During the last few years, the requirements for logistics within companies have changed. Stock management became more and more important for industries.
Siemens Mobility Austria GmbH has its competence center for bogies in Graz Eggenberg where also the production is located. With an annual purchasing volume of over 250 million €, it is more beneficial to keep stocks on a reduced level in order to have a greater cash flow. Therefore, it’s necessary to understand how stocks were created and which types exist. It is just as important to know methods for reducing stocks in a long term and permanently. Depending on the company's industry, there are customary methods to implement this.
In order to take care on this issue at Siemens Graz, this master's thesis was required. A suitable method was chosen during the literature research and then implemented in practical work, adapted to the company structure.
The method selected is called determining the economic order quantity.
In companies, as such as Siemens Mobility Austria GmbH, there is usually a conflict of interest between large lot sizes to achieve a low unit price and small lot sizes in order not to have too many materials in stock.
To solve these kinds of conflicts, a tool was developed based on the literature review, which makes it possible to determine the economic order quantity for purchased parts. This should be implemented as part of the purchasing process.
The results in first step don’t not show any clear improvement in the inventory level, as the inventory was deliberately increased due to exceptional situations and special projects and orders were placed against the calculated lot size. Nevertheless, the tool has proven itself as a part within the sourcing process to find a common conclusion on the operational level during the sourcing decisions.