Improvement of Material Flow in the Production and Supply Chain of ...

6.2 Current statue analysis
The current sales part of the supply chain works in an appropriate way. However, it is
not stable and problems are popping up as the market demand increase day by day. The
urgent task at present is to solve the increasing inventory problem, which is a
significant element of the supply chain.
Before optimization, current situation needs to be investigated clearly. In this section,
the authors start with the capability of the warehouse and the transportation from the
end of the production line to the warehouse. Afterwards, distribution of the market is
investigated and related data are analyzed. And then, a forecast of future market will be
given. Related delivery detail between the company and its customers are stated
followed. And at last, suggestions to optimize the sales part of this supply chain will be
proposed.
6.2.1 Situation of inventory
Inventory is a keystone in the supply chain. It is held not only as a stock of goods, but
also in order to manage and hide from the customer the fact that manufacture/supply
delay is longer than delivery delay. Besides, inventory is held to ease the effect of
imperfections in the manufacturing process that lower production efficiencies if
production capacity stands idle for lack of materials. (Wikipedia, viewed 2008)
In Haldex, the production is according to order because each customer has particular
requirements of the products and the order is placed long ahead of delivery. Hence, the
inventory is only carrying the goods for the period of time between they are finished
and sent to the customers, not the backup to respond the urgent orders. It simplified the
inventory in a sense.
In the workshop, Haldex uses powered pallet jacks to do the transportation between the
production line and the warehouse. One powered pallets jack is able to carry two pallets
of the finished products. The distance between warehouse and the end of the assembly
line is about 200 meters. It takes 30 seconds to transport a batch of pallets including
pick up and drop times. Hence, it takes around one minute to do a round transportation,
which means 120 pallets can be transported by one jack in one hour. However, a down
time of 50% should be considered here. It reduces the capacity to 60 pallets per hour.
There are two powered pallets jacks working in the workshop, however, the ADB
organization is only planned to utilize 20% of this capacity. As a result, only 0.4 jack is
working on the ADBs during the working time. That is, 24 pallets of finished ADBs are
transported in one hour. The warehouse operates from 06:30 in the morning until 12:00
in the evening during the workdays. And during weekends, it works during the daytime,
which is around 8 hours. In workdays, the efficient working hour is 17.5 hours. After
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