This thesis was carried out at Borggårds Bruk AB, a company which specializes in wire products and is located just northwest of Finspång, in Borggård, Sweden. The company’s business idea is to produce tailor-made products for Scandinavian customers with high requirements for product development, prototyping, quality and reliability. The purpose of this thesis is to look further into the raw material warehouse in the factory, to find any possible improvements that can be made. This is done by analysing both the material and the information flow in the warehouse. The analysis results in several problems being acknowledged, such as a complete lack of location labels, material stored between the racks and the placement of the most used materials being stored at random places in the warehouse. A new layout, where all locations can be seen is created to make it easier for anyone to find material in the warehouse. A new sorting system is implemented, creating fixed places for the top six most used materials (which equal 68% of the material used). These are moved as close as possible to the production to decrease any unnecessary transports.

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Background: Retailing industry has been growing all around the world tremendously. We will see a remarkable change and improvement in clothing and baby products retailing industries in Sweden. Previously, companies either try to sell through traditional brick and mortar physical stores or online. But since the last decade, to become successful company in new global world, companies realize the fact that they need to combine the strategy of selling through different channels. In plain words the integration of these channels is referred as an omni-channel. Combining the different selling strategies and offering through different mode of channels raises the need for enhanced performance management throughout the supply chain. Within supply chain, warehouse is a crucial element and due to shift in strategies it is the most affected section. An efficient warehouse design is become essential in order to get performance and cost-effective benefits. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the impacts of having omni channel strategy on warehouse management. How it affects the overall working of warehousing, and influence their planning, need for improvement, integration and optimization. Further, challenges that a central warehouse faces in accordance to meet new demands and needs, raised due to omni channel strategy e.g. buy anything from anywhere at any time, could be explored along with their possible solutions. Method: An exploratory study is conducted, with qualitative case study methodology. Primary data with semi-structured interviews were considered to be main data collection method. Conclusion: The author has founded challenges that central warehouse faces during its operational activities. Challenges that are identified in central warehouse operational activities with reference to omni channel logistics strategy are human errors, additional work, large and mix pallets, barcoding, ERP and WMS low level integrated systems, unsuitable warehouse design, incompatible picking gears, ineffective automated packing machine and shipping. But these problems can be solved by having optimal integrated ERP system, RFID technology, new improved information technology, improved warehouse layout design and using advanced picking gears.

This article addresses one of the main problems faced by small- and medium-sized business in the non-metallic mining sector in Peru. These companies own warehouses and face the major problem of failing to deliver orders correctly and in a timely manner. This problem usually occurs when the business grows from a small- to medium-sized company in a short span of time; this situation leads to new processes within warehouses that are mostly not standardized. Besides, facilities are no longer optimal in space and the workers are not properly trained. The case study shows that the orders were not delivered on time due to factors such as lack of product identification, although the products have an expiration date and a warehouse without signaling and surrounded by traffic. To tackle this situation, a labeling process has been designed for the products, an adequate distribution technique is used in the warehouse through a newly designed warehouse layout, and a First Expired, First Out system has been implemented. Similarly, the design is accompanied by the 5s tool to provide a basis for order and continuous improvement. The results show that deliveries with delays were reduced from 38% to 10%. These results show that companies can grow rapidly and maintain quality of service through orderly management.

Supply chain management complexity is a growing challenge for a broad range of contemporary companies, which makes them turn to new and increasingly advanced IT-systems as a salvation. One of the currently most important system in a supply chain manager’s toolbox is the warehouse management system. As business challenges increases so does also the complexity in the investment processes surrounding the warehouse management systems, this paper explores value creation in these processes to understand the resource exchanges involved, the exchange actor’s different roles and the implications of interactions between the actors. This is conducted through a case study with a market leading warehouse management system vendor and a supply chain intensive customer. The findings indicate that value creation in a complex warehouse management system investment entails several intervened and ongoing processes of different resource exchanges, were the actors co-create value jointly by sharing, combining and utilizing the resources throughout these processes. In order to establish this essential value co-creation sphere, also social exchanges in the form of qualitative interactions between the actors have proven to be a fundamental factor.

Nowadays in the world of mass consumption there is big demand for distributioncenters of bigger size. Managing such a center is a very complex and difficult taskregarding to the different processes and factors in a usual warehouse when we want tominimize the labor costs. Most of the workers’ working time is spent with travelingbetween source and destination points which cause deadheading. Even if a worker knowsthe structure of a warehouse well and because of that he or she can find the shortest pathbetween two points, it is still not guaranteed that there won’t be long traveling timebetween the locations of two consecutive tasks. We need optimal assignments betweentasks and workers.In the scientific literature Generalized Assignment Problem (GAP) is a wellknownproblem which deals with the assignment of m workers to n tasks consideringseveral constraints. The primary purpose of my thesis project was to choose a heuristics(genetic algorithm, tabu search or ant colony optimization) to be implemented into SAPExtended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) by with task assignment will be moreeffective between tasks and resources.After system analysis I had to realize that due different constraints and businessdemands only 1:1 assingments are allowed in SAP EWM. Because of that I had to use adifferent and simpler approach – instead of the introduced heuristics – which could gainbetter assignments during the test phase in several cases. In the thesis I described indetails what ware the most important questions and problems which emerged during theplanning of my optimized assignment method.

M.Comm. / The concepts of logistics and supply chain management are relatively new in South Africa. The concept of logistics management was more commonly known in the 1960s and 1970s as physical distribution. In the late 1970s, the concept evolved to logistics management and in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it evolved into supply chain management. It was only after the end of apartheid in 1994 when South Africa was able to compete globally that there was great interest in supply chain management in South Africa. There is virtually no business or industry untouched by the business of logistics and supply chain management. Getting the right product to the right customer at the right time as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible is the main objective of logistics and supply chain management (Gordon, 2000a: 14). Logistics is “the process of strategically managing the acquisition, movement and storage of materials, parts and finished inventory (and the related information flows) through the organization and its marketing channel in such a way that current and future profitability is maximised through the cost-effective fulfillment of orders” (Anon1. ,2002). The term supply chain is described by Lummus and Vokurka (1999) as “all of those activities associated with moving goods from raw materials stage through to the consumer. This includes procurement, production scheduling, order processing, inventory control, transportation, warehousing, and customer service. The information systems necessary to monitor all of these activities are also included. All these activities are then integrated and coordinated into a seamless process to involve all the partners in the supply chain”. With every step in the supply chain management process, there are costs involved and two of the major cost drivers in the supply chain according to Palmieri and Africk (1999) are inventory holding and transportation. Stout is of the opinion that this is more than a valid statement from a South African business perspective and emphasizes that unnecessary inventory costs money as does inventory that is distributed inefficiently (Gordon, 2000b: 21). Excessive inventory holding together with under-utilization of transport can lead to a major negative financial impact on total supply chain costs (Cooke, 2000: 12; Lambert, Stock & Ellram, 1998: 165; Hankanson, 1999). Therefore, the reciprocal relationship between inventory holding and transportation cost is very important. Christopher (1992: 25) also stipulates that the ultimate purpose of any supply chain is to satisfy customers. The importance of customer service in total supply chain functioning must therefore always be considered in a logistics supply chain system design. In South Africa, transport and inventory are two of the main cost drivers in the supply chain. Factors that make inventory and transport two of the main cost drivers in the supply chain are, among others: high fuel prices, high interest rates, poor road conditions, security concerns and the weak performance of the rand against major foreign currencies. It can therefore be said that inventory and transport are just as important in obtaining an optimized supply chain in South Africa as in the rest of the world. / Mr. P. Kilbourn Prof. J. Walters

E-handelns omsättning har ökat kraftigt under de senaste åren, och det har satt ökade krav på lagerstyrning och lagerutrymme hos e-handelsföretag. Särskilt mindre e-handelsbolag har utmanats att skala upp verksamheten i takt med ökad försäljning och omsättning. Ett av dessa företag är Hobbyhem vilket säljer diverse artiklar inom hobby och pyssel. Företaget har behövt öka kapaciteten snabbt för att möta ökad efterfrågan vilket har lett till kortsiktiga best-practice lösningar och således en ohållbar struktur att bygga vidare på. En fallstudie på företaget visade att brister i strukturen, där smala gångar i kombination med inkonsekvent lagerhållning av produkter och slumpmässig artikelplacering på lagret gjorde plockrundor ineffektiva. Från en omfattande litteraturstudie togs relevant teori fram inom de identifierade problemområdena. Utifrån fallstudien och litteraturstudien genomfördes fyra simuleringar där fyra olika scenarion testades på fallstudieföretaget. Resultatet visar att det viktigaste är att bredda gångarna för att tillåta medtag av plockvagnen in i gångarna. Vidare visade simulering att den bästa metoden för tilldelning av artiklar till lagerplatser är en class-based storage vilken går ut på att de artiklar som säljer mest frekvent placeras närmast plockdepån. Det är även av stor vikt att hålla en konsekvent hyllstruktur på hela lagret för att utnyttja lagerytan maximalt.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / The wholesale trading companies are facing new challenges in terms of the level of service, which is an important factor which determines the level of sales and profitability of companies. Thus, currently, companies are aimed to deliver orders to their respective customers on time, in good condition and complete. This file focuses on the importance of warehouse management for mass consumption distributors, since it's the warehouses that determine the operation and productivity costs of these. Thus, some innovative techniques such as the lean warehouse and allocation tools improve working conditions with the aim of reducing downtime and distances. A pilot programme of implementation of the tools mentioned in the warehouse of a wholesale distributor was carried out. As a result of the research, the distance traveled in the warehouse was reduced by 22%, the reduction of times in the picking process, achieving the optimal delivery time and generating an increase in the sales made of 215,720.22 soles. These results prove to be decisive in the performance of the supply chain (inventory, cost, delay and risk), since the key to success for this industry is to satisfy the needs of customers in the shortest possible time.

El presente trabajo de investigación se enfoca en desarrollar una mejora en la gestión de almacenes para las medianas empresas comercializadoras, que incluye el maximizar el tiempo del proceso de picking (selección y empaquetado) para obtener una disminución en la ratio de productos devueltos. El conocimiento y aplicación de herramientas Lean Warehousing (SLP, inventarios cíclicos y estandarización de procesos), y el ABC multicriterio como herramienta de análisis, permitirá administrar y gestionar los procesos dentro del almacén. Las exigencias de los clientes respecto de la calidad y entregas a tiempo de los productos son cada vez mayores, lo que exige ser más competitivo en las operaciones, por lo cual se analiza la distribución del almacén y la metodología empleada por los operarios, y así eliminar todo lo que no genera valor, llegar control de los inventarios y redistribuir los productos de acuerdo con su importancia. Finalmente, el sistema de gestión de almacenes propuesto permite una eficiente entrega de pedidos y correcta distribución dentro del almacén, generando un impacto positivo en la viabilidad económica tal como: VAN de S/ 96,296 y una TIR de 104.5%., adicionalmente se logró disminuir las devoluciones de un 14.1% a un 7% y se llegó a un rendimiento de 85% de los operarios. / This research work focuses on developing an improvement in warehouse management for medium-sized trading companies, which includes maximizing the time of the picking process (selection and packaging) to obtain a decrease in the ratio of returned products. The knowledge and application of Lean Warehousing tools (SLP, cyclical inventories and standardization of processes), and the ABC multi-criteria as an analysis tool, will allow to administer and manage the processes within the warehouse. The demands of customers regarding the quality and timely delivery of products are increasing, which requires being more competitive in operations, which is why the distribution of the warehouse and the methodology used by the operators are analyzed, and thus eliminate everything that does not generate value, get inventory control and redistribute products according to their importance. Finally, the proposed warehouse management system allows efficient order delivery and correct distribution within the warehouse, generating a positive impact on economic viability such as: NPV of S / 96,296 and an IRR of 104.5%. Additionally, it was possible to decrease the returns of 14.1% to 7% and a performance of 85% of the operators was reached. / Trabajo de investigación