This thesis is focused on topic of mapping and optimization of processes with particular focus on logistic processes. The work consists of three interconnected parts. The first part contains definitions of important concepts and approaches in three separate areas. The areas are organization processes, logistic processes and Lean management. The second part revolves around suitable methodology, it contains used methods and tools suitable for mapping and analysis of various process as well as principles and tools recommended for optimization of logistic processes. The last part of thesis maps key processes of internal logistics inside of manufacturing factory and analyses logistic system used in organization. The thesis also proposes various recommendations how to make analysed processes better. Analysis and optimization of processes is in the end enriched by recommendations, which should lead to better organization logistics system in the future.

This Master's Thesis focuses on the analysis of the production process of fireplace insert -- chosen product of the company FLAMEN. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the production process of fireplace insert and give recommendations for improvement using Lean Tools. The company FLAMEN is new on the market and has no experience with Lean Manufacturing principles or techniques. The thesis focuses on initial implementation of Lean Manufacturing philosophy into the company. The theoretical basis of Lean Manufacturing, Process mapping and particular Lean Tools are described in the thesis. Further the production process of fireplace insert is analyzed and possible improvements are suggested. These suggestions should lead to initial implementation of Lean Production philosophy in the company FLAMEN.

The aim of the thesis is to suggest recommendation to optimize and increase efficiency in a process of catering ordering in a company Express Deli by using methods of lean six sigma. The work is built as real project od lean six sigma using some methods of the methodology lean six sigma. In the theoretical part of the thesis, methods of lean six sigma used in the practical part, are described. These methods are mainly methods of process mapping. Each chapter is a step of DMAIC methodology. Core part of the thesis is process mapping at a customer side, so in the other part there are all recommendations directly focused on customers requirements. The results of the work are suggested proposals for process improvement. Some of them were implemented during the project.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of an intervention designed to eliminate damage notification failures in a customer-specific standard operating procedure used by a global logistics company. Process maps identified locations in the process where damage notification failures could most likely occur. A revised process was designed overnight to eliminate as many notification failure points as possible. In addition, a job aid was included to help facilitate the process change for the drivers. The results of the intervention showed a rapid and profound decrease in damage notification failures leading to the retention of a large, profitable account with a minimal initial investment of time and money.

Spännbalksystem är ett stomsystem helt i betong, där en platsgjuten platta samverkar med prefabricerade förspända balkar. Systemet används bland annat vid olika parkeringshusbyggnationer som gynnas av stora spännvidder och få pelare. Metoden genererar ett mer hållbart stomsystem på grund av mindre materialåtgång och längre livslängd. Slutprognoser från parkeringshusbyggnationer visar att det är svårt att uppnå de kalkylerade enhetstiderna för valvbyggnation där spännbalksystem har använts. Prognoserna visar att byggtiderna har blivit längre och att kostnaderna har ökat på grund av rörligakostnader så som till exempel mark- och maskinhyra. Formhyran vid valvbyggnation upptar en stor del av kostnaden för entreprenören. Det ligger i både entreprenörens och beställarens intresse att minska osäkerheten och avvikelserna från kalkylen i projektet. Därför har en fallstudie genomförts. Två olika studieobjekt har undersökts som benämns Ö1 och V1; Östergötland 1 och Västmanland 1. Fallstudieföretaget är verksamt inom både hus- och anläggningsprojekt i norden. Fallstudieföretaget har en lång erfarenhet från parkeringshusbyggnationer med spännbalkssystem. En processkartläggning har genomförts av de två studieobjekten som båda har haft en projektsumma på strax över 100 miljoner kronor och har genererat över 400 parkeringsplatser. En separat gjutetapp för valv har studerats för Ö1 och V1 där arbetsmomenten vid valvbyggnation har specialstuderats. Vid arbetsmomenten har begränsning, slöseri och beslutsfattande kartlagts och analyserats med litteratur avseende Lean Construction och flakhalsteori. En logistiker på fallstudieföretaget intervjuades för att validera metoden och resultaten i detta arbete. Förbättringsförslag framtogs med avseende på kostnadsbesparingar och produktivitetsökningar. Förslagen avser främst personalförsörjning och produktionsplanering.  En ny tankemodell har framtagits. Den visar hur produktionsstrategin och beslutsfattande från tidigare processer påverkar varandra och kan generera flaskhalsar och slöserier i produktionen. Om oönskade slöserier och flaskhalsar uppstår måste nya beslut fattas vilket innebär att produktionsstrategin måste förändras. Flaskhals, slöseri och beslutsfattande är ömsesidigt beroende av varandra och är svåra att isolera var och för sig. Begränsningen i studien är att det endast har gjorts observationer hos ett fallstudieföretag. Processkartläggningen är därmed inte representativ för alla valvbyggnationer med spännbalkssystem i nya parkeringshus. Det kan finnas andra aktörer på marknaden som använder sig av andra processer som inte är kartlagda i detta examensarbete.      Min hypotes med att implementera Lean Construction inom byggnation av parkeringshus med spännbalksystem har visat sig användbar för att minimera kostnader och öka effektiviteten.

