Sponsor:

UPS – Supply Chain Solutions

Research Team:

Suraj Alexander, James Shaw

Universities Involved:

University of Louisville

Start Date:

10/01/03

End Date:

09/30/04

Summary:

The objective of this research is to design a technological repair facility for UPS – SCS, a worldwide third – party logistics (3PL) provider. Three alternative layouts will be designed, analyzed, and compared to provide a flexible layout that allows for optimal traveling and processing paths, ergonomic workstations, and appropriate software / tools from which to conduct repairs for a multi-client list of vendors, while maintaining a competitive edge in the repair industry.
Currently, UPS-Supply Chain Solutions has a repair tech room in Louisville that repairs the products for a variety of customers in the technology industry. The size of this facility is approximately 5,000 square feet. Although the facility is addressing the current needs for existing business, it is crucial for UPS-Supply Chain solutions and related companies to operate in facilities that address the majority of the industry standard requirements. What is unknown at this point is what characteristics are needed to define a world-class tech room environment? What capabilities are required? And how the functional, technological and personnel needs could be best met?
The completion of this project yielded the following outcomes:
* Determination of the “significant few” problems that had a substantial negative impact on the operational efficiency of the facility.
* The definition of specific areas that would yield the maximum benefits, given the amount of available resources and constraints present.
* The insight that the existing facility layout would no longer able to efficiently process the expected product volumes.
* The development of alternative layouts which facilitated an improvement in product flow throughout the facility, and a reduction in the current distance traveled when handling the repairs.