction consists of various methods that aim to streamline workflow as optimally as possible. Purpose: The purpose of the degree project is to use specific lean methods and tools to identify different waste and be able to use them to reduce downtime of a studied construction project. Method: A case study has been carried out where the project Heby - care homes has been studied. To gather more information a survey study has been done. To gather even further information about the project an interview was conducted with a person who has a leading role. Results: The result shows a analysis of the survey and the interviewe answers. It also includs working methods, transparency and waste minimization. Furthermore it includs solutions like identify problems, create order and structure, standardize and work on improvements. Conclusions: The conclusion that can be drawn is that standardizations in the form of checklists and guides need to be in each project. More openness and to review your chosen forms of agreement. To have a more dynamic working group that strives to achieve common goals and continuous improvements. These are the most important aspects of making a project effective.

Background: Continues improvements in production are essential in order to compete on the market. However, to be an active competitor on the market, companies need to know their strengths and weaknesses, and improve and develop their production continually. Today process industries generate enormous volumes of data and data are considered a valuable source for companies to find new ways to boost their operations' productivity and profitability. Data Mining (DM) is the process of discovering useful patterns and trends in large data sets. Several authors have pointed out data mining as a good data analysis process for manufacturing due to the large amount of data generated and collected from production processes. In manufacturing, DM has two primary goals, descriptive with the focus on discovering patterns to describe the data and predictive where a model is used to determine future values of important variables. Objectives: The objective of this study was to get a deeper understanding of how collected data from production can lead to insights regarding potential production economic improvementsby following the CRISP-DM methodology. In particular to the chosen production line if there were any differences in replenishment durations when it comes to different procedures. Duration in this study is the time the line is halted during a material replenishment. The procedures in question are single-replenishment versus double-replenishment. Further investigated was if there were any differences in the replenishment duration when it comes to which shift team and at what shift time the replenishment procedures were made. Methods: In this study the CRISP-DM methodology was used for structuring the collected data from the case company. The data was primarily historical data from a continues production process. To verify the objective of the study, three hypotheses derived from the objective was tested by using a t test and Bonferroni test.  Results: The result showed that the duration of a double-replenishment is lower compared to two single-replenishments. Further results showed that there is a significant difference in the single-replenishment duration between the different shift times and different working teams. The interpretation of the result is that in the short term there is a possibility that implementingdouble replenishments can reduce the throughput time and possibility also the lead time.  Conclusions: This study could contribute with knowledge for others who seek a way to use data to detect information or deeper knowledge about a continuous production process. The findings in this study could be specifically interesting for cable manufacturers and, in general, for continuous process manufacturers. Further conclusions are that time-based competition is one way for increasing the competitive advantage in the market. By using manufacturing generated data, it is possible to analyse and find valuable information that can contribute to continuous process improvements and increase the competitive advantage.