The thesis is focused on the identification of service and administrative processes and sub processes inside the chosen company and proposal of their possible separation and outsourcing using the Business Process Management methods. Potential changes should be aimed to release capacity of the monitored team of the company and optimize their processes and related capacity during busy season and also from the long term perspective. The company set the conditions for potential changes by keeping current standards about quality of products and services and keeping current rules for client communication. Additionally company expects decreasing of personal costs related to inquired services.

Continuous improvement of processes is one important aspect of quality management and the way towards excellence. Companies are at different stages of business excellence, but the way is long, and the improvement process is never ending. For a company to start its journey towards business excellence, there are many means, guidelines and models to use but no single way that guarantees the success and no generic mean that can be extended to all types of companies. That’s why this paper tries to initiate process improvement journey at Golvet Göteborg by applying excellence models for process optimization and making a process map of warehousing to recognize improvement areas and act upon that. To do this, a literature review in areas of quality management and business excellence is conducted with focus on process management. By interviewing key persons at the company, a map of warehouse process is illustrated and based on that possible improvements are suggested to leadership.

Nowadays, the global economy imposes great competition between companies that creates an intense pressure. Due to this increasing competition, companies have to keep improving their process for becoming more efficient to lower costs while improving their quality level and providing a better service. A company that does not improve every year is a company that is dying. Although Kraft Foods Inc. is the world’s second largest food company, they also need to keep improving in order to maintain its competitive position on the market and this is why they have been implementing the Lean culture in France since 2007. They want to become more efficient by eliminating all the activities that the customer is not willing to pay for, defined as waste. Providing more value with fewer resources, goal of Lean manufacturing, should make Kraft Foods France even more competitive. However, in order to become Leaner, the nine plants of Kraft Foods Biscuit needed a structured method because the first difficulty of eliminating wastes lies in identifying them. The main purpose of this thesis was to develop one of the most important Lean tools to identify wastes called “Value Stream Mapping”. This master thesis will therefore explain and describe how mapping the value stream can help identifying and eliminating the wastes but also can be a priceless support to share a common vision of the value stream among managers. This tool should be seen as the starting point of any improvements projects since it allows identifying opportunities for improvement that will improve the bottom line of the company. VSM should be used to challenge the status quo and the behaviors of all employees in order to improve Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety, Sustainability and Morale. This master thesis will deal with the two main missions I led in order to reach this goal. The first mission was to develop a standard of the Value Stream Mapping for Kraft Foods France. I was asked to participate in the structuralizing and in the standardization of the VSM tool for the company. The tool was first analyzed and then a taylor-made VSM tool was developed to meet the characteristics and needs of the food industry. The last step of this mission was to train managers and engineers so that they can lead VSM projects themselves, in any plants, that can help them identifying improvements to be done. The second mission was to apply this method in different production lines to show managers the effectiveness of the tool for identifying rooms for improvement that could increase the productivity of theses studied production lines. For example, the project at Granville’s plant, described in the last part of the thesis, shows what types of improvements can be identified thanks to a Value Stream Mapping project since this project led to a productivity improvement of 40 k€. On completion of this thesis, I wish to have contributed to the emergence of the good use of Value Stream Mapping tool at Kraft Foods that will help the company to keep improving and focusing on customers.

