Improvement of Automotive Article Placement and Workload Distribution in Warehousing

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose is to: Improve the efficiency of warehouses operations as well as reduce its workload imbalances by altering the warehouse layout and work zones at a storage area. This was done by answering the following research questions: What is the current state of the sites efficiency and workload imbalances? How can the warehouse layout be designed to increase the efficiency? How can warehouse work zones be altered to reduce workload imbalances? Method – The purpose was achieved through a case study at a vehicle manufacturing facility. By studying established methods of efficiency, layout designs and workload imbalances, ways of improving the operations was discovered. The effects of these methods were then tested through the case.   Findings –There are two categories improving efficiency, namely increasing output or decreasing input. The study also provides examples of ways to do both, and verifies them at the case company. The focus of both methods is a decrease in travel distance which proved to be a reliable way of increasing efficiency. Workload imbalances can be decreased by sharing workload between the resources. The case shows the result of two different resources with unequal workload and discusses the trade-off between efficiency and workload equality. Implications – The practical implications of the study is guidelines for how efficiency can be increased and how workload imbalances can be decreased. The academic implications are verifications of the used theories. Limitations – This study focuses on a restricted part of the storage process, namely traveling. There are more processes which could be included to further benefit the overall efficiency, these have however been excluded to limit the scope. The study also uses a heuristic approach based on prior research which means that the optimal solution might still be unknown. Keywords – Efficiency, workload imbalances, storage management, family grouping