| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this thesis is to present possible solutions to how Aker Solutions’ Spare Parts division can improve their on-time delivery. This thesis is a case study that focuses mainly on the supply chain of the Spare Parts division and not the entire organization. Spare Parts’ main task is to provide spare parts to customers. The process of providing the spare parts can involve both internal and external factors. The internal processes include the Procurement division if the items aren’t on stock, and warehouse for picking and packing. The external processes include the suppliers that provide Aker Solutions with the products they are selling to their customers. An increasing competition in the oil and gas industry has led to a stronger focus on achieving a competitive advantage over its competitors. For the Spare Parts division, competitive advantage can be obtained when increasing the on-time delivery and the reliability of the delivery dates given to the customer. Since the effects of having downtime in the drilling activity is much more cost heavy, than paying for an overpriced spare part, a factor such as price is not the most important. The important element is to have the spare parts delivered in a reliable and effective manner. Considering that Aker Solutions’ competition also provides most of the same products/services to the same prices, the focus has to be elsewhere than cost when you want to achieve a competitive advantage. The theory of the thesis focuses on competitive advantage, process improvement- and supplier performance. Insight in a typical process map and how it can be improved has been given, with the use of the tool process mapping. The process map theory has been strengthened with the lean philosophy. The supplier performance theory is mainly based on an article from Tom Davis, a technology manager at Hewlett-Packard. The article describes the uncertainties in a supply chain network. Furthermore, researchers input on how to improve supplier performance, as well as Kraljic´s matrix on how to categorize and work with your suppliers is also described. Method The thesis is focused around a case study of Aker Solutions’ Spare Parts division, a study that includes both qualitative and quantitative method. To strengthen reliability and validity of the collected data, interviews, a workshop and a survey have been used. Data has been collected from the ERP-system SAP, with the purpose of obtaining insight regarding suppliers, orders and customers. Results The results of the thesis involves two areas: supplier performance and process improvement. Supplier performance laid ground for a priority list of the 10 worst suppliers. The list contains comments, suggested focus and action for these 10 suppliers. These results come from an analysis of a specific selection of suppliers in the Spare Parts division that has room for improvement, with regards to raw-data analysis, Kraljic’s matrix analysis and survey results. The approach regarding process improvement led to an improved process map for Spare Parts. The process map was improved through several steps, starting with Spare Parts current process map. The idