Small Lot Packaging Essay

A warehouse is a commercial building used for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, customs etc. they are usually large buildings in industrial areas and consist out of loading docks to load and unload goods from trucks. The stored goods can include raw material, packaging material, spare parts, components or finished goods [2].

Ford Silverton Plant’s warehouse consists out of four different receiving areas which are used to offload material from local distributors as well as imported containers transferred by trucks, imported containers transported by train and local distributors transported by train.

The material is received by the warehouse manager, which will firstly inspect the containers on the

The highly preferable parts, like keys and gearbox engines, are locked up and the plain parts are stored in the warehouse as indicated on the sticker.

3. LEAN MANUFACTURING IN PACKAGING

Ford Motor Company objective is to be a World Class Automotive lean manufacturer. A key enabler of the lean manufacturing process is the packaging for production part shipments from its supplier. Material flow and line-side ergonomics are improved by using optimum sized containers therefore the shift in packaging is made from large packs to Small Lot Packaging.

3.1 WHY USE SMALL LOT PACKAGING?

The following benefits exist when Small Lot Packaging is combined with Synchronous Material Flow:

➢ Eliminates waste

➢ Reduces physical space requirements

➢ Increases inventory turnover rates

➢ Smoothens production flow

3.2 FORD’S ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT

Ford is committed to protecting the environment at every stage of the production process including transportation of parts to the assembly plants. For this reason packaging must be designed with respect to the following objectives:

➢ Use durable packaging for all Ford European domestic

During the work period at the Plant the main focus was on supplying material from the warehouse to the assembly line. Currently Ford Silverton Plant is making use of four different methods to supply material. The aim was to focus on one of those four methods and determine what the problem involves and how the problem can be improved. Trough looking at the various ways in improving the Auto-Call system it can be said that as soon as the new and improved system is implemented, the occurrence of production disruptions will be minimized as well as shortages and excess