Professional Inventory Management at FUJIFILM, the next step

Fujifilm 180pxFUJIFILM Manufacturing Europe B.V. in Tilburg, The Netherlands, is the largest production facility of FUJIFILM outside Japan. At the production site photo paper and offset plates are produced. Besides, the Tilburg Research Laboratory continuously works on the development and improvement of existing and new products.

In plant P1 photo paper is produced. The P1 Logistics department wanted to make the next step in improving their inventory management. Apart from the drive to improve, management imposed a challenging working capital target reduction. In the previous years the Logistics team had already made a big improvement in lowering inventory levels. Now they wanted to investigate how to reduce the inventories even further without harming service level. The main question was which inventory management techniques are applicable at FUJIFILM.

The Logistics team participated in a 3-day training course. During the training different inventory management techniques where discussed on relevance and usefulness for FUJIFILM. Sufficient attention was given to specific FUJIFILM products, cases and situations. The Involvation simulation tool Simcurve was used to quantify and visualise the effects of the different inventory management techniques to FUJIFILM items.

During the training the participants developed an action and improvement plan. One month after the 3-days training an evaluation day was organised. Together with the Logistics team the action and improvement plan was discussed and finalised.

Geert Groothuis – FUJIFILM P1 Logistics: “Despite of the fact that we where already familiar with a lot of inventory management theory, the training Professional Inventory Management gave us a better insight in the do’s and don’ts. The ample opportunity to discuss and analyse FUJIFILM products, cases and situations during the training was very valuable”. 

 

Growth creates complexity, which requires simplicity
Andy Stanley