The Synergy of Lean Thinking and Process Analysis as the Way to Reduce Waste in Intralogistics

Introduction

In order to become more competitive, enterprises must constantly strive to increase the efficiency of their processes. Today's logistics companies face many challenges, and the current labor market situation such as limited human resources, frequent staff turnover, and a limited number of experienced employees makes meeting all challenges problematic.

One of the ways to improve the efficiency of logistics processes and at the same time to organize and standardize them, may be using methods related to Lean Thinking.

The authors of this publication focus on reviewing the available methods and test them in the logistics company which is responsible for the distribution of fast-moving food products with a focus on its order picking process. The result is to be a relatively quick and easy way to improve this process performance without incurring additional infrastructure investments or hiring additional people.

The work concerns the improvement of the order picking system using a simulation model, the implementation of various alternative scenarios and the interpretation of their results.

The paper is organized as follows: theoretical background provides knowledge about issues related to the picking process, Lean Thinking in order picking process and simulation in order picking. The next section described the research method used in this article. Section 3 describes the case study. This chapter also includes models of the product picking process in the current and target versions, as well as the results of a computer simulation. Lastly, the paper concludes with a summary, alternative solutions, contribution of the study and limitations and future research.