University of Twente Student Theses
Performance improvement in Europlant’s component warehouse
Baveld, Ferdi (2016) Performance improvement in Europlant’s component warehouse.
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| Abstract: | SC Johnson Europlant B.V. (hereinafter referred to as Europlant) is a specialist in the manufacturing of household cleaning supplies and other cleaning chemicals. The production plant is located in Mijdrecht and is one of the largest operating plants located in the SC Johnson’s EMEA region. The plant had some rough changes to go through during the past decade. This led to significant improvements within the processing and production departments. Nevertheless, no attention was paid to mapping and improving the performance of the warehouse. Recently, questions were raised by Europlant’s management with respect to the current performance of the inbound logistical processes and how the performance and efficiency of the warehouse can be improved. The focus in this study lies exclusively on the liquids component warehouse whereby the inbound logistical processes are designated as: receiving, put-away, storing, picking and line supply. The processes receiving and put-away and also the processes picking and line supply are combined because one truck driver is responsible for both activities at the same time. The objective of this study is to gain insight in possible problems in the inbound logistical processes, how to solve these problems and subsequently how it will improve the performance of Europlant in order to improve the performance of the inbound logistical processes. The main problem is defined as: “What improvement is required at SC Johnson Europlant B.V. with respect to the inbound logistical processes, in terms of warehouse utilization and balanced component flow, in order to improve performance”. From the research it appears that the major adjustments that will have biggest effect on improving the performance of the inbound logistical processes are: the abolishing of 031 storage locations, expansion of the storage availability and implementation of a storage strategy and tracking of utilization data. These results follow from the identification of bottlenecks within the current processes, expressed as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), leading to a plan of approach per bottleneck based on scientific literature. Calculations are made in order to indicate the effect regarding the improvements as expressed in the KPIs. One bottleneck is identified in the receiving and put-away process. Waste in the process that must be eliminated is identified as waiting and unnecessary motion causing long throughput time. If storage availability is guaranteed the throughput time improves with 2.45 minutes per truck. Implementation of EDI will result in an improvement of 6.54 minutes per truck. Throughput of component will improve significant. Three bottlenecks are identified within the storage process and can be described as: wrong use of ERP system, insufficient knowledge about performance and an inefficient storage strategy. The alternatives for this process are that SAP settings are adjusted to the current situation and 031 storage types should be abolished. Furthermore, class based storage strategy with distribution 58-32-10 should be introduced that improves the bottleneck with 37.24 percent. The A components should be stored nearby the production lines in a pallet shuttle system and additional storage locations should be created of created of 727 pallet locations. The effect of the alternatives will lead to improvement in costs, quality, OEE, component flow and also the efficiency of the truck driver increase. The investment costs of the new situation are approximately € 184.720,00. One bottlenecks is identified in the picking and line supply process. This process can be improved if the non-value adding activity identified as waiting is converted to efficient work time. The alternatives that are found to improve the throughput in the picking and line supply process are: kanban pull cards, stack lights or kanban pull automatic. All alternatives for this bottleneck will improve the throughput in the process but have differences in investment costs, hardness of implementation and technological development. The results of the alternatives are difficult to estimate at this stage, further research is desirable to improve the picking and line supply process. This study starts with information about SC Johnson, SC Johnson Europlant and thereafter the research structure is described. In Chapter 4, the current situation is described. Based on this research, bottlenecks have been identified and elaborated on in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6, these bottlenecks are expressed as KPIs. A plan of approach in order to improve the KPIs is described in Chapter 6. In Chapter 7, insights are given in the extent to which these alternatives will improve performance as expressed in the KPIs. In Chapter 8 a structured implementation plan is presented in order to execute the major and best suitable alternatives. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 01 general works |
| Programme: | Educational Science and Technology MSc (60023) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/70444 |
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