This project explains the Order-Delivery-Time (ODT) of IKEA-Breezemount warehouse and the factors that have influenced the performance of ODT process. The project focuses on finding current weaknesses and the possible problems that has hindered improvements in ODT. A new ODT process is proposed based on the findings from the current ODT process. ODT process
performance has a significant importance for IKEA-Breezemount warehouse because it determines the company’s ability to deliver certain number of goods in a given time. The quicker the ODT process, the quicker the company is capable of responding to customer’s needs.
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Reduction of Order Delivery Time of Goods.pdf
1. LEAN SIGMA GREEN BELT
NAME: UDOCHUKWU STEPHEN CHUKWUEMEKA
COMPANY: IKEA-Breezemount
PROJECT TOPIC: Reduction of Order Delivery Time of Goods
FINAL PROJECT REPORT
3. List of Figures
Figure 1: Gantt Chart
Figure 2: Research process
Figure 3:Graph illustrating days of late delivery in the past months of the year 2020 and 2021 respectively
Figure 4: Illustration of the current ODT Process Flowchart
Figure 5: Illustration of the newly unveiled ODT Process Flowchart
Figure 6: Deming circle
List of Tables
Table 1: Research design of this project report
Table 2. Data collected from the IKEA-Breezemount WMS-system
Table 3. Information about Data 2 and Data 3 collection
Table 4. Interviews conducted for current state analysis
4. 1. Introduction
This project explains the Order-Delivery-Time (ODT) of IKEA-Breezemount warehouse and the factors
that have influenced the performance of ODT process. The project focuses on finding current weaknesses
and the possible problems that has hindered improvements in ODT.
A new ODT process is proposed based on the findings from the current ODT process. ODT process
performance has a significant importance for IKEA-Breezemount warehouse because it determines the
company’s ability to deliver certain number of goods in a given time. The quicker the ODT process, the
quicker the company is capable of responding to customer’s needs.
2. Project Outline
The project started in week 2 of February 2021 with a search for a project topic and ends in week 2 of May
2021. Time frame is 14 weeks - 12.02.2021 until 07.05.2021. Within these 14 weeks, I will be investigating
the root cause of the longer delivery time of 8 business days which has become a huge problem for IKEA-
Breezemount, by collecting data from the WMS (Warehouse Management System), conduct internal
interviews and hold meetings with the stakeholders and management for broader and deeper analysis of the
current ODT process as well as getting stakeholders and the management involved in the key decision
making and result findings.
6. 3. Approach
The focus of this project is on answering the “how” and “why” questions. As seen in Figure 2, this project
makes a linear but iterative process. The first step will be planning, then design, preparation, data collection,
implementation of the datas collected and analysis of the results, then back to the design to see what is
missing to add or remove from the design and then share the result. The process will be repeated as many
times if needed, then finally analyse and draw conclusion. In this project, the triangulation fashion approach
will be used because it fits the context and challenges that IKEA-Breezemount is facing. The project
approach will be a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collections from multiple sources,
namely: interviews, surveys, meetings, workshops, WMS (Warehouse Management System) and inventory
data collections.
Figure 2: Research process.
7. 3.1 Define
All customer line deliveries by IKEA-Breezemount warehouse are accomplished through the 8 business
days delivery model. This means that the ODT process for each customer goods take 8 business days to
complete.
In order to achieve a greater advantage in the ever-growing and competitive warehousing industry, IKEA-
Breezemount has to make a decision to introduce a shorter delivery time business model for their goods
and services. As a result of this, the current lead time of the ODT process (8 business days) has become too
long, as such a new and shorter delivery time of 3 business days has to be introduced.
To achieve the new required schedule of 3 business days delivery time, existing ODT process has to be
improved for efficiency or a completely new ODT will be introduced. The objective of this project is to
build an entirely new ODT process. When the new ODT process is completed, IKEA-Breezemount will be
able to achieve the required shorter delivery time of 3 business days.
In order to achieve the goal of this project and solve the problem statement, there will be an initial analysis
of the current ODT process through the use of data collected from the WMS (Warehouse Management
System) and internal interviews will be conducted.
From the data collected from the WMS, a flowchart of the current state of the ODT process is built and the
efficiency is evaluated, as well as the current lead times of different processes indicated. Thereafter, a
meeting with the management will be held, there the new ODT process model will be unveiled. Its
functionalities will be introduced to the management and staffs, as well as tutorials on how to carry out the
new ODT process model to achieve the required shorter delivery time of 3 business days.
8. 3.1.1 Problem Statement
The current ODT process of 8 business days has been an enormous problem for IKEA-Breezemount
because we are not achieving our stated ODT process goal of 3 business days.
Figure 3: Graph illustrating days of late delivery in the past months of the year 2020 and 2021 respectively.
3.1.2 Goal Statement
At the end of this project on May 7, 2021 we were able to achieve a reduction in lead time of the Order-
Delivery-Time (ODT) process from 8 business days to 3 business days.
3.2 Measure
The project reveals the four elements of ODT process, which are: customer ordering, supplier delivery,
logistics service provider (LSP) transportation and customer’s receipt. However, there are three main
elements of the ODT process, and they are: customer, supplier and LSP transportation.
9. Figure 4: Illustration of the current ODT Process Flowchart
i) Customer’s fault can be; purchasing the wrong goods (colour/size/shape).
ii) Company’s fault can be; broken items while delivering (not delivered in a good condition).
10. In the measurement of ODT process performance, lead time is the mostly used key performance indicator
(KPI) and an important factor for most warehousing company’s just like IKEA-Breezemount.
This project focuses on reducing the lead time of the ODT process from 8 business days to 3 business days.
To increase the efficiency of the ODT process, it is pertinent for IKEA-Breezemount warehouse to note
that the performance of the ODT process is affected by all the elements which make up the ODT process.
