Increased Inventory Turnover through a Lean Warehousing Management Model in SMEs Suppliers to the Food Industry

Abstract

This research article is developed in an importing and marketing company belonging to the food industry in Peru. It is known that warehousing is one of the main costs incurred by a company in this industry; therefore, in this study a set of engineering tools were defined with the objective of reducing the technical gap of warehouse indicators compared to the industry through the optimization of processes in this area. The improvement proposal arose from the implementation of a warehouse management model, which included the implementation of tools such as Kanban, 5S and supplier homologation. The proposed model made it possible to streamline processes in the warehouse, which resulted in a better stock turnover rate and, therefore, in storage efficiency. The data analysis for improvement was performed using Arena Simulation software, through which the favorable results in each of the evaluated indicators were revealed. Inventory turnover increased 8 times with respect to the initial level, matching the industry average turnover of 12 times per year. On the other hand, the level of inventory count accuracy increased to 97.44%, which had a positive impact on the performance of the sales area due to the accuracy in the amount of inventory available for sale. Finally, the choice of suppliers was improved, as evidenced by a 4.64% reduction in inventory loss.