Improving efficiency on warehouse management: A case study of beverage company’s distribution center

Abstract

Inventory and warehouse management plays a key role in the performance and effectiveness of every company that carries any products. Sunk costs are inevitable when keeping a number of products to fulfill customers’ needs, while storing items with less flexibility to satisfy customers’unforeseen demands may upset business opportunities. Therefore, the utmost priorities are to manage a storage of stock inventory efficiently. The purpose of this study is to improve the efficiency on warehouse management in one of the distribution centers of a beverage company in Thailand. A number of methods have been applied to find optimal safety stock, maximize space utilization, and revise pattern of storage locations by using a Warehouse Layout Model with an ABC analysis technique to place the products that have more activities to stay effectively accessible. The results indicated a 59.46% reduction of the company’s safety stock, a 13.73% increase in storage volume which created capacity for 365 additional pallets, and a roughly 42.32% decrease for moving distance of goods in the distribution center.