Varastojen hallinta projektiohjautuvassa toimintaympäristössä

Varastoihin sitoutuu yrityksissä paljon arvokasta pääomaa ja varastojen hallinnan osaaminen on noussut yhdeksi kilpailueduksi liiketoiminnassa. Varastoinnilla pyritään suojautumaan puutetilanteilta ja ylläpitämään haluttu palveluaste. Tutkielmassa selvitetään case yrityksen varastojen hallinnan nykytila ja nostetaan esille varastojen hallinnan ongelmatilanteet. Työn tavoitteena on muodostaa organisaation johdolle kokonaiskuva case yrityksen varastoista ja varastoinnin nykytilasta. Työ toteutetaan tapaustutkimuksena, ja aineisto kerätään organisaation henkilökunnasta valituille henkilöille suoritetuilla haastatteluilla. Haastatteluilla saadaan selville varastojen hallinnan toimintamallit ja toiminnan ongelmakohdat varastopaikkakunnilla. Työn tuloksena muodostetaan kokonaiskuva yrityksen varastotoiminnoista ja saadaan selville ongelmien taustalla olevat syyt. Ongelmien perusteella luodaan malli kehitystyön etenemiselle. Lopuksi työssä esitetään toimenpide- ehdotuksia varastojen hallinnan toimintojen jatkokehittämiseen.

Spare part business analysis and development

The purpose of this Thesis was to comprehensively analyze and develop the spare part business in Company Oy’s five biggest product groups by searching development issues related to single spare parts’ supply chains as well as the spare part business process, make implementation plans for them and implement the plans when possible. The items were classified based on special characteristics of spare parts and on their actual sales volumes. The created item classes were examined for finding improvement possibilities. Management strategies for classified items were suggested. Vendors and customers were analyzed for supporting the comprehensive supply network development work. The effectiveness of the current spare part business process was analyzed in co-operation with the spare part teams in three business unit locations. Several items were taken away from inventories as uselessly stocked items. Price list related to core items with one of the main product group’s core item manufacturer was suggested to be expanded in Town A. Refinement equipment seal item supply chain management was seen important to develop in Town B. A new internal business process model was created for minimizing and enhancing the internal business between Company’s business units. SAP inventory reports and several other features were suggested to be changed or developed. Also the SAP data material management was seen very important to be developed continuously. Many other development issues related to spare parts’ supply chains and the work done in the business process were found. The need for investigating the development possibilities deeper became very clear during the project.

Automated, adaptive methods for forest inventory

Forest inventories are used to estimate forest characteristics and the condition of forest for many different applications: operational tree logging for forest industry, forest health state estimation, carbon balance estimation, land-cover and land use analysis in order to avoid forest degradation etc. Recent inventory methods are strongly based on remote sensing data combined with field sample measurements, which are used to define estimates covering the whole area of interest. Remote sensing data from satellites, aerial photographs or aerial laser scannings are used, depending on the scale of inventory. To be applicable in operational use, forest inventory methods need to be easily adjusted to local conditions of the study area at hand. All the data handling and parameter tuning should be objective and automated as much as possible. The methods also need to be robust when applied to different forest types. Since there generally are no extensive direct physical models connecting the remote sensing data from different sources to the forest parameters that are estimated, mathematical estimation models are of "black-box" type, connecting the independent auxiliary data to dependent response data with linear or nonlinear arbitrary models. To avoid redundant complexity and over-fitting of the model, which is based on up to hundreds of possibly collinear variables extracted from the auxiliary data, variable selection is needed. To connect the auxiliary data to the inventory parameters that are estimated, field work must be performed. In larger study areas with dense forests, field work is expensive, and should therefore be minimized. To get cost-efficient inventories, field work could partly be replaced with information from formerly measured sites, databases. The work in this thesis is devoted to the development of automated, adaptive computation methods for aerial forest inventory. The mathematical model parameter definition steps are automated, and the cost-efficiency is improved by setting up a procedure that utilizes databases in the estimation of new area characteristics.

