Improving Logistics Processes in a Global Spares Supply Organization

This thesis studies logistics processes related to balancing of the inventories between supply channels. Balancing operations are based on lateral transshipments, which are a recent field of studies and have been on the focus of the optimization studies during the past few years. The findings of the study model current processes and material flows, reveals issues related to processes, studies cost figures and provides alternative solutions for improvement. The main objective of the study is to provide a construction that makes it possible to improve decision-making related to inventory balancing between the distribution centers of the organization. This study answers three main questions: How does the existing inventory network look like? What kind of issues and development areas are there? How is it possible to improve current inventory pooling operations? This study is a single case study carried out in a global spares supply organization willing to improve their logistics processes. To achieve the objects of the study, several methods were needed: literature survey on logistics models, sourcing methods and logistics cost models, qualitative information through interviews in the case company, study of the existing process descriptions and contract terms in addition to several quantitative analyses on the performance of the operations. Due to multiple methods, reliability and validity is increased as is the extent of the study. Findings of this study demonstrate that the expansion of the company on Asian markets is in its infancy and that the processes lack standardization and appropriate tools. Asian Distribution Center is highly dependent on European suppliers. Despite the strategic aspect of Asian supplier markets, supplier base does not yet provide a comprehensive alternative for balancing transshipments from Europe. This underlines the importance of processes on inventory balancing as they provide significant cost reductions against local sourcing in Asia at the moment. It is recommended to continue balancing using European supply chains, but to set up ocean deliveries for major flows and to focus sourcing efforts on establishing local suppliers for materials that have the highest importance by their total value. Future studies should provide more detailed information on quality and sourcing related costs to improve cost analysis and comparisons in addition to benchmarking values and ratios. /Kir1

Prosessikehityssuunnitelma

Tein tämän opinnäytetyön omalle työnantajalleni Hyvinkään Konetalo oy:lle. Toimeksi-anto tuli omalta esimieheltäni, joka toimii kohdeyrityksen toimitusjohtajana. Tavoitteena oli tehdä opinnäytetyö kohdeyrityksen huollon toiminnoista. Tarkemmin sanottuna nykyinen toimintamalli piti kartoittaa ja tutkia sen vahvuudet sekä heikkoudet. Tutkimusmenetelmät pohjautuivat Lean-filosofiaan. Itse työskentelen kohdeyrityksen huollon esimiehenä ja suoritan samanaikaisesti myös huoltomiehen töitä. Tutkimusmenetelmien lisäksi hyödynsin opinnäytetyössä omaa työkokemustani, jota on kertynyt jo yli 10 vuotta kyseisessä yrityksessä. Nykytilanteen kartoituksen jälkeen tuli luoda uusia mahdollisia toimintamalleja, joista voidaan valita korvaava malli nykyisen tilalle. Nykytilanteen analyysin pohjalta luotiin kaksi eri ratkaisua, jotka ovat molemmat hieman nykytilanteesta poikkeavia, mutta silti täysin toteutettavissa olevia menetelmiä. Uusien toimintamallien perusideana oli kehittää huollon kapasiteettiä ottaa huoltotöitä lisää vastaan vuositasolla ja luoda mahdollisuudet kasvattaa huoltotoimintaa lisää myös tulevaisuudessa. Ensimmäinen toimintamalli on suunniteltu nimenomaa huoltotöiden lukumääräisen kapasiteetin nostamista silmällä pitäen. Ensimmäisellä toimintamalliehdotuksella voidaan kasvattaa yrityksen toimintaa jatkossa niin, ettei laatu kärsi. Toisessa toiminta-mallissa yrityksen pelisääntöjä yksinkertaistetaan ja selkeytetään. Perusperiaatteena tässä mallissa on pyrkiä välttämään kaikki hukka tekemisessä ja keskittyä vain tekemään asioita, joilla on arvoa asiakkaalle ja samalla taloudellista hyötyä yritykselle. Lopulta paremmaksi toimintamalliksi osoittautui ensimmäinen vaihtoehto, koska sillä varaudutaan huollon toiminnan kasvuun ja saadaan luotua asiakkaalle laadukkaampi kuva yrityksen toiminnasta.I made this thesis to my employer Hyvinkään Konetalo oy. The assignment came from my supervisor, who is also the target company's CEO. The objective of the project was to examine the committioner´s maintenance operations. More precisely, the current operating model was be identied its strengths and weaknesses were to be explored. The research method used here was based on the Lean philosophy. In addition the research project I took advantage of my own work experience with the company, which has been accumulated for over 10 years. After indentifying and exploring the current operating model, I examined new potential operating models, which could be chosen to replace the existing one. Based on an analysis of the current situation by two different solutions, were created which were both slightly different from the current situation, but still completely viable methods. The basic idea of the new operating model was to develop the capacity of maintenance to take care of more maintenance projects on an annual basis and to create opportunities for growing its service activities further in the future. The first approach chosen was designed to increase the volume of the maintenance work. The first approachproposal would increase the company's operations in the futu-re, so that the quality will not suffer,either. In the second proposal the rules and regu-lations of the company were simplified and clarified. The basic principle of this model was trying to avoid anything superfluous and to focus only on doing things that had value to the customer, as well as financial benefits to the company. Finally, a better operational model the first option proved to be, for the commissioner since it allowed for preparing to maintenance operations, and created a more high-quality impression of the company´s operations to the customer

