Same Day Parts Availability with a D2D Setup: A Case Study of Volvo Group Authors

Abstract

In order to deliver high uptime service to end customers, it’s important for companies, within the manufacturing industry, to have high availability of spare parts at the dealers, as they are the face towards the end customers. To be able to do this, companies need to balance costs of having big inventories, including all parts, with the service they want to offer. This thesis focuses on how the availability within a manufacturing company, such as Volvo Group, can increase their availability by grouping dealers, by using a general model, with the purpose of implementing inventory pooling between the dealers. The thesis is structured in such a way that it starts with presenting the general model, which can be used by organizations for better management of their dealers and their services through them. The thesis later delves into the logistics aspects such as inventory planning and transport services for emergency orders. These two aspects answer the research questions for this Master Thesis. In order to generate quality results, it was considered important to study the current processes at Volvo and their dealers as they are the two main stockholders in this project.