Introduction: Improving efficiency through the supply chain has long been strived for by management. Traditional approaches focus on improving efficiency in the supply chain through optimization of a company’s internal activities, where warehouses play an important role. Companies are therefore dealing with the dilemma of how to increase efficiency in their warehouse, yet at the same time reduce operational costs. Current research focuses on strategies to increase efficiency in conventional warehouses by studying design, operations, and planning. Digitalization and lean warehousing are also emerging as important tools for warehouse efficiency. However, alternative warehouse types exist that are less researched. The research aimed therefore to investigate the challenges warehouses with stock point design face.   Methods: A qualitative and deductive case study approach was chosen. A literature review was first conducted to find the variables defining warehouse efficiency. Interviews and observations were then performed at the case company to investigate how the variables affect efficiency at the case company. Lastly, the theoretical framework was compared to the findings to find strategies to overcome the challenges.  Findings: Efficiency problems can be found in many aspects of the case company´s warehouse. Over time the warehouse has lost its structure, where a lot of reliability for warehouse procedures are placed on the employees and their knowledge about the company and all parts. Because of missing routines for reviewing parts data, changes in generations and parts being revised, are hard to keep track of which causes an effect on efficiency. It also increases the risk of deadstock.  Conclusions: In previous research, few studies could be found where researchers tackle the problems that multiple storage building causes on efficiency. By concluding that seven key variables define warehouse efficiency from previous research and applying them to a warehouse with stock point design, the challenges that an alternative warehouse face through the important variables in warehouse efficiency research could be explained.  All the variables affect efficiency, yet warehouse design has the biggest impact. Because of limited abilities with hand scanners and missing routines for reviewing parts data, operations, movement, and planning can also be concluded to have a high influence on efficiency.  To overcome the challenges, strategies for class-based storage assignment should be applied from the perspective of the storage building limitations. Right conditions for batching and good routines for warehouse procedures and reviewing parts data are also suggested as strategies.

Data warehousing is a relatively new field in the realm of information technology, and current research centers primarily around data warehousing in business environments. As new as the field is in these environments, only recently have educational institutions begun to embark on data warehousing projects, and little research has been done regarding the special considerations and characteristics of academic data, and the complexity of analyzing such data. Educational institutions measure success very differently from business-oriented organizations, and the analyses that are meaningful in such environments pose very unique and intricate problems in data warehousing. This research describes the process of developing a data warehouse for a community college, focusing on issues specific to academic data.

<p>Färggrossen is a warehousing company that was established in 1976. The company has over 400 customers ranging across mid and south Sweden; it stores 5,000 different types of products such as paints, wallpapers, chemicals and tools which are used for painting.</p><p>Since its establishment, the company has not changed how it manages its warehouse. Decisions are based on the warehouse manager’s personal memory and decisions, and this method worked sufficiently well until the company was bought by Mikael Lindgren in September 2008. Lindgren, the CEO, believed that the company had more potential, which is why the company has eagerly started to make changes in order to improve the warehouse operations as well as to reach its full potential. This thesis is to guide the company to reach this goal.</p><p>At our first meeting with Färggrossen, improvements regarding different processes as well as the warehouse layout were identified. As a first step, a literature study was conducted in order to gain deeper insight and understanding about warehouse layouts; also we benefited from studying literature regarding different warehouse aspects from a system perspective: inputs, processes and outputs.</p><p>Subsequent to the literature study, we identified those thesis research questions which needed to be answered in order to improve the warehouse management at Färggrossen. The next step was to decide which methods should be used in order to answer these questions. After researching different methodology options, a meeting with Färggrossen and our supervisor Bengt Ekdahl took place where we, together, decided to use the multiple case study method.</p><p>Färggrossen suggested that we study two other companies, BSAB and ECO; according to them, these companies had similar warehouses. To be able to benchmark three companies, we needed to understand the warehousing management systems of all three companies, which is why we conducted our interviews.</p><p>Once we finished gathering the required data, we defined the three companies’ activities in a manner to correspond with the terminology which is used in the literature.  In the analysis chapter we compared the three companies, and also used the information from the literature in order to provide Färggrossen with recommendations on how to improve the warehouse processes and layout. These are categorised as main, secondary and future recommendations; the main recommendations are the most important and inexpensive to implement, which is why we strongly suggest that they are prioritized.</p><p>The two most important recommendations to improve the outputs of the warehouse system are implementing a serialized locater addressing system and defining a bulk area to support the replenishment process. These particular modifications will improve the overall efficiency of the warehouse system as well as the product availability and the customer satisfaction.</p><p>The overall efficiency of the warehouse system will be further improved by eliminating manual labour as much as possible and combining the inspections whih are done in the receiving process with the putaway process.</p><p>The product condition will be improved if the following recommendations are implemented; a small shelf solution which is used in ECO, a fixed slot system in the wallpaper area and the implementation of safety precautions in the company.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis was to map and analyze Färggrossen in order to improve the inventory, warehouse layout and the methods being used in the warehouse management. With our recommendations, the company will have an improved and new warehouse layout, the processes will be improved and the efficiency will be increased.</p>

