thesis
A New Framework for Designing and Developing Cost-Effective
Logistic Chains for Long Items
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Abstract
In this thesis, a new framework has been proposed, designed and developed
for creating efficient and cost effective logistics chains for long items within the
building industry. The building industry handles many long items such as pipes,
profiles and so on. The handling of these long items is quite complicated and
difficult because they are bulky, unstable and heavy. So it is not cost effective
and efficient to handle them manually. Existing planning frameworks ignore
these special requirements of such goods and are not planned for handling
these goods. That leads to that many additional manual handling steps are
currently required to handle long items. Therefore, it is very important to
develop a new framework for creating the efficient and cost-effective logistics
chain for long items.
To propose such a new framework, the expert interviews were conducted to
gain the fully understanding about the customer requirements. The experts from
all stages of the building industry supply chain were interviewed. The data
collected from the expert interviews has been analysed and the meaningful
findings about the customer requirements have been applied as the valuable
inputs for the proposition of the new framework.
To have fully knowledge about current practices, all existing planning
frameworks have been analysed and evaluated using SWOT analysis. The
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the current planning
frameworks have been comparatively analysed and evaluated. The findings
from SWOT analysis have been used for proposing, designing and developing
the new framework.
The great efforts have been made during the implementation stage. The six
different key parameters for a successful implementation have been identified.
They are:
• Improvement Process with Employees
• Control of the Improvements
• Gifts/Money for the Improvements and Additional Work
• KAIZEN Workshops
• Motivation of the Employees for Improvements
• Presentation of the Results
Among these six parameters, it has been found that KAIZEN workshops is a
very effective way for creating an efficient and cost-effective logistics chain for
long items.
It is believed that the new framework can be theoretically used for the planning
of logistics that handle long items and commercial goods. This framework can
also be used to plan all kinds of in-house logistics processes from the incoming
goods, storage, picking, delivery combination areas and through to the outgoing
goods area.
The achievements of this project are as follows (1) the new framework for
creating efficient and cost-effective logistics chains for long items, (2) the data
collection and the data evaluation at the preliminary planning, (3) the decision
for one planning variant already at the end of the structure planning, (4) the
analysis and evaluation of customer requirements, (5) the consideration and
implementation of the customer requirements in the new framework, (6) the
creation of figures and tables as planning guideline, (7) the research and further
development of Minomi with regards to long items, (8) the research on the
information flow, (9) the classification of the improvements and the improvement
handling at the implementation, (10) the identification of key parameters for a
successful implementation of the planning framework.
This framework has been evaluated both theoretically and through a case study
of a logistics system planning for handling long items and commercial goods. It
has been found that the new framework is theoretically sound and practically
valuable. It can be applied to creating the logistics system for long items,
especially for building industry