Improving the internal efficiency at IKEA After Sales focusing on the development of a warehouse management system

Abstract: A warehouse management system shall handle warehousing operations with the aim of gaining control over the company's storage capacity and inventory management. It should support functions such as goods receiving, warehousing, order receiving and orderpicking. In order for a warehouse management system to function optimally, it must be designed for the company's operations. The purpose of this thesis work is to analyze the current warehouse management system and associated processes at IKEA After Sales. By analyzing the current situation, the improvement work will result in a development of current system or system replacement. In addition, an implementation plan will be presented for the chosen solution. The systems that have been analyzed are M3 and Astro. The research work began with a visit to IKEA After Sales where observations and interviews were conducted. The focus was on mapping how operations work today and where there is potential for a warehouse management system. A list of requirements was then presented to describe what functions a system should contain. The requirement list was discussed with responsible IT-workers for both systems. The survey showed that a lot of work is done manually and is dependent on competent employees. The research work resulted in an implementation of untapped functions in the already used system M3. The implementation plan focuses on Warehouse Mobility, inventory function and Wave Picking features with associated routines. The routines for how the business should work was designed to facilitate the workload after implementing the above functions.