Contents

• Introduction 2
• Warehouse Operations 2
• Continuous Improvement 3
• PDCA Cycle 4
• Plan 4
• Do 4
• Check 5
• Act 5
• Total Quality Management 6
• Process Complexity 7
• Lean Approach to Reduce Process Complexity 7
• Conclusion 9
• References 10

Description

Warehousing operations are one of the crucial operations in the link of supply chain. Effective and speedy warehouse operations contribute to the timely delivery of the finished goods as well as the supply of raw materials and components to the manufacturing process. If the warehouse operations are efficient and effective, it saves a lot of wastages as well as saves on the usage of storage space (van den Berg, 2007). In a manufacturing industry storage space directly contributes to the finished product’s costs. In the current competitive market environment the companies cannot afford to increase the costs of the products. Instead companies constantly look forward to reducing the costs of the finished product so that they can provide the cost benefit with increased quality to the customer. There are many approaches to saving on the costs. Considering a warehouse operation, for example, lesser storage time results in reduced cost of the product. This assignment tries to understand the warehouse operations first. The paper would then discusses the approach of continuous improvement to warehouse operations as well as the approach of lean management and total quality management to the warehouse operations. The paper would finally compare these approaches as to the best possible approach in order to achieve cost reductions, efficiency and quality of the end product.