Context. There has been a remarkable growth of the mobile game industry since the raging pandemic covid-19 destroyed many businesses across several industries [1]. Nowadays mobile gaming has been one of the highest performing industries globally, raking in more billions in revenue [1,2]. Understanding the direction and aspects to improve the quality of products and reduce the cost is important for a mobile gaming company to stand out. There is a plethora of literature on how to improve the related product quality [3]. One of them is to analyze and optimize the various requirements in each version update, and how these requirements could be elicited from the company’s development plan and user feedback. Specifically, mobile game companies would review the user comments of their products from various application platforms such as Google Play and Apple store, select the informative comments with specific user requirements according to their own standard, and finally elicit and then implement these requirements in the follow-up version updates. During this process, it is important to control the lead time---the time cost for mobile game companies to review and select the valuable user comments, make decisions to apply the changes, make a development plan afterwards and finally put it into action. In the current increasingly intense competitive environment, time-based dimensions of a product such as the lead-time are becoming an increasingly important component in assessing strategic advantage, since having products early increases the possible market introduction window. Meanwhile, traditional long lead times and high inventory levels may be less appropriate and more costly endeavors that may not even achieve product parity [4]. To compress the product lead time was the priority task to help companies keep their competitiveness [5]. To fulfil this aim, fundamental changes must be made in every function that affects the delivery of the product. However, most existing literature focuses on the lead time in the traditional software industry, which can be different in the case of the mobile game apps. We herein in this paper explore the contents of lead time in the mobile gaming industry. We designed a series of steps to explore the real situation of lead time in the mobile gaming industry. Differences between mobile gaming and traditional software industries are also of interest to be explored.       Objectives. The main purpose of our research was to study the lead time which would be caused during the process of implementing users’ requirements. We tried to achieve the purpose from two aspects: First, we investigated whether there were differences in the lead time of different requirement types. Second, we investigated whether the lead time differences existed in different types of mobile games.   Methods. Our group used Case Study as the main research method to investigate the lead time in real cases.   Results. .First, there were differences in the lead time of implementing different types of requirements. Such as the lead time of bug fix types of requirements would be shorter than feature added types of requirements. Second, different types of mobile game apps had differences in the lead time. For example, MOBA games would take longer time on Function update or Feature request types of requirements, and FPS games would take longer time on exclusive event types of requirements. The details would be shown in part 4.2 and 4.3.   Conclusions. Two research questions in our thesis were answered. When mobile game companies dealt with requirements in user feedback, the lead time objectively existed. We could calculate the length of the lead time of different types of requirements. Moreover, different types of requirements had various lead times. For example, the lead time caused by bug fixing requirement would be shorter compared with that of adding new functions. And this research provided some fundamental results to both academic field and mobile game industry field.   Keywords: Mobile game apps, User reviews, User requirements, Lead time

Detta arbete har utförts på avdelningen för produktion av brandglas hos en av Sveriges främsta glasleverantörer, Martin G Anderson. Företaget upplever i dagsläget låg lönsamhet för deras brandglasprodukter. Anledningen till detta beror på problem i form av långa ledtider, stökiga arbetsutrymmen och allmän oreda på avdelningen. Målet med arbetet har således fokuserat på att kartlägga slöserier i tillverkningsprocessen för brandglas som ger upphov till dessa problem, samt reducera ledtiden och samtidigt kvalitetssäkra processen. Arbetets metodgång är av en analyserande karaktär, där en stor del av tiden ägnats åt insamling av data i form av observationer, intervjuer samt litteraturstudier.  Arbetet initierades med att undersöka nuläget och utföra en nulägesanalys. Manuella tidtagningar utfördes under fyra veckor i syfte att få en bild över hur ledtiden ser ut i dagsläget. Därefter användes verktyg inom Lean för att analysera den information som sammanställts i nulägesbeskrivningen. Exempel på verktyg som tillämpats är styrdiagram, 7+1 leanslöserier samt rotorsaksverktyget 5 varför.  När nuläget var känt och insamlad data analyserad, tillämpades Lean verktyget 5S för att reducera de slöseri som identifierats i processen. En ny manuell tidtagning utfördes där resultatet visar en 19% reducering av ledtiden. Slutligen presenteras förslag till fortsatt arbete. Dessa förslag består bland annat av fortsatt tillämpning av verktyget 5S, men även hur en mer hållbar process kan åstadkommas utifrån social hållbarhet. / This project has been carried out in the department for the production of fire-resistant glass products at one of Sweden's leading glass suppliers, Martin G Anderson. The company currently experiences low profitability for their fire-glass products. The reason for this is due to problems in the form of long lead times, messy areas and general disorder in the department. The goal of the project has thus been focused on locating wastes in the production process for fire-resistant glass that causes these problems, as well as reducing lead time and at the same time assuring a high process quality. The methodology of the work is of an analytical nature, where a large part of the time has been devoted to the collection of data in the form of observations, interviews and literature studies. The project was initiated by investigating the current situation and performing a current situation analysis. Manual timings were carried out during four weeks in order to get a picture of what the lead time looks like today. Subsequently, tools within Lean were used to analyze the information compiled in the current description. Examples of tools used are control diagrams, 7 + 1 lean waste and the root cause analysis 5 why. Once the known state and collected data were analyzed, the Lean tool 5S was applied to reduce the waste identified in the process. A new manual timing was performed where the result shows a 19% reduction in lead time. Finally, proposals for further work are presented. These proposals include, among other things, continued application of the 5S tool, but also how a more sustainable process can be achieved based on social sustainability.