In the highly competitive aerospace industry, engine manufacturers must react very quickly and precisely to any demand emerging from aircraft manufacturers if they want to be positioned on the offer. This is especially true when answering to Requests For Information (RFI) based on preliminary design investigations of first level. In order to reduce the time needed to perform these costly operations while improving the performances achieved, Snecma wishes to develop tools for dimensioning the engine and also for assessing key parameters such as mass, emissions, fuel burn, costs, etc. Unfortunately, the set of tools and the process used at the present time for preliminary design investigations of first level are not sufficient to meet the high standards sought-after by the company in terms of time and performances. As a consequence, efforts must be spent on redefining the whole process and the tools it is based on; here is the mission that has been conferred upon me.   Multiple exchanges with performances engineers and specialists allowed to draw the current process for preliminary design investigations of first level and raise all the associated concerns. At the same time, a status of the existing tools (called modules in this report), mainly developed under Excel, has been realised in order to identify the range of action for today's investigations. A prototype has been developed under SDK Python with the aim of proving the feasibility of a solution to a difficulty that shows up in the process for each new investigation: the one of generating the workflow on the optimisation software Optimus. A target process has finally been discussed considering all the information collected, and would allow dividing by five the time needed to perform investigations compare to now. The prototype developed lead to interesting results and this solution could thus probably be integrated in the target process as it would allow saving one day of work for an engineer for each study to be carried out.   Solutions have been proposed to all the concerns identified in the process and they will have to be discussed with many actors and investigated further in the near future in order to set the target process that will allow meeting the final objective of answering all types of RFIs emitted by aircraft manufacturer in a very short time with a high level of confidence in the results.

In the highly competitive aerospace industry, engine manufacturers must react very quickly and precisely to any demand emerging from aircraft manufacturers if they want to be positioned on the offer. This is especially true when answering to Requests For Information (RFI) based on preliminary design investigations of first level. In order to reduce the time needed to perform these costly operations while improving the performances achieved, Snecma wishes to develop tools for dimensioning the engine and also for assessing key parameters such as mass, emissions, fuel burn, costs, etc. Unfortunately, the set of tools and the process used at the present time for preliminary design investigations of first level are not sufficient to meet the high standards sought-after by the company in terms of time and performances. As a consequence, efforts must be spent on redefining the whole process and the tools it is based on; here is the mission that has been conferred upon me.   Multiple exchanges with performances engineers and specialists allowed to draw the current process for preliminary design investigations of first level and raise all the associated concerns. At the same time, a status of the existing tools (called modules in this report), mainly developed under Excel, has been realised in order to identify the range of action for today's investigations. A prototype has been developed under SDK Python with the aim of proving the feasibility of a solution to a difficulty that shows up in the process for each new investigation: the one of generating the workflow on the optimisation software Optimus. A target process has finally been discussed considering all the information collected, and would allow dividing by five the time needed to perform investigations compare to now. The prototype developed lead to interesting results and this solution could thus probably be integrated in the target process as it would allow saving one day of work for an engineer for each study to be carried out.   Solutions have been proposed to all the concerns identified in the process and they will have to be discussed with many actors and investigated further in the near future in order to set the target process that will allow meeting the final objective of answering all types of RFIs emitted by aircraft manufacturer in a very short time with a high level of confidence in the results.