Tuotannon- ja varastonohjausmallien kehittäminen sekä ylläpito kokoonpanotuotannossa

Asiakkaiden vaatimusten täyttäminen käytössä olevilla resursseilla edellyttää yrityksiltä usein varastojen pitämistä. Varastot aiheuttavat kuluja ja niihin sitoutuu pääomaa, joten niiden hallinta on yritysten mielenkiinnon kohde. Diplomityön tavoitteena on tutkia Peikko Finland Oy:n Teräsosatehtaan varastonohjausmallin toimivuutta sekä luoda ylläpitokelpoinen tapa tuotannonohjausmuodon ja varastoparametrien päivittämiseen. Yritysten käytössä olevien resurssien ollessa rajallisia tulee tärkeiden tuotteiden hallintaan keskittyä. Vähäpätöisempiä nimikkeitäkin on ohjattava, mutta yksinkertaisempien mallien avulla kuin tärkeitä tuotteita. Tuotannon- ja varastonohjauksen tavoitteena on löytää tasapaino pääoman sitoutumisen, asiakkaiden palvelun sekä kapasiteetin käytön väliltä. Niihin vaikuttavat tekijät tulee huomioida mahdollisimman kattavasti tuotannonohjausta ja varastonhallintaa suunniteltaessa, jolloin päästään koko yritystä hyödyttävään lopputulokseen. Yrityksen toimintaympäristö kehittyy jatkuvasti, joten kerran määritetyt tekijä eivät ole relevantteja loputtomiin vaan jatkuvan kehittämisen ja tietojen päivittämisen tulee olla osa yrityksen jokapäiväistä toimintaa. Työssä kehitettiin helposti päivitettävä malli, jonka avulla kohdeyritys pystyy päivittämään nimikkeiden tuotannonohjausmuodot ja varastonohjauksen parametrit.

Working capital management in the value chain of automotive industry

The objective of this Master’s thesis is to examine working capital management in the automotive industry in years 2006-2008. The study is conducted by the analysis of financial statements. The sample consists of 65 companies that represent different stages in the value chain of automotive industry beginning from raw material suppliers and ending to car dealers. Working capital management is studied by the cash conversion cycle (CCC). The results show that the average CCC of the value chain is 67 days. Car manufacturers had the longest CCC, 106 days, whereas the CCC of oil companies was the shortest, 22 days. The findings suggest that the cycle time of working capital usually follows the cycle time of inventories, since the changes in cycle times of accounts receivable and payable compensate each other. Improvements in working capital management could be achieved by sharing more accurate information in the chain for example about inventory levels and order points of customer. It could also be discussed within the automotive industry, if the long credit periods, which tie up working capital, are really needed. New technologies enable faster payments, which would reduce the cash conversion cycles, improve the profitability of companies, and increase the competitiveness of the value chain. Working capital should not be reduced at the expense of value chain partners, because nowadays the competition is rather between the value chains than between the companies. Similar research design is applied earlier to study working capital management in the value chain of pulp and paper industry. Even if the industries and the structures of the chains differ from each other, results were surprisingly similar. In future research, working capital management in other industries’ value chains could still be studied and compared to previous studies. ICT industry, for example, could be an interesting object.

Mobilização do solo e profundidade de semeadura por diferentes mecanismos para o manejo do sulco de semeadura em uma semeadora direta

Na semeadura direta, é fundamental que a mobilização do solo no sulco de semeadura seja a menor possível, visando a reduzir o risco de erosão e de desenvolvimento de ervas infestantes. O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar o desempenho de diferentes mecanismos para o manejo do sulco de semeadura quanto à mobilização de solo e à profundidade de semeadura empregados em uma semeadora direta. O experimento foi conduzido em solo argiloso, em semeadura direta, com alto volume de palha de sorgo. Os tratamentos consistiam no emprego isolado de dois mecanismos rompedores à frente da haste sulcadora, compostos pelo disco de corte e rodas de varredura, e suas combinações com três mecanismos cobridores atrás do sulcador da semente, executados pelos discos cobridores, modelos vence-tudo, protótipo M1 e spider, sendo que a combinação disco de corte mais o modelo spider não foi avaliada devido à limitação de espaço físico. Após as análises dos resultados, constatou-se que o tratamento rodas de varredura operando isoladamente apresentou a maior área de solo mobilizada, com 105 cm², e a associação dos mecanismos disco de corte mais o protótipo M1 apresentaram os menores valores, com 35,3 cm². Avaliando-se no conjunto de dados, observam-se ganhos de empolamento quando se adicionaram mecanismos cobridores aos rompedores rodas de varredura e ao disco de corte de, no mínimo, 10% e 26%, respectivamentes, melhorando a profundidade das sementes de milho em até 0,013 e 0,011 metros, respectivamentes. Já o mecanismo rompedor disco de corte e suas associações com as cobridoras modelo vence-tudo e protótipo M1 foram os que obtiveram maior aprofundamento das sementes, bem como a menor mobilização de solo no interior do sulco e maiores retornos de solo pelos cobridores.

