Optimering av lagernivåer : Tredjepartslogistik och Ålös insourcing av lagerhållning

Sammanfattning: Ålö AB is a global company specialized in the manufacturing of front loaders for tractors with over 50 horsepower. Ålö is world-leading in their sector with factories in four countries on three continents with eleven sales companies around the globe. Even though it is an extremely global company with a presence on a majority of continents they employ less than 1,000 people. This results in limited resources to maintain very large international supply chains that typically are managed by companies several times the size of Ålö. Today Ålö is using a service called third party logistics which means they have outsourced their warehousing to an external company called Logex. Ålö pays Logex a monthly fee to maintain the warehouse and to have suppliers deliver directly to them. Logex then ships only the material needed in production three times a day to Ålö’s factory located in Brännland just outside of Umeå. Now, Ålö has identified a potential cost-saving opportunity by insourcing the warehouse to the factory. Although, to be able to complete the insourcing, Ålö must reduce and optimize the warehouse size because there is limited floor space inside the factory. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to create a simulation model and apply a new formula for safety stock calculations. With the help of the simulation model, changes to safety stock levels can be evaluated and ensure they do not negatively impact the production. The simulation model will simulate the production of the new Quicke Series loader model. The model is coded in Visual Basic for Applications and executed in Excel. To make the model as accurate as possible, data on the number of loaders created, variation of models, deliveries, wrong deliveries, delays, production errors, quality errors and standard deviations on demand and deliveries have been collected and compiled. All of the variables above and those unlisted, can be adjusted to alter the results of the simulation. The purpose for this is so that the model can be used in the future, and that radical changes can be simulated and evaluated to help inform production change decisions. The results from the simulation show great potential for warehouse reduction. When results from the simulation are compared to the historic data of stock levels for various articles, some articles indicate up to a 90% level stock reduction without impact on production. The simulation model also show where stock levels should be increased. For articles that are plagued with delivery and production problems from a supplier, the simulation indicates that higher stock levels are needed. Overall the results from the simulation shows an average stock level reduction of 51%.