Improving Inbound Logistics through Supplier Relationships and Handling of Goods - A case study at Boozt Fashion AB
(2024) MTTM02 20241Production Management
Engineering Logistics
- Abstract
- Background: E-commerce companies have grown considerably, leading to a changing role in logistics and supply chain management. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly boosted the global e-commerce market, leading to traditional businesses adopting an online sales model. Therefore, optimising e-commerce operations has become a focus of study in recent years, where e-commerce has improved operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Among these operations, the inbound process is a critical step that determines the success of an e-commerce company. The success of e-commerce was led by factors such as rising customer demand for short delivery windows, which resulted in increased transportation trucks, more frequent... (More)
- Background: E-commerce companies have grown considerably, leading to a changing role in logistics and supply chain management. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly boosted the global e-commerce market, leading to traditional businesses adopting an online sales model. Therefore, optimising e-commerce operations has become a focus of study in recent years, where e-commerce has improved operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Among these operations, the inbound process is a critical step that determines the success of an e-commerce company. The success of e-commerce was led by factors such as rising customer demand for short delivery windows, which resulted in increased transportation trucks, more frequent dispatch, and the inability to use full capacity trucks. For that reason, a company that applies e-commerce should structure its operations in a reactive and efficient way that requires different solutions for order fulfilment and operation management, making inbound logistics and e-commerce an interesting research area.
Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to develop recommendations for warehouse operations and supply relationships in order to improve inbound logistics performance.
Research questions:
RQ1: How could goods be received from suppliers and managed at the receiving warehouse depending on item characteristics?
RQ2: What does the current situation of Boozt's inbound look like?
RQ3: How do the suppliers perform compared to each other for Boozt?
RQ4: What should the relationship look like between Boozt and their Suppliers?
Methodology: A single case study and borrowed aspects from design science research with a deductive research approach, conducted by utilising both qualitative and quantitative data from semi-structured interviews, observations and literature.
Findings: To summarise the findings of this thesis, the main issues identified are related to the handling of incoming goods and the performance of suppliers. When the goods are handled, they are not automatically allocated to a certain location but are manually allocated based on experience. Also, through a VSM and Swimlane diagram, it was shown the VAS/Sorting processes of the goods take a significant amount of time due to the suppliers delivering the goods in mixed SKUs. The findings reveal several possible solutions which were suggested in the analysis. Firstly, the random goods allocation should be replaced by a two-criteria class-based policy such as the ABC-FSN matrix. Secondly, an MCDM analysis of the vendors was done, and the results showed that some vendors were underperforming. Following this, recommendations were made to the company for ways to strengthen their suppliers' performance. Lastly, the relationships between the company and the vendors should be treated in a way that is based on the supplier evaluation and the type of relationship identified. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9156450
- author
- Janineh, Elias LU and Eijkhout, Tim LU
- supervisor
-
- Jan Olhager LU
- organization
- course
- MTTM02 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Inbound Logistics, Warehouse operations, Supplier Evaluation, Multi-Criteria Decision-making, AHP-TOPSIS, Mapping, E-commerce, Supplier Relationship
- other publication id
- 6010
- language
- English
- id
- 9156450
- date added to LUP
- 2024-08-30 17:39:12
- date last changed
- 2024-08-30 17:39:12
@misc{9156450,
abstract = {{Background: E-commerce companies have grown considerably, leading to a changing role in logistics and supply chain management. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly boosted the global e-commerce market, leading to traditional businesses adopting an online sales model. Therefore, optimising e-commerce operations has become a focus of study in recent years, where e-commerce has improved operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Among these operations, the inbound process is a critical step that determines the success of an e-commerce company. The success of e-commerce was led by factors such as rising customer demand for short delivery windows, which resulted in increased transportation trucks, more frequent dispatch, and the inability to use full capacity trucks. For that reason, a company that applies e-commerce should structure its operations in a reactive and efficient way that requires different solutions for order fulfilment and operation management, making inbound logistics and e-commerce an interesting research area.
Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to develop recommendations for warehouse operations and supply relationships in order to improve inbound logistics performance.
Research questions:
RQ1: How could goods be received from suppliers and managed at the receiving warehouse depending on item characteristics?
RQ2: What does the current situation of Boozt's inbound look like?
RQ3: How do the suppliers perform compared to each other for Boozt?
RQ4: What should the relationship look like between Boozt and their Suppliers?
Methodology: A single case study and borrowed aspects from design science research with a deductive research approach, conducted by utilising both qualitative and quantitative data from semi-structured interviews, observations and literature.
Findings: To summarise the findings of this thesis, the main issues identified are related to the handling of incoming goods and the performance of suppliers. When the goods are handled, they are not automatically allocated to a certain location but are manually allocated based on experience. Also, through a VSM and Swimlane diagram, it was shown the VAS/Sorting processes of the goods take a significant amount of time due to the suppliers delivering the goods in mixed SKUs. The findings reveal several possible solutions which were suggested in the analysis. Firstly, the random goods allocation should be replaced by a two-criteria class-based policy such as the ABC-FSN matrix. Secondly, an MCDM analysis of the vendors was done, and the results showed that some vendors were underperforming. Following this, recommendations were made to the company for ways to strengthen their suppliers' performance. Lastly, the relationships between the company and the vendors should be treated in a way that is based on the supplier evaluation and the type of relationship identified.}},
author = {{Janineh, Elias and Eijkhout, Tim}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Improving Inbound Logistics through Supplier Relationships and Handling of Goods - A case study at Boozt Fashion AB}},
year = {{2024}},
}