Reducing Time Required for Order Fulfillment by a Car Parts Distributor Term Paper

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applying quality improvement tools to an order fulfillment process*

Like Americans, Europeans love their cars. When their cars are in need of repair, time is of the essence in completing the repairs and returning them to their owners. This case involves a European car part distributor that was faced with delays in providing replacement parts to car dealerships and repair garages from a European distribution center. In response, the distribution center manager adopted the "Domino's Pizza approach" by promising all customers that their parts would be delivered within 24 hours or they would be free. In order to accomplish this feat, the distribution center manager formed a team to identify ways to facilitate the order fulfillment process with a goal of shipping 98% of all parts within 24 hours. This paper describes this process, as well as the tools that were used by the team. Answers to a series of key issues for discussion conclude the paper.

A review of the tools used in the case.

The team first used a flowchart to identify the manner in which parts were located, packaged and shipped to customers to determine where delays might be introduced.

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The team used one check sheet per order to track 50 randomly selected parts through the order fulfillment process and noted the various activities involved and time required for each on the flowchart. The team calculated the average time required for all 50 parts and graphed them to provide a visual representation using a Pareto diagram which revealed picking time was the most time consuming.

In order to gain further insights into the potential causes of the suboptimal performance of the order fulfillment process, the team used a histogram to identify the primary clusters of picking times that characterized the distribution center's order fulfillment process. Based on their brainstorming, the team organized their conceptualizations of the constraints to order fulfillment using a cause-and-effect diagram. Finally, to determine if their intervention (longer pick-up carts for part pickers) was sufficiently effective to satisfy the guarantee for 24-hour shipping, the team developed another histogram of 30 picking times using the longer carts. Although the case study is silent concerning the effectiveness of using longer carts in satisfying the 24-hour shipping guarantee, it does state that the intervention succeeded in….....

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Latest APA Format (6th edition)

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"Reducing Time Required For Order Fulfillment By A Car Parts Distributor" (2014, April 08) Retrieved June 5, 2026, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/reducing-time-required-order-fulfillment-187075

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

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"Reducing Time Required For Order Fulfillment By A Car Parts Distributor" 08 April 2014. Web.5 June. 2026. <
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Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

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"Reducing Time Required For Order Fulfillment By A Car Parts Distributor", 08 April 2014, Accessed.5 June. 2026,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/reducing-time-required-order-fulfillment-187075
   

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