This thesis is focused on a simulation modelling approach to address the inventory inaccuracy problems in a warehouse operation. The main motivation which led to this research was a desire to investigate the inventory inaccuracy issues that have been highlighted by a logistics company. Previous and current research into inventory inaccuracy issues is largely related to the development of RFID technology as a possible solution to inventory problems. Since the inventory inaccuracy related to RFID technology is focused on the overall measurement of inventory management and retail business, there are differences between this existing research and the research presented in this thesis which is focused on issues of inventory inaccuracy in a warehouse operation. In this thesis, warehouse operation is studied as a detailed sequence of processes that are involved in the flow of items physically in parallel with related information being stored in the computer system. In these processes there are many places where errors can occur in counting or recording details of inventory, or in physically moving, storing or picking items incorrectly. These details of a warehouse operation are used to develop a conceptual model of inventory inaccuracy in warehouse operations. The study also found that typically a product needs to be considered differently at different stages of its progress through a warehouse (and therefore within different sections of the conceptual model). This is because initially batches of a product are likely to be delivered from a supplier, therefore if errors occur soon after the product is delivered to the warehouse, the error might involve the whole batch (for example the batch may be misplaced and put in an incorrect storage location), or the error might involve just part of the batch (for example poor transportation by forklift truck may damage the packaging carton and some of the items within the carton). When the product is stored ready for meeting customer orders, it needs to be considered as individual items (and errors can occur in counting of individual items or individual items may be misplaced or stolen). Finally, when a customer order is received, the product will be picked and grouped to meet the requirements of the order (for example, one order may require 10 of the product whilst another order may require 20 of the product). Errors might again occur to the whole group or to just part of the group. (Continued ...)

The aim of this diploma thesis is to create a new system to measure and evaluate the productivity of warehouse processes in Euromedia books wholesale warehouse. The Warehouse management system (WMS) is implemented in the warehouse, so the company has information about processes within warehouse. However, the system does not have any tool to measure and report the productivity of individual workers and shifts. So the manager of the warehouse does not have enough data for efficient human resource management. The basics of warehousing and the warehousing interrelationships are described in theoretical part of the thesis. The processes within warehouse are firstly described in general and then with direct connection to processes in the warehouse of the company Euromedia. The analytical part is dedicated to detailed analysis of output data from WMS from the time period from February until May 2015.The outcome of this analysis is a suggestion how to assign individual workers to shifts, how to measure the productivity of individual processes and how the productivities of different processes can be compared. At the end of the thesis, there are recommendations how to measure the productivity now and how to proceed in the future to achieve a more precise outcome of the productivity measurement. The proposed measures contribute to better and more efficient human resources management in Euromedias wholesales warehouse.

No description available.

Esta investigación aporta con el planteamiento de una Guía de Implementación Referencial en la cual se ha definido una secuencia estructurada de siete actividades que permiten en conjunto unir el Cuadro de Mando Integral y el Data Warehouse. Se inicia la Guía con la primera actividad la cual es el análisis de la situación en el que se definen los factores internos y externos que afectan a la organización. En la segunda actividad se propone la definición del Cuadro de Mando Integral, en el que se definen los objetivos, estrategias e indicadores. En la tercera actividad se propone la definición del Data Warehouse, en el cual se define la estructura del modelado dimensional que se utilizará en esta Guía. En la cuarta actividad se realiza el análisis y selección de las fuentes de datos, las cuales sirven para alimentar de datos al Data Warehouse. En la quinta actividad se realiza el procesamiento de información, el cual procesa el modelo multidimensional en Cubos OLAP. En la sexta actividad se propone la visualización de la información, esta actividad permite visualizar los datos almacenados en el Cubo OLAP a través de tres interfaces: Interfase del objetivo, Interfase del mapa estratégico e Interfase del Cubo OLAP. Finalmente, en la séptima actividad se propone el uso de la información. En esta actividad el usuario podrá realizar un análisis detallado y totalizado de los indicadores propuestos a través de las tres interfaces definidas en la actividad anterior. Esta Guía permite a las organizaciones, que deseen aplicarla, medir y hacer el seguimiento de la estrategia a través de indicadores estratégicos soportados por información de mayor detalle, para que los encargados de tomar decisiones en las organizaciones puedan realizar, con un soporte metodológico, la toma de decisiones oportunas y acertadas.

Goal of this thesis is to define logistic problems of small to middle sized construction company and suggest solutions. In this thesis logistics is considered as integrated system which is managing and keeping records of movement and position of construction machines, automobiles and also employees. Thesis is abstract of activities, that has been done by logistics section of Reinter from 2007 to 2011 and it is presenting steps done by management of firm in order to improve the performance of section. These steps are explained, commented and evaluated.

An experimental study of fire testing of solid materials has been carried out to investigate whether or not these tests yield useful data for the burning of materials stored in bulk, for example in warehouses. Tests were performed using the Cone Calorimeter, the HSE third scale room/corridor rig, BS 5852 part 2, and some nonstandard tests. The results have been compared and the problems with fire testing have been discussed with reference to the current literature and trends in fire testing. The additional complications of unusual material behaviour under exposure to heating have also been investigated. In the third scale room/corridor test, where vertical, parallel samples are used, the separation distance between the samples was found to play a significant part in whether ignition of fire retarded samples could be achieved or not. A literature survey revealed a dearth of information on this subject. As this type of parallel configuration is found in warehouse storage as well as vertical ducts and cavities, an investigation was conducted into flames between vertical parallel walls. Measurements were made of total and radiative heat fluxes at the walls, flame and gas temperatures, and flame heights under a variety of conditions. It was found that the configuration of the system was very important, with the separation distance and fluid dynamics both having a major influence. Burner position, geometry and heat release rate were also varied and their influence assessed. Statistical methods were employed to correlate the heat flux data and temperatures with the other variables, with excellent correlation coefficients for the equations developed. These have been compared with previous expressions developed for flames against vertical walls. Results from CFD work on two of the parallel wall cases of special interest were analysed and discussed with reference to the . experimental results. The findings have implications for the fire testing of materials, and for the hazard assessment of materials stored in high rack storage. An understanding of potential exposure conditions in a real fire scenario are essential for the appropriate use of fire tests.

Zugl.: Leipzig, Univ., Masterarbeit, 2006