"It has had great effects for us"

On 27 February, the final conference for the School of Engineering's research project RAdaBuff (Responsiveness through Adaptive Buffering) on how manufacturing companies achieve better delivery performance was held at the Science Park Towers in Jönköping.
"It has had great effects for us and improved our delivery reliability to 98 percent, says Björn Carlsson, Supply Chain Manager at Tranter International, one of four partner companies in RAdaBuff.

RAdaBuff is about how companies can use their safety buffers to maintain a good delivery capability to customers. The project has focused on safety lead times, safety stocks and safety capacity. Björn Carlsson mentions that Tranter International has continuously incorporated parts of the research into its operations.

"It has gone really well and the support from the other companies in the project and JTH has been fantastic! I have brought technical solutions home to the company that I have tested, validated and developed. Then I come back to JTH and get new energy to continue working on the project," Björn Carlsson says.

"Great benefit"

Nils-Erik "Neo" Ohlson, Planning Specialist S&OP at Siemens Energy, mentions that through RAdaBuff they have developed a tool linked to safety lead times that they benefit greatly from.

"It ensures that we get deliveries only when we need them, which saves storage space and means that we do not need to have capital tied up on products unnecessarily. These are some examples of things we would have missed if we had not participated in the project," says "Neo".

He mentions that the research project has given him opportunities to stop and reflect on what they do and why at work in a way that is difficult to do in everyday work.

"There has been great openness between the participants and good input on how to work with and solve different situations. It has been rewarding and we have come up with very concrete results about buffer stocks and delivery reliability," says "Neo".

"There is a lot to be gained here"

Joakim Wikner, Professor Logistics at JTH and project manager for RAdabBuff, emphasises that all four companies in the project have adopted parts of the research project for their own operations.

"We have managed to produce results that are both academically relevant and practically applicable to a broad target group. There is a lot to be gained here, which could be of direct benefit to many companies with material flows," says Joakim Wikner.