Kartläggning och nulägesanalys av materialflöde

Sammanfattning: Introduction: The purpose of the introduction is to provide a description of the background and problem related to logistics in manufacturing companies to develop a deeper understanding in why this subject is important for today’s businesses. The aim for the thesis is to investigate an internal material flow that starts with unloading and ends with point of use, in order to provide suggestions for improvement based on theories on Lean and material handling. Two research questions have been formulated from the purpose, to find problem solving solutions: FF1: What wastes occur in the material handling process? FF2: How can efficiency increase in the flow of materials? Approach and method: A case study has been conducted at a manufacturing company and data has been collected through observations and interviews. A literature study has been conducted through data obtained from scientific articles and books as a foundation to the theoretical framework that has been used to analyze the empirical data from the case study. Results: Waste was identified at the case company. The types of waste that was identified was waiting, transportation, excess inventory, unnecessary work and underutilization of employees. Among the reasons for these wastes were complex and inexplicit flows and also non-standardized work. Conclusion: A conclusion that can be drawn from the study is that waste in the material handling process contributes to an inefficient flow of materials at the case company. Suggestions for improvements to achieve an increased efficiency in the material flow have been made by the use of analysis of empirical data, flowcharts and spaghetti diagrams.