LEAN LOGISTIK Styrning och hantering av produktions-, material- och informationsflöden : En fallstudie vid Wibax AB

In recent decades, Lean Production has become a more established concept in modern industry when it comes to creating more efficient businesses. The goal of Lean Production is to offer the customer the highest quality at the lowest price, in the shortest possible time, by continuously working on eliminating waste. By minimizing or eliminating activities that do not create value for the customer, more efficient flows can be achieved.A company in the process of connecting Lean principles with its logistical operations is Wibax AB; a company within the chemical industry. The company has expanded greatly during recent years but unfortunately the business’ operations have not evolved at sufficiently high rate to meet the increased demand.The purpose of this study was to investigate how Lean principles can be applied to improve the work processes when it comes to inventory control and material handling at the case study company. Because similarities between the areas Lean Production and logistics could be seen quite early in the study, the aim was also to examine the theoretical linkages that could be found between these areas.For a number of the company's products the workflow is perceived as ineffective, and mapping of the current workflow revealed that the biggest problems are that information is transmitted manually between several parallel systems, that minimum levels of stock are not based on statistical data, and that there is an apparent disorganization when it comes to both materials and information management.The results of the study showed that many problems were interlinked and that a more efficient flow can be achieved by relatively few measures. First and foremost, Wibax should strive to automate the transferring of information and integrate all systems. This requires automatic identification of products, which is recommended by an implementation of a RFID system (Radio Frequency Identification System). In this way, a real-time inventory can be achieved, which is important for the efficiency of the entire workflow. Furthermore, it is recommended that the manufacturing of packaged products should be made to customer orders instead of made to stock in order to free up necessary storage space and reduce working capital. A few of these items might require safety stocks and the size of these should be based on historical data and set on a monthly basis. Finally, standards and procedures should be designed jointly by affected employees to ensure that they are followed.By introducing the recommended suggestions for improvement processes can be simplified and structured, and thus become more fail-safe.Validerat; 20150331 (global_studentproject_submitter