Coverage mobilization by different no-tillage in-line handling mechanisms

Vegetation cover on soil acts positively in maintaining temperature and soil moisture, yet, it has been imposing specific operational conditions on seeders. The objective of this study was to evaluate performance of different mechanisms regarding straw mobilization, employed in a no-till seeder. The experimental area was conducted on clayey soil under no-tillage with a large quantity of sorghum residue. The experiment was established in a randomized block design, as the treatments consisted of a combination of two mechanisms at front of the furrow opener composed of cutting disc and row cleaners, and three mechanisms behind the seed furrower, covering discs prototype model M1, Spider and commercial model, with the combination of cutting disc and Spider model not being evaluated. We assessed the coverage permanence on soil index, vegetation mass on surface and inside the line. The treatment containing the row cleaner mechanism efficiently removed straw from the surface of sowing line as well as the return one acted on straw replacement. It was identified that use of the cutting disc at the front of seeder contributed to the increase of straw installation inside the line, three times more than in the row cleaner system when operating individually. Covering mechanism with row cleaners reduced straw inside the line and kept line covering similar to treatment of cutting disc operating alone.

Elintarvikkeiden saatavuuden varmistamisen keinot ja ostotilausprosessin kehittäminen tukkuliikkeessä

Työn tavoitteena oli selvittää, miten elintarviketukun suurtaloustuotteiden saatavuus voitaisiin varmistaa. Nykyisellään suurtalouselintarvikkeiden kysynnän vaihtelut ovat vaikeasti hallittavia, mikä nostaa niiden varastotasoja aiheuttaen ongelmia kohdeyrityksen ahtaaksi käyneessä varastossa. Lisäksi tuotteiden tilaaminen työllistää neljä henkilöä ja mahdollinen tilausmäärien kasvu lisäisi henkilöstötarvetta entisestään. Työn tuloksena yrityksen tuotteet sekä toimittajat jaettiin neljään eri ryhmään: paras a-ryhmä, haasteryhmä, testiryhmä ja poistoryhmä. Näiden ryhmien varastojen ja tilausten hallitsemiseksi esitettiin puolestaan kolme eri tapaa: Automaattiset ostotilaukset sopivat kaikille tasaisen kysynnän tuotteille. Suuren kysynnän vaihtelun tuotteille voidaan käyttää nykyistä tilaustapaa sekä hyödyntää mahdollisuuksien mukaan asiakkailta saatavia menekkiennusteita tilaamisen tukena. Ongelmallisten suuren kysynnän vaihtelun ja pienen menekin tuotteiden kohdalla tuot-teet voidaan joko poistaa kokonaan yrityksen valikoimasta tai niiden tilaaminen voidaan muuttaa varasto-ohjauksen sijaan tilausohjautuvaksi.

Tuotanto- ja pakkausmateriaalien varastojen nykytila ja kehittäminen lääkeannostelijoita valmistavassa tehtaassa

Diplomityön tarkoituksena oli selvittää lääkeannostelijoita valmistavan tehtaan materiaalivarastojen nykytila. Varaston nykytila-analyysi jaettiin pääoma- ja operatiivisen tehokkuuden arviointiin. Työssä haluttiin kartoittaa toimenpide-ehdotuksia varastonohjauksen tehostamiseksi. Diplomityön tarkoituksena oli myös lisätä avainhenkilöiden ymmärrystä koskien varastojen pidon vaikutuksia yrityksen liiketoimintaan. Varastojen nykytila voitiin kiteyttää suureen pääoman sitoutumiseen, hitaisiin kiertoaikoihin sekä tehokkaan työskentelyn kannalta liian pieniin ja ahtaisiin varastoihin. Kustannuksia ei ole otettu kokonaisuudessaan huomioon tilattaessa ja varastoitaessa materiaalia. Varaston hitaita kiertonopeuksia ei ole tunnistettu vaikuttajina yrityksen tulokseen ja kannattavuuteen. Jotta varastonohjaus- ja hankintaprosesseja voitaisiin tehostaa, pitäisi ostotoimintoihin tehdä muutoksia. Tilausrytmiä ja –määriä täytyisi harkita uudelleen, jotta voitaisiin vähentää varastoihin sitoutuvan pääoman määrää. Informaationvirtaa tehtaalla sekä organisaatiorajojen yli pitäisi parantaa, jotta voitaisiin vähentää kysynnän heilahteluja sekä siihen varautumista. Varmuusvarastojen pidosta saatavien korvausten olisi katettava koko materiaalin kiertoajan aikana syntyvät varastoinnin kustannukset.

