Identifying Non-Value Adding Activities to Enhance Productivity in Freight Terminals A Case Study of DB Schenker’s Terminal Operations
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Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Modellbyggare
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Sammanfattning
In today’s society, with rising inflation and an increasingly globalized market,
companies and organizations are facing ever greater challenges. One company facing
these challenges is DB Schenker, a logistics provider offering terminal operations. To
remain competitive in today’s market, DB Schenker’s Terminal Department is working
on measuring non-value adding activities (referred to as support activities) through its
process-oriented time registration in a system called Check In Check Out. The purpose
of Check in Check out is to carry out a detailed productivity measurement and gain
insight into the amount of time spent on each process in the terminal. Hence, this thesis
aims to provide the company with a better insight into its non-value adding activities
and to identify potential areas of improvements in order to increase the overall
productivity. During the thesis work, observations of terminal operations and
interviews with terminal employees have taken place. Together with the literature
review conducted, the research questions were answered.
Conclusions of the study revealed that activities related to the paper waybill and
support of drivers should continue to be registered under their current subprocess.
While activities related to leadership, meetings and add-on services should no longer
be classified as support activities, since these activities are considered value adding.
Furthermore, the study also found that there are three main reasons why terminals spend
a significant amount of time on non-value adding support activities. Firstly, many of
the support activities are related to the handling of the paper waybill. In addition, a nondynamic way of working and too general central guidelines regarding the registration
in Check in Check Out were identified. DB Schenker is recommended to develop and
make greater use of existing digital tools, develop the procedures of following up
deviations in the coding of waybills, enlarge the font of the sorting codes and eventually
completely digitize the information flow. In addition, DB Schenker should utilize a
more flexible workforce, facilitate the punching process by adding more punching
clocks and educate the terminal employees about the purpose of Check In Check Out.
Finally, DB Schenker is recommended to develop clearer central guidelines for how
terminal workers should register their activities in Check In Check Out to increase the
accuracy of the productivity measurements.
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terminal operations, value adding activities, non-value adding activities, productivity measurements, paper waybill, digital transformation