This project covers the four elements of the ODT process.
3.3 Analyse
This project started with the identification of the company’s problem and its objective. Thereafter the
project research design was created as illustrated below in Table 1. As seen in Table 1, after the company’s
problem definition, current state analysis is conducted. In the current state analysis, the ODT process of
IKEA-Breezemount is examined and visualised extensively.
This makes it easier to create a wider picture of IKEA-Breezemount problem. After the general
examination, the research goes deeper into different segments of the ODT process: (a) Current ODT process
of 8 business day which is longer delivery and (b) Newly proposed ODT process for shorter delivery of 3
business days.
12. Different data collection (Data 1) and analysis methods were used in analysing the ODT process. Finally
a whole picture of the current state of the ODT is built and analysed. After the analysis of the current state
, the project further explores into finding a better lean process continuous improvement (CI) tool and the
best practice of the newly proposed ODT to tackle, fix and improve the wider ongoing problems associated
with the late delivery of goods to customers of IKEA-Breezemount.
Table 2. Data collected from the IKEA-Breezemount WMS-system
These findings are put forward and discussed with the stakeholders of IKEA-Breezemount in a workshop
which is conducted to gather opinions and ideas about the ODT process improvement. The suggestions
from this workshop in (Data 2) are used as a foundation for the initial proposal. Feedback (Data 3) from the
initial proposal is collected from the stakeholders and then used in the enhancement of the initial proposal
and then the creation and unveiling of the final proposal of the improved suggestions for the new ODT
process.
Table 3. Information about Data 2 and Data 3 collection.
13. The questions which were asked to the stakeholders and management during the interview session
were:
1.How would you say you are associated with our current order-delivery-time process?
2.How do you see our current order-delivery-time process?
3.Do you believe that the part of process you are responsible of is working viably?
4.Are you able to complete all duties in given time limits?
5.If there would be need for reducing the lead time of this process what could/ought to be done?
6.Do you think that there is space for general development in the process?
7.How can IKEA-Breezemount avoid the problems or reduce the number of problems it is experiencing?
Table 4. Interviews conducted for current state analysis.
3.4 Improve
With the approval of the new ODT process model by the key stakeholders and management of IKEA-
Breezemount, then came the introduction of lean process for achieving continuous improvement in the
company.
15. There are four major approaches to achieving continuous improvement in IKEA-Breezemount and they
are:
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)
Figure 6: Deming circle, kanbanize, 2021
The model Plan-Do-Check-Act or Deming circle is the most popular approach for achieving continuous
improvement. It’s an infinite circle which aims to help in the further improvement on achieved results.
Initially, the Deming circle was designed for quality control but as time past, it became an instrument for
achieving continuous improvement in a company.
3.4.1 Adopting Continuous Improvement for IKEA-Breezemount – Tools
Continuous improvement helps in identifying means for work process optimisation, creation of competitive
advantage, increase in profitability, reduction of cost, and reduction of waste which will be adopted by
IKEA-Breezemount to tackle and regulate its activities for greater continuity in quality performance of
daily operations.
There are several continuous improvement tools and they are:
• Kaizen Blitz
• Standard Work
• Value Stream Mapping (VSM)
• Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
• Scientific Problem Solving
• DMAIC
• DMADV
• 5S
16. The effectiveness of continuous improvement can be only take place when employees consistently work
together and since such opportunity exists in IKEA-Breezemount, there will be continual identification of
lagging activities and mode of operation that will need to be modified or changed.
3.5 Control
At this stage after the unveiling of the new ODT process model and its acceptance by the stakeholders,
management and staffs of IKEA-Breezemount, we will introduce the new ODT process model into the
WMS (Warehouse Management System) then proceed to controlling and ensuring that it will not be
tampered or mismanaged. To maintain and control the new standard of ODT process, we will introduce and
adopt continuous training and cross-training of staffs. This is important to not just the need to control the
new ODT process but also to acquire new knowledge.
Despite the fact that this project unveiled a new ODT process model, it is imperative for IKEA-
Breezemount to follow keenly every steps suggested to meet up the 3 days order delivery time. Without
following those steps, it will be difficult for IKEA-Breezemount to meet up the 3 days ODT.
4. Results
i) The introduction and unveiling of a new ODT process model.
ii) Shorter delivery time of 3 business days.
iii) Retraining and Cross-training of management and staffs through a commitment program which will
help IKEA-Breezemount to maintain the introduced delivery time of 3 business days.
iv) New component management structure.
v) Load balancing.
vi) Reduction in customer’s complains.
vii) Higher Customer satisfaction.
viii) Increase in new customers.
17. 5. Lesson Learned
As the competition in warehousing industries grow rapidly, it is very important for warehousing companies
like IKEA-Breezemount to continuously improve in their performance in order to be able to excel against
their competitors. As indicated in this project, when a new ODT process model was designed to reduce,
improve and replace the current ODT process from 8 days to 3 days, it was pertinent to closely analyse the
entire process so as to figure out the problem which are affecting the complete performance and that was
achieved.
The newly unveiled ODT process model included actions which took into consideration the three main
elements of ODT process, and they are; customer, supplier and LSP transportation. For a remarkable
operation of the new ODT process model, it is important for IKEA-Breezemount to implement the entire
unveiled ODT process model because the three main elements do have their own impact to the performance
of the process.
It will be of no significance to improve just one aspect of the problem and leave the other, due to the fact
that the problems are all linked together, as such they affect each other. Therefore, it is advisable to fix the
problems holistically to achieve a better and sustainable result.
6. References
i. What is continuous improvement? Definition & Tools, Kanbanize, 2021
ii. Case Study Research – Design and Methods. 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications Yin, R.K.2009
