Uncertainty within supply chains increases the risk of not meeting objectives. Warehouses can absorb some of these uncertainties, by accumulating inventory. This accumulation has led many to consider warehouses as a source of waste in supply chains. Hence, there is limited research that seeks improving intrinsic warehouse efficiency; particularly in the context of Lean concepts and Value Stream Mapping (VSM). Since, warehouses seek to absorb uncertainty in supply chain by holding inventory; this uncertainty absorption may introduce variability to warehousing function itself. Therefore a methodology is required, which can capture the embodied dynamic within warehousing function. This paper reflects Lean concepts and, in particular, VSM to warehousing context and introduces some methods and guidelines to assure the proper application of VSM in what is an uncertain and dynamic system. In this paper, warehousing function is formulated based on some abstract processes which vary on their output status. This formulation facilitates identifying value-adding activities as one of the most substantial steps, yet confusing in application of VSM in warehousing context. The suggested methods enable fundamental statistical/mathematical analysis, which leverage VSM to a more dynamic evaluation tool. Application of the introduced approach will facilitate the decision making process for warehouse systems evaluation and improvement. The resultant methodology is applied to a factual case and this serves to demonstrate its practical application. It is worth mentioning that the findings applications, which can be termed ‘dynamic VSM’, are not limited to warehouses but can also be applied to any dynamic environment with non-deterministic processes.
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Modern production, logistic and assembly systems comprise of a considerable number of processes which operate by using diverse types of resources. Conceptual design of these systems has become more complicated because of the large scale and multi-disciplinary essence of their design knowledge. This paper proposes a modelling framework to support the conceptual design of such systems. The framework employs the principles of system engineering to fulfil the necessity of having a multi-disciplinary approach for the design of such systems. The framework realizes the essence of holistic design by modelling the structural and behavioral aspects of a system in one design artefact. Object Oriented (OO) method is employed to facilitate the complexity of holistic analysis and yielding proper logics for system architecting. This paper proposes incorporating the OO analyzing semantics into Finite State Machine formalism. Therefore, the logical architecture will be established in an FSM platform. In return, the resultant artefact can stand as an executable Meta-Architecture such that design alternatives are its instances. Moreover, the Meta-Architecture enables simulation of the alternatives which serve their early validation. Accordingly, this approach opens avenues regarding incorporation of the Meta-Architecture with computational and analyzing methods which can significantly support the decision making in the conceptual design stage.
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