Improvement of the order fulfillment process with the obligation of Letter of Credit: : A case study

Sammanfattning: In today’s competitive market there is a high pressure on companies to continuously improve and make their internal processes more efficient. There is a high demand from customer regarding receiving the products with shorter lead times, and pressure on reducing market price, and also to reduce the supply chain cost. In order to stay competitive, companies need to respond fast to changes in demand, keep good margins in order to be able to invest in product development and secure its position in the market. Company A is an OEM company that provides its customers with end-to-end customer unique solutions. Having a large product portfolio, the company not only produces its own products, but also buys products from third part companies which are later integrated in their solutions. Being a global company with subsidiaries, factories and customers around the world, result in a very complex supply chain.The purpose of this study is to look more closely to one of Company A’s customer’s order fulfilment process. The Customer is located in Northern Africa and has a customized order fulfilment process due to the contractual terms and conditions. The contract requires Letter of Credit as a payment term and inspection need to be performed before the material can be shipped to the customer. In order to identify the bottlenecks and areas of improvement a case study has been performed. The Case Study shows that there are several areas that can be improved. Analysis of four Customer Purchase Orders shows that the average lead time from signing the Customer Purchase Order to have the order placed and sent to the suppliers is 37 days. By improving the internal communication, proactively work on getting the CPO ready for ordering, and reducing the Early Start approval steps the lead time can be reduced significantly. The way the Letter of Credit is handled in this customer unique flow result in many stored finished goods days. The Company A has a strategy not to keep the material ready in the warehouse for more than 30 days. The analysis shows that material is stored in most of the cases for more than 30 days due to non-operative L/C and need to wait until the Letter of Credit is operative. Another bottleneck that the case study made visible is the days that the shipment cannot be shipped and need to wait for the insurance to be secured. By investigating the Incoterm and changing from existing CPT to DAT or CIP, the insurance can automatically be covered by Company A’s global insurance agreement.