Specific niche characteristics facilitate the invasion of an alien fish invader in boreal streams

We studied the ecological niche relations of native stream fish and an alien invader, brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), to examine if brook trout had located an underused environmental niche in our boreal study system. In both study years (1994 versus 2004), we found brook trout to have the most marginal niche position of all the fish species examined. The most important environmental variable affecting the distribution of brook trout was pH, with acid headwater sites being dominated by this species. Brown trout, in contrast, had relatively nonmarginal niche, occurring in average conditions across the sampled sites. Other fish species had niche positions between the two salmonids. Our results show that fish invasions may be strongly facilitated by the presence of suboptimally occupied environmental niche space in the recipient river system

Exploring species and site contributions to beta diversity in stream insect assemblages

It was recently suggested that beta diversity can be partitioned into contributions of single sites to overall beta diversity (LCBD) or into contributions of individual species to overall beta diversity (SCBD). We explored the relationships of LCBD and SCBD to site and species characteristics, respectively, in stream insect assemblages. We found that LCBD was mostly explained by variation in species richness, with a negative relationship being detected. SCBD was strongly related to various species characteristics, such as occupancy, abundance, niche position and niche breadth, but was only weakly related to biological traits of species. In particular, occupancy and its quadratic terms showed a very strong unimodal relationship with SCBD, suggesting that intermediate species in terms of site occupancy contribute most to beta diversity. Our findings of unravelling the contributions of sites or species to overall beta diversity are of high importance to community ecology, conservation and bioassessment using stream insect assemblages, and may bear some overall generalities to be found in other organism groups.Peer reviewe

The added value of geodiversity indices in explaining variation of stream macroinvertebrate diversity

Geodiversity, i.e. the variety of the abiotic environment, is considered to be positively correlated to biodiversity. In streams, the importance of physical heterogeneity for biodiversity variation is well known, but the usefulness of explicitly measured geodiversity indices to account for biodiversity has not been tested. We developed a technique to measure in-stream geodiversity, based on different types of stream flow, geomorphological processes and landforms observed from photographs taken during the field work, and substrates based on traditional field observations. We further tested the utility of these geodiversity measures in explaining variation in the biodiversity of macroinvertebrates in near-pristine streams. Our specific objective was to examine the explanatory power of geodiversity compared to traditional environmental variables, such as water chemistry, depth and current velocity. While most biodiversity indices correlated more strongly with traditional environmental variables, the influence of geodiversity on biodiversity was also evident. Unique effect of flow richness on species richness and that of total geodiversity on functional richness were higher than those of the traditional environmental variables. Our findings suggested that in-stream geodiversity offers a valuable concept for characterizing stream habitats. If further developed and tested, in-stream geodiversity can be used as a cost-efficient proxy to explain variation in biodiversity in stream environments.Peer reviewe