Operation Process Reengineering Of A Forwarding Enterprise Based On Lean Thinking

The2008outbreak of financial crisis and the consequent European debt crisis makesthe global economy into the low growth stage. The environment influence China’s exportgrowth slowing down.The demand for international transportation business is sharplyshrinking.International freight forwarding enterprises have to be engaged in practicing theinternal strength. They are paying more attention to the amount of principal and interestbalance and look on the service quality and efficiency as the breakthrough point toimprovement. WR is a global transportation group with a considerable strength. By themarket influence, China regional performance in2012only remained the same as in2011,but also affected by factors such as cost increases, net profit year-on-year reduction of10%.Taking the business process of WR Shanghai branch ocean export sector as the object,based on the theory of lean thinking and process management, by integrated use of valuestream mapping and industrial engineering technologies, the following aspects werestudied and optimized:1.Through the way of questionnaire survey with five point scale method to quantify thequality of service situation.Use value stream mapping to identify the hidden waste andunreasonable activities of the process. Decomposition all aspects of tasks and time throughthe visual process analysis.2. According to Eliminate、Simply、Integrate、Automate(ESIA) principle, remove and simplify unnecessary tasks and shorten the processing time of value-added tasks.3. Application of line balancing technology to adjust the combination of each process,make the production rhythm to be consistent with customer demand. Application ofprocess synchronization to allocate tasks and optimize human resources, integrate into anew business process.4. Based on the lean management "flow " thought, analyzes the influence of the batchsingle and mixed order moving on total processing time. Set reasonable transfer batch intwo processes by job scheduling method. Study the influence on the process of oblchecking with different priority scheduling rules. With key work method and the CDSalgorithm, conclude the optimal scheduling scheme that order processed through everyprocess.5. Visual management to realize "pull" and the office clean and tidy. By managementsupervision, customers’ feedback visit, KPI assessment and training system makes processand service continuous improvement.Through this research, finally achieves the process optimization, shorten the workcycle, saving labor costs, improve process efficiency and service satisfaction. Thisresearch shows that the business process reengineering of freight forwarding enterprisesbased on lean thinking is effective, and provide guidance and reference for the sameindustry to implement lean transformation.