ANALYZING AND IMPROVING THE ORDER FLOW PROCESS Case: A company X
Abrahamsson, Meeri (2023)
2023
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023052614672
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023052614672
Tiivistelmä
The constantly changing business environment is a classic problem in supply chain management, and rapid changes seriously affect companies’ supply chain performance. An agile supply chain is fast becoming a key instrument in supply chain management, enabling companies to adapt and respond to market requirements. Supply chain management and integration play a significant role in the maintenance of an agile, flexible, and resilient supply chain. In recent years there has been an increasing interest in ensuring that companies can coordinate the supply chain functions as one since global logistics challenges started.
The company in question is an international manufacturing company that produces orders made-to-order using the just–in–time method. The order quantities in this business area are relatively high, while order sizes are poorly standardized. The major objective of this study was to investigate the company’s order flow process and find improvement areas from order inquiry to getting orders produced just in time -a method to catch the planned vessel. In this thesis, the mentioned process steps are called an end-to-end process. The aim of this project has been to attempt to establish the current process steps, identify the improvement areas, and offer tools to improve the process. This study sought to address the questions of what needs to be improved in the order flow process and how to achieve better collaboration and integration levels between sales, vessel booking, and production planning departments. This thesis sought to remedy these problems by analyzing the literature on supply chain management and supply chain integration.
The result of this investigation indicates that the company has implemented all the supply chain management tools, processes, and targets into practice, but internal supply chain integration is not yet achieved. The company must provide a more transparent and straightforward process through system sup-port. This would offer clearer targets, roles, and responsibilities to support communication and information sharing. Sharing the knowledge of the over-all process would improve decision-making and offer needed information to implement the continuous improvement part of daily tasks. All these actions would improve collaboration between the supply chain departments by creating trust, which would have a positive influence on the working culture.
The company in question is an international manufacturing company that produces orders made-to-order using the just–in–time method. The order quantities in this business area are relatively high, while order sizes are poorly standardized. The major objective of this study was to investigate the company’s order flow process and find improvement areas from order inquiry to getting orders produced just in time -a method to catch the planned vessel. In this thesis, the mentioned process steps are called an end-to-end process. The aim of this project has been to attempt to establish the current process steps, identify the improvement areas, and offer tools to improve the process. This study sought to address the questions of what needs to be improved in the order flow process and how to achieve better collaboration and integration levels between sales, vessel booking, and production planning departments. This thesis sought to remedy these problems by analyzing the literature on supply chain management and supply chain integration.
The result of this investigation indicates that the company has implemented all the supply chain management tools, processes, and targets into practice, but internal supply chain integration is not yet achieved. The company must provide a more transparent and straightforward process through system sup-port. This would offer clearer targets, roles, and responsibilities to support communication and information sharing. Sharing the knowledge of the over-all process would improve decision-making and offer needed information to implement the continuous improvement part of daily tasks. All these actions would improve collaboration between the supply chain departments by creating trust, which would have a positive influence on the working culture.