To reduce the Turn Around Time (TAT) of trucks and improve in-plant logistics

Abstract

This paper talks about the reduction of in plant operations time and reduction of turn-around time of the trucks in any FMCG Company. The plant has almost 300 vehicles for loading and unloading. The current systems and process for receiving and dispatching of goods is poised with several challenges. This process with the inspection of material at the entry of a truck to the billing procedures in an effective manner is a challenge due to various constraints. The load, which needs to be dispatched in a day, requires a very less turnaround time of trucks but the actual time, when analysed, was significantly higher than what was required. Higher turnaround time was causing ineffective operations in terms of placing the vehicles in the plant by the transporters. Subsequently, there was a considerable deviation between the planned orders to be dispatched and actual dispatch of goods. The complete process was studied for identifying the loopholes and time motion study was conducted to analyse the current issues, which was leading to more VIVO time of vehicles. The whole process was analysed and thus major factors, which were causing the delay of the vehicles were identified. A survey was conducted to pen down the issues causing the problems in managing the in-plant logistics of the company. Results were analysed and was found that deployment of more manpower and optimizing the entire process would help only marginally towards achieving the goal. Hence, automating the redundant and time-consuming activities would help in achieving a considerable amount of reduction in the turn-around time of trucks. This will indirectly increase the dispatch quantities of the company. In addition, there is a requirement to redefine work, which would primarily mean altering the original process. Thus, various issues in the existing processes were identified and reduction in turnaround time was observed with the implementation of the new process and tools used to reduce the redundant processes