Managing seasonality in a warehouse
Vital, Arnaud (2017)
Kaakkois-Suomen ammattikorkeakoulu
2017
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2017121321138
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2017121321138
Tiivistelmä
Efficient supply chain management is a crucial factor in any company. Warehouse management is in the heart of the supply chain management. Seasonality brings challenges to warehouses and for the logistics/supply chain in general. For organizations it is crucial to identify and measure the seasonality to plan the future.
The commissioning party Rivolier must cope to the seasonality. The research is aimed to answer this question: How to improve the supply chain management and the warehouse management to face the seasonality issues?
The theoretical part discussed about the main topics related with seasonality. The main topics described were seasonality, forecast, planning, warehouse management and workforce management. The research was executed in three different phases. Data of the company have been analyzed and a forecast have been made. Data analysis shows that the company has a regular seasonality but with a significant growth every year. The forecast was made to suggest further action in the warehouse. In addition, 4 interviews have been executed. The last part of the research concerned personal observation. Data were collected during a working period of 18 months.
This research brought some interesting results. To face the seasonality issue and especially the peak period, the company must anticipate. To be able to anticipate, the company must forecast the sales. Planning presents many advantages: it helps for the requirement planning and avoid stock shortage, to avoid emergency decisions, it helps to manage the occupancy of the warehouse, and it can be used to set up a hiring plan and to manage the human resources more efficiently. Anticipating helps also for the operational tasks. Management must consider the forecasted sales to hired additional temporary workers. To avoid too much training time, the company must employ temporary workers for a long period. During the peak, the warehouse staff must be focused on receiving goods and shipping goods. No time should be used for background work; therefore, it is important to do it beforehand. The warehouse manager must apply what is working during the normal period of activities but with a bigger scale during the peak period.
The commissioning party Rivolier must cope to the seasonality. The research is aimed to answer this question: How to improve the supply chain management and the warehouse management to face the seasonality issues?
The theoretical part discussed about the main topics related with seasonality. The main topics described were seasonality, forecast, planning, warehouse management and workforce management. The research was executed in three different phases. Data of the company have been analyzed and a forecast have been made. Data analysis shows that the company has a regular seasonality but with a significant growth every year. The forecast was made to suggest further action in the warehouse. In addition, 4 interviews have been executed. The last part of the research concerned personal observation. Data were collected during a working period of 18 months.
This research brought some interesting results. To face the seasonality issue and especially the peak period, the company must anticipate. To be able to anticipate, the company must forecast the sales. Planning presents many advantages: it helps for the requirement planning and avoid stock shortage, to avoid emergency decisions, it helps to manage the occupancy of the warehouse, and it can be used to set up a hiring plan and to manage the human resources more efficiently. Anticipating helps also for the operational tasks. Management must consider the forecasted sales to hired additional temporary workers. To avoid too much training time, the company must employ temporary workers for a long period. During the peak, the warehouse staff must be focused on receiving goods and shipping goods. No time should be used for background work; therefore, it is important to do it beforehand. The warehouse manager must apply what is working during the normal period of activities but with a bigger scale during the peak period.