Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolag, SCA is one of the leading forest industries which produces and sell products like pulp, solid wood, publication paper and personal care products. The distribution and logistic unit of the company is SCA Transforest.
The goods are transported from the producing unit to one of Transforests terminals for further transportation to the customers. Transforest use specially made RoRo vessels with a cassette system to transport good to the European market. A cassette is a type of goods-carrier on which the goods are loaded. The purposes with using goods-carries are to reduce the discharging time for the vessel, the risk of damage to the goods and number of handling the goods. The reduction of the handling is achieved by direct loading. The goods are loaded from one goods-carrier directly on to next without any extra value adding handling. Today the terminals have different routines for when to direct load and when not to. The terminals have internal targets for direct deliver and to be able to reach those they direct deliver as much as possible without considering the loading efficiency. For some of the direct deliveries performed the efficiency and the economy are questionable.
The purpose of the thesis was to study the loading efficiency at the foreign terminals, to detect variables which affect the loading result and create routines for when to direct deliver. Focus for the study has been the terminal in Rotterdam. To achieve this interviews and observations were performed at the terminals. Then a time study was conducted at the Rotterdam terminal and the costs connected to the loading procedures were identified. The new routines for direct delivery are presented below.
•The Advice for the loading instruction should be received by the forwarding department one day before the vessels arrival at the terminal. •Do not direct deliver less than a full lorry, preferably more than 24 ton. •Do not direct deliver if the cassette contains more than three production orders. •Do not direct deliver if the load has to be taken from more than one cassette. •The cassettes must not stand at the terminals longer than two calls. •Discharge the reels that are not for direct loading in to bay to make the reels for direct delivery easier to access.
To achieve a more efficient loading procedure at the terminals, time registration should be introduced in the terminals so they can have a better control over the activities performed. The reservation of the reels should be done by the stevedoring personnel and not the forwarding department. The stevedores have a better control over the stock and therefore can coordinate the loading more efficient. To avoid that the sale offices order reels without a customer, harder sanctions should be placed on them for the reels not sold. The internal goal of direct delivery should be reviewed to see if it is a suited target for the terminal because they can not affect the outcome. SCA should also try to sell VMI solutions to their customers. SCA will get a better control of the production planning and information of the customer delivery will be available earlier in the supply chain which makes it possible to coordinate the transports better.
Author: Fällman, Hanna
Source: Lulea University of Technology
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