A decision support system for an improved article placement

Abstract: Warehouse storage is an important part of a business’ supply chain. This is where articles temporary are stored before they either are carried on to the next step of the production or to be delivered to the customers of the company. The largest part of the stock keeping often devoted to the order picking. Order picking includes the activities that are occurring when an article is being picked from its stored position and is being transported to the next step of the flow of the materials. The most time- consuming part of the order picking process are often the time to pinpoint and to get the hold of an article. This implies quite likely that an enhancement of the productivity could be realized, inter alia, through cut the transport distances. SKF Mekan AB is an industrial corporation whose primary occupation is to manufacture bearing housings. Currently, the business has a flawed inventory for stock keeping. A great many of the articles stored in the inventory, entitled 104C, are placed in regard to their measures, without any thought in regard of how frequently the articles are picked. In addition, the article placement that is used today is outdated, which has resulted in that a lot of articles are lacking a specific placement in the inventory. The purpose of storing articles in the inventory 104C is to cope with fluctuations in the next step of the manufacturing, which is the processing factory. The aim of the study is to find out how the article placement looks in the current situation and how decisions concerning article placement are determined and what issues occurs due to this. A decision support system has been developed which purpose is to give SKF Mekan AB decision basis regarding where the different kinds of articles should be placed to attain an increased efficiency in business’ stock keeping. The decision support system is adaptable to the extent that the user can adjust the parameters that are determining the article placement. The study has been accomplished by means of observations and interviews. With the help of the observations, the layout of the warehouse and the article placement has been mapped out and with the help of the interviews; the results concerning work models and decision-making of article placement has been answered. Through the observations and the interviews appeared that 42.5 % of the stocked pallets were misplaced and that 15.6 % of the stocked pallets lacked a specific placement in the warehouse. This results in that the truck operators has a hard time localizing the pallets, which leads to inefficient labouring. This causes delays in the next step of the supply chain; i. e. the processing factory, meaning the personnel has to wait for the articles to be delivered. With the articles picking frequency and the principle of family grouping as point of reference for the article placement SKF Mekan AB should be able to eliminate non-value adding activities in the supply chain, which should lead to an increased potential of profitability.