Lagerdesign och materialhanteringens påverkan på företag : -      En empirisk undersökning med fokus på kostnad och kvalitet

Sammanfattning: Purpose – The purpose of the study is to investigate how warehouse layout and materials handling affects the performance targets; cost and quality in an enterprise where more than one method is operationally active. In order to accomplish the purpose of the study two research questions were formulated.   1. How will the choices that an enterprise makes regarding different methods within warehouse layout and materials handling affect cost and quality?   2. How are methods within warehouse layout and materials handling interacting when being active simultaneously in an enterprise?   Method – In order to accomplish the purpose and answer the chosen research questions a case study has been conducted at a distribution centre. Interview and observation are the employed data collection techniques when collecting relevant data. To establish the theoretical framework a literature review has been carried out. Collected data and theoretical framework have subsequently been used to answer the research questions.   Findings – The choices that an enterprise makes when using different storage methods has been shown to influence cost and quality in various ways, with free stacking having the most negative impact. Coexistence between the materials handling methods; FIFO and cross-docking, might result in an enterprise ignoring visions and policies. In other words, the relationship between operative active methods needs to be taken in to consideration in order to fulfil performance targets.   Implications – The theoretical implication with the study has been to enlighten a new aspect of already existing theory, where the relationship between FIFO and cross-docking has been the focus of analysis. This might assist enterprises in gaining knowledge when using operationally active methods simultaneously. A practical implication of the study is that enterprises must understand in what ways the coexistence of storage methods might disrupt flow of products in a distribution centre. In this way, this study contributes to raising awareness among enterprises in terms of finding novel approaches to working with storage with the main purpose of improving their logistics performance.   Limitations – The ability to generalize the study can be questioned due to the fact that it consists of only one business case. Moreover, surrounding factors, which could have brought valuable data to the investigation, have been excluded due to the limited scope of the study.