Bristidentifiering & effektivisering av materialförsörjningen på SAAB Microwave Systems

Sammanfattning:   Saab Microwave Systems (SMW) is a business unit within Saab AB that manufactures and develops different types of radar- and sensor systems for naval, airborne and ground based forces as well as within the market for civil security. In addition to the manufacturing of radar and sensor systems they also provide different types of service concepts. The business unit has 50 years of experience within the area of developing radar systems and is considered to be one of the market leaders. When applying an assemble-to-order production strategy with products at this level of cost price the product lead-time is vital and becomes an important part of the strategy within marketing and sales.   Within SMW there is a new department called Supply Management (SM) that provides the supply of incoming and outgoing material. Within SM there are four sub-departments working with activities such as planning, purchasing, receiving inspection, storage and distribution. Today, the supply process is relatively inefficient and there are delays in the flow due to suddenly arising problems. These delays generate big problems since SMW applies a just-in-time purchasing strategy. Based upon this problem the major purpose of this thesis work is to perform an analysis of the material flow in order to identify problems and contribute to a more efficient supply process.   When the problems were identified the authors in consultation with the management choose to give priority to one problem in order to have a more finite focus regarding the analysis. The most serious problem that are given priority to is the receiving inspection since there is a lack of proper measurements, the planning is inadequate, the level of inspection is to high as well as uncontrolled, the inspections are based upon subjective appraisals and there is a lack of storage space. Within this problem there will be an extra focus upon the level of inspection even though the other problems will be given thought as well. When this problem was chosen as the main area of focus the authors took the level of importance and usefulness for the company into consideration, what came up during the analysis of the material flow as well as what the authors considered to be the best area of focus given existing conditions.   The suggested improvements presented by the authors mainly consist of two areas regarding the level of inspection. The first suggestion consists of a filtering model that through a set of parameters are able to decide whether a specific article should be going through a reduced level of inspection or not. The second suggestion consists of a model that the company could use when they are phasing in new suppliers or improving existing ones. The purpose of this model is to create a close collaboration between important suppliers and SMW in order to reach a higher level of quality on the incoming material. The reason to why this model is created is due to the fact that the company has a very high level of inspection regarding incoming material today since the quality in many cases is faulty. By using this model the authors' ambition is to reduce the risk of defectives reaching SMW by supplier collaboration and this way oppose defectives earlier in the material flow. In addition to these suggested improvements the authors also suggest some thoughts and ideas regarding what is needed to be taken into consideration in order to reach a better planning and how the work efficiency within the receiving inspection department can be improved.