The role of advance payments in working capital management and profitability

The objective of this thesis is to study the role of received advance payments in working capital management by creating a new measurement and to study the relationship between advance payments and profitability. The study has been conducted using narrative literature review and quantitative research methods. The research was made analyzing 108 companies listed in Helsinki Stock Exchange. The results indicate that 68 % of the studied companies are receiving advance payments and the average cycle time for received advance payments is 13 days. A new key figure is created to include received advance payments into the calculation of working capital. Received advance payments shorten the working capital cycle, by 13 days, when they are used in the calculation. The role of advance payments is not as significant as the role of receivables and inventories but advance payments may have a larger role than payables if the company is receiving noticeable amounts of advance payments. There are three branches where companies are receiving more advance payments than average companies. The branches are project business and ICT and publishing sectors. There is a negative correlation between profitability and advance payments based on the results of this study.

Improving the inventory management and valuation process, Case: The Switch Drive Systems

The goal of this study is to create a new inventory valuation process for The Switch Drive Systems and to improve its inventory management practices. In the matter of inventories the main problems in the case company are that it doesn’t have consistent valuation methods throughout the company and that information received in ERP system isn’t trustful. The research is qualitative case study. The empirical data is gathered through observing and unstructured interviews. The research shows that material flow process and the inventory valuation must be divided and handled separately but they should interact with each other. The result is a new inventory valuation process which takes many factors of material process under the consideration in order to receive reliable value for inventories.

Towards Inter-organizational Working Capital Management

Working capital is an investment which is tied up into the inventories and accounts receivable and which is released with accounts payable. Due to the current business landscape with tightened financial conditions and finance markets, organizations emphasize efficient working capital management. With efficient working capital management, a company can reduce the need of finance, free up cash, increase profitability, improve liquidity, increase the efficiency of operations, and decrease (financing) costs. From the perspective of an individual company, efficient working capital management means decreasing inventory levels by shortening the cycle time of inventories, decreasing accounts receivable by shortening the trade credit terms and effective collection procedures, and increasing the level of accounts payable by paying the suppliers later. From an inter-organizational perspective, however, working capital should not be sub-optimized by a single company but holistic view to working capital management through the supply chain should be adopted to create value and improve performance together. The purpose of this research is to take academic research as well as practical management towards inter-organizational working capital management. The thesis discusses the benefits as well as mechanisms of working capital management in the inter-organizational context and has two main objectives: (1) to examine the effect of inter-organizational working capital management on performance in the value chain context and (2) to develop models of working capital management for internal as well as inter-organizational value chains. The results of the archival research conducted in the value chain of the pulp and paper industry and the value chain of the automotive industry indicate that companies can increase relative profitability by managing working capital comprehensively by taking into account all three components, and holistically though the value chain. Companies in the value chain benefit from different strategies in working capital management depending on the position of the company in the value chain. This can be taken into account in inter-organizational working capital management. The effects of inter-organizational working capital management actions on the financing costs of working capital were studied via simulations. Simulations also show that the value chain and individual companies benefit from an inter-organizational view to working capital management. Inter-organizational working capital management actions include for example: shortening the cycle time of inventories, reducing product costs, shifting inventories, shortening payment terms, and considering the cost of capital. The thesis also provides solutions for the practical requirements for tools to control working capital. The design science part of the research introduces the adjusted cash conversion cycle (ACCC) model for internal value chains, as well as models for working capital management in the inter-organizational value chain context: the working capital management model (WCMM) and the financial cycle time model (FCTM) designed in corporation and product levels respectively. This research contributes to literature on working capital management and interorganizational accounting. The research gives a holistic, inter-organizational view to the management of working capital. It advances the knowledge in working capital management on operational level, increases knowledge in the recently risen theme of supply chainoriented, collaborative working capital management, combines management accounting research with supply chain management research, and contributes to the demand of practical inter-organizational accounting methods. In addition, the research has strong practical focus as new managerial methods are introduced.

Pennförare i periferin : österbottniska sockenskrivare 1721-1868

Modern research on literacy, the scriptualization of the administration and the interaction between the governing and the governed as part of the political culture, has brought to the fore the issue of different scripts and their terms. The present dissertation focuses on the parish scribes in the county of Ostrobothnia during the period 1721–1868. The peasantry had been given the right to pay parish scribes in 1624. The parish scribes who were to assist the peasants in connection with the collection of taxes simultaneously supervised the bailiffs who collected the taxes. Their writing skills made the scribes indispensable also in many other contexts. In Ostrobothnia, the peasantry had use for parish scribes, who worked as mediators between Swedish and Finnish, between the oral and the written and vice versa. The aim of this dissertation is on the one hand to explore the recruitment of parish scribes, and on the other to examine the parish scribes as a professional and social group. The parish scribes’ significance for the peasantry in everyday life, local decision-making and in connection with political processes will be analyzed by examining their work and professional activities. The recruitment of parish scribes and has been analyzed as a decision process where different actors were able to influence the election. The parish scribes’ competence requirements and terms of employment have been analyzed. The parish scribes as a professional body or a social group has not previously been explored. The examination of the 154 parish scribes as a professional and social group has been carried out in the form of a collective biography. Parish scribes’ tasks originally consisted of the collection of taxes, but the duties within the parish administration increased in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The private writing assignments consisted of many different documents: bills of sale, probate inventories and estate distributions, wills, land tenancy agreements, life annuity and crofter agreements, promissory notes, auction records and different survey documents. The interaction with state power has been analyzed by examining five political decision-making processes that the peasants actively participated in.

Along-scan radiometric gradient in Landsat images: understanding the relation between floristic and remote sensing information in tropical forests

The along-scan radiometric gradient causes severe interpretation problems in Landsat images of tropical forests. It creates a decreasing trend in pixel values with the column number of the image. In practical applications it has been corrected assuming the trend to be linear within structurally similar forests. This has improved the relation between floristic and remote sensing information, but just in some cases. I use 3 Landsat images and 105 floristic inventories to test the assumption of linearity, and to examine how the gradient and linear corrections affect the relation between floristic and Landsat data. Results suggest the gradient to be linear in infrared bands. Also, the relation between floristic and Landsat data could be conditioned by the distribution of the sampling sites and the direction in which images are mosaicked. Additionally, there seems to be a conjunction between the radiometric gradient and a natural east-west vegetation gradient common in Western Amazonia. This conjunction might have enhanced artificially correlations between field and remotely-sensed information in previous studies. Linear corrections may remove such artificial enhancement, but along with true and relevant spectral information about floristic patterns, because they can´t separate the radiometric gradient from a natural one.

The Cycle Times of Working Capital: Financial Value Chain Analysis Method

Interest towards working capital management increased among practitioners and researchers because the financial crisis of 2008 caused the deterioration of the general financial situation. The importance of managing working capital effectively increased dramatically during the financial crisis. On one hand, companies highlighted the importance of working capital management as part of short-term financial management to overcome funding difficulties. On the other hand, in academia, it has been highlighted the need to analyze working capital management from a wider perspective namely from the value chain perspective. Previously, academic articles mostly discussed working capital management from a company-centered perspective. The objective of this thesis was to put working capital management in a wider and more academic perspective and present case studies of the value chains of industries as instrumental in theoretical contributions and practical contributions as complementary to theoretical contributions and conclusions. The principal assumption of this thesis is that selffinancing of value chains can be established through effective working capital management. Thus, the thesis introduces the financial value chain analysis method which is employed in the empirical studies. The effectiveness of working capital management of the value chains is studied through the cycle time of working capital. The financial value chain analysis method employed in this study is designed for considering value chain level phenomena. This method provides a holistic picture of the value chain through financial figures. It extends the value chain analysis to the industry level. Working capital management is studied by the cash conversion cycle that measures the length (days) of time a company has funds tied up in working capital, starting from the payment of purchases to the supplier and ending when remittance of sales is received from the customers. The working capital management practices employed in the automotive, pulp and paper and information and communication technology industries have been studied in this research project. Additionally, the Finnish pharmaceutical industry is studied to obtain a deeper understanding of the working capital management of the value chain. The results indicate that the cycle time of working capital is constant in the value chain context over time. The cash conversion cycle of automotive, pulp and paper, and ICT industries are on average 70, 60 and 40 days, respectively. The difference is mainly a consequence of the different cycle time of inventories. The financial crisis of 2008 affected the working capital management of the industries similarly. Both the cycle time of accounts receivable and accounts payable increased between 2008 and 2009. The results suggest that the companies of the automotive, pulp and paper and ICT value chains were not able to self-finance. Results do not indicate the improvement of value chains position in regard to working capital management either. The findings suggest that companies operating in the Finnish pharmaceutical industry are interested in developing their own working capital management, but collaboration with the value chain partners is not considered interesting. Competition no longer occurs between individual companies, but between value chains. Therefore the financial value chain analysis method introduced in this thesis has the potential to support value chains in improving their competitiveness.