An ‘Amazon-like’ experience in a production environment

Company: Dow
Contact person: Aram de Ruiter / Peter van Egerschot
Location: Terneuzen
Study Program: Industrial Engineering
ESCF Community: Full
Start date: September 2020
Housing arranged by company: Yes
Internship compensation: 500 Euro per month

Company description
Global material science company, 43 Billion net sales in 2019, 36500 employees at 109 sites globally, with an ambition to become the most innovative, customer-centric, inclusive and sustainable materials science company in the world.

Project Description
Amazon is shaking up various industries. Many companies look at Amazon as a potential threat. But if you want to be like Amazon, what does that mean for your supply chain if you don’t have a straight forward warehousing/inventory – ship to customer model with a parcel service?
In the mature concept of KOOP/CODP (Klant Order Ontkoppel Punt/Customer Order Decoupling Point) a decision was made how far the customer order was allowed to enter the internal processes. Amazon applies a clear strategy with the use of their own warehouse structure and logistics to manage the customer needs. Dow has a model to ship the majority of its volume directly from production sites, or – with limited inventory – from warehouses directly linked to a site.
The question is how to create this ‘Amazon like experience’ with entering orders on-line, immediate visibility on inventory available at the warehouse and a delivery date, in an environment where on-line orders have potentially a direct impact on your production scheduling and raw material requirement
via MRP runs, while keeping minimal inventory and a stable production schedule.
Dow has the vision to create an ‘Amazon like experience’ and the ambition to become the most customer centric materials company in the world by making it ‘easy, enjoyable and effective’ to do business with Dow.

Goals of the project
Understand how a mature concept like “KOOP” can help to create the customer experience Dow is looking for.

Deliverables
Recommendation how to manage ‘KOOP’ in a production environment with little inventory, with the ambition to create an ‘Amazon like’ experience.
Optimization / inventory model to support the recommendation

Contact TU/e: escf@tue.nl