Syftet med detta arbete är att öka förståelsen för hur kärnprocesser kan förbättra lagerhållningen i ett företag. Genom att först kartlägga vilka företagets kärn- och stödprocesser är och sedan undersöka hur kärnprocesserna påverkar lagerhållningen kan syftet uppnås. Därmed besvaras problematiseringsfrågan som är följande; På vilka sätt kan lagerhållningen, genom identifiering av kärnprocesserna förbättras på ett företag med E-handel? Arbetet har genomförts på ett av koncernen Nordic E-Commerce Groups dotterbolag, Nordic Inc som är ett E-handelsföretag som säljer bläckpatroner och kontorsmaterial till både företag och privatpersoner. Inledningsvis genomfördes en kartläggning av Nordic Incs processer genom observationer och intervjuer med koncernens VD. När kartläggningen var sammanställd visade det sig att de kärnprocesser som fanns på Nordic Inc var Lager, Inköp och Kundservice. Dessa behandlades sedan mer ingående genom intervjuer med cheferna för varje kärnprocess för att se hur kärnprocesserna påverkar lagerhållningen. Det visade sig vara på sådant sätt att kundservice inte påverkar lagerhållningen på något sätt. Snarare tvärt om då kundservice blir lidande på grund utav den bristande lagerhållningen. Tillvägagångssätten på lagret påverkar lagerhållningen genom bristande artikelplacering, svårtillgänglighet, bristande kontroll över lagersaldo och artiklarnas skick. Vilket i sin tur påverkar kostnader för inventarier och personal. Inköp är den kärnprocess som påverkar lagerhållningen mest då beslut som tas i inköpsprocessen återspeglas i den bristande lagerhållningen. / The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how primary activities can improve the inventory management in an E-commerce company. By first identifying the company's primary and support activities, and then exam how the primary activities affect the inventory management, the purpose is achieved and the thesis question can be answered which is; By identifying the primary activities, in what ways could the inventory management be improved in an E-commerce company? The study has been carried out at Nordic E-commerce Group’s affiliate Nordic Inc. The affiliate is an E-commerce company that sells ink cartridges and office supplies to both businesses and individuals. Initially, the different processes of Nordic Inc.’s were found through observations and interviews with the CEO. When the analyze of the processes was completed, the primary activities found at Nordic Inc were inventory in the warehouse, purchasing and customer service. These were then processed thoroughly, by interviews with the managers of each activity to discover how each one effect the inventory management. The results showed that customer service does not affect inventory in any way. Instead the opposite could be found as customer service is suffering because of inventory. The approaches when working with inventory affect the inventory management through a lacking article placement, inaccessibility, lack of control over stock levels and the condition of articles. This in turn affects the cost of products and personnel. Purchase is the primary activity that affects inventory the most, as the decisions taken in the purchasing process are reflected in inventory.

Abstract Management is a field that started getting attention in the beginning of the 20 th century by Frederick Taylor. His publication is called the Principles of Scientific Management and is based on the principles of using scientific methods to find the best way of conducting each operation within a production facility. Many of Taylor’s principles may appear obsolete today but the matter of an effective material flow is still highly current. Efficiency is the relationship between the input into an operation and its result. A substantial part of the material flow is storage and the costs tied to it. An area about the importance of eliminating storage is JIT or just in time. The main principle of JIT is that a product shouldn’t be produced until a customer expresses its demand for it. Inventory Management is an area within JIT and contains different principles regarding how to avoid storage. Production Management is another area with a set of principles on how to plan an efficient layout of the production. There are many benefits that can be achieved with an efficient production flow and also many disadvantages if the flow is inefficient. It is therefore important to identify the weak spots in the production line and improving them. Our research question: How can the principles of JIT within the areas Inventory Management and Production Management be used to make the material flow more efficient? By conducting a case study at a company in the plastic recycling business, we have come to a conclusion. They need to reduce the amount of material in the warehouse by either buying less material or by increasing the capacity of the cutting operation. The can also make the cutting operation automatic in order to decrease to amount of time that is required for the cutting. They can also eliminate the need for storing half complete material by purchasing a more efficient granulation machine. The last thing to improve is to move the warehouse for final storage closer to the loading area in order to decrease the amount of time needed for that particular operation.

Recycling and remanufacturing returned goods are economically beneficial for companies since the cost of obtaining used parts is lower in many cases and selling price is close to that of a new product. This leads to decreased costs and thereby increased profits for the company. In addition, there are also great environmental benefits by keeping the structural integrity of a part; the energy used for disassembly and refurbishing is much lower than the energy required for raw material extraction and machining. Encompassing the returned goods makes the supply chain to closed loop supply chain, which is different from the traditional supply chain due to reverse logistics. A reverse flow of material is however usually more complex than a forward flow of parts and components from suppliers. This means that inventory management becomes critical and needs to be viewed from a new perspective. The purpose of the report is to study FAW Co., Ltd’s inventory situation in reverse logistics. The report analysed the inventory management in the company, specifically focusing on one product as the instance Motor Engine LFTS-2000since it is in the maturity stage of product life cycle. Two scenarios were designed to consider how different parameters affect inventory levels in reverse logistics. The report analysed how different parameters affect the inventory levels and minimum cost. With the increasing returned goods are processed, inventory levels and minimum cost will decrease correspondingly.

Uncertainty is a norm in business decisions. In this research, we focus on the inventory decisions for companies with uncertain customer demands. We first investigate forward buying strategies for single stage inventory decisions. The situation is common in commodity industry where prices often fluctuate significantly from one purchasing opportunity to the next and demands are random. We propose a combined heuristic to determine the optimal number of future periods a firm should purchase at each ordering opportunity in order to maximize total expected profit when there is uncertainty in future demand and future buying price. Second, we study the complexities of bundling of products in an Assemble-To-Order (ATO) environment. We outline a salvage manipulator mechanism that coordinates the decentralized supply chain. Third, we extend our salvage manipulator mechanism to a two stage supply chain with a long cumulative lead time. With significant lead times, the assumption that the suppliers all see the same demand distribution as the retailer cannot be used.

The diploma thesis focuses on the analysis of the current management of the purchasing process and inventory management for the production process in the company ZDAS, a.s. Based on the performed analyzes, this thesis proposes specific solutions for improving the actual partial processes.

The diploma thesis „The Benefits of Optimizing Inventory Management in Relation to the Installation“ streamlining the production process by optimizing the supply of production. The basis of this work is the analysis of the company with respect to supply the selected installation type. The work conatins a proposed solution, based on analysis of business results and theoretical knowledge.

Natural and man-made disasters are becoming more frequent in many countries throughout the world. Countries with inadequate infrastructure and poorly planned emergency logistics are subject to such events which may lead to the destruction of a community and/or may prevent e cient and successful recovery. Despite the progress that disaster planning, mitigation and new management systems have made, the need for disaster relief continues everlasting. Extensive research is on-going to improve the various phases in the disaster operations life cycle. However, the impact of disaster will not diminish and improved disaster relief planning and management should be addressed intensely. This dissertation addresses various possible mathematical models comprising stochastic and deterministic models, to provide generic means to address the damage and consequences associated with disaster events. The models are applied to countries such as Somalia and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which have been prone to catastrophic events and poverty consequences. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Industrial and Systems Engineering / unrestricted

Background – inventory management theory has in the past been focused on traditional engineering industries. These theories are not completely applicable on industries such as FMCG where the main objective is to avoid obsolescence and not tied-up capital. A part of the FMCG industry that is especially pressured by short shelf lives is the food industry. The food industry has also the disadvantage that the customers demand instant deliveries, which makes production to order impossible. Arla Foods is a dairy company that is struggling with high and increasing wastage costs. The wastage cost is generated from products where last sales date is exceeded and Arla Foods CSE therefore has to trash the products even if the best-before date is still valid. These costs need to be reduced on both short and long term. Hence Arla Foods is perfect as a case company for this study. Purpose – the ulterior purpose of this study is to seek if the current theory is applicable on the food industry. This is investigated through a case study at Arla Foods with the following questions asked: Which factors drives wastage costs at a global dairy company such as Arla Foods? How do the factors relate to each other? Which actions could be taken to reduce the wastage costs at a global dairy company such as Arla Foods? To what extent could these findings be generalizable? Method – a thorough literature study is conducted to create an understanding of the existing theories. The case study is mainly based on interviews and observations with employees at Arla Foods. Data has been extracted from internal data bases and processed to complement the interviews and observations. Conclusion – the case company showed that the most significant wastage drivers on an article level were forecast deviations and batch size/delivery frequency. However, the main wastage drivers at Arla Foods were nothing that could be found in neither supply chain management nor inventory management theory – this was instead problems related to work process, organization, communication and strategy. Suggested solutions to these problems are among others: Going through the worst performing articles’ set-up in a structured way. Making sure that there exists a clear process and that all employees are educated in it. Having a back-up plan on what to do with excessive inventory. Using follow-up reports as tools to take action from. When these problems have been solved, Arla Foods can instead focus on planning principles such as taking steps towards a more integrated collaboration with their customers via Efficient Consumer Response. The findings are not proved to be general in any way, but the conclusion of the report still states that there is a high probability that these findings could be applied on other companies within the food industry in general and within the dairy industry in specific. If this is the case, then it is shown that the current theory lacks several aspects when it comes to food industry – aspects that maybe do not have the same importance within most of the traditional engineering industries. Originality – the literature review conducted before the case study did not show any other case study or research that has made an equally broad overview. Earlier studies have mainly been focused on that the food industry is in need of customized planning principles and systems. That research has in the end advocated implementation of Efficient Consumer Response or similar.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / This research project proposes a supply management model in a consumer goods company in Lima, Peru, to improve stock control and avoid raw materials stockouts and overstock. A Kraljic matrix was used to identify products based on their criticality considering material segmentation, warehouse capacity and times, and ABC segmentation to classify products on each quadrant of the matrix. This project also focuses on defining purchasing and supply strategies in each quadrant of the matrix. This model involves the development of three processes that are related to a new purchasing strategy: economic order quantity, lot-for-lot ordering, and just in time. This new system is based on a more accurate inventory because continuous improvement attracts employees’ attention and engages them in reducing the number of manual notifications made by operators every month. Moreover, after implementing the new procedure for recording inventories, the inventory record was 87% accurate, whereas, in the past, the inventory was not counted and was performed by employees of other areas.

In the current market, there is a large number of SMEs that have a large margin of economic losses due to lack of stocks, due to the supply process. In other words, the lost sales and the costs of the services generated by not having their products available in their warehouses is a critical scenario in the distribution companies, whose added value lies in maximizing their level of customer service. To solve this problem, we propose a system that integrates the development of the attention and the model of the inventories of the periodic review, the bases based on the framework of the work. The results, after analyzing the demand, their patterns and choosing the best method to use, are antecedents to develop the management of inventories and their policies. Likewise, knowledge management will act as an integrated support. Through the simulation carried out for a distribution of lubricants, results were obtained that indicate a reduction of 93% in losses due to stock-outs and an increase in the service level that goes from 77% to 91%. This is an integrated system of interest to be applied as a solution for SMEs that have high stock-outs and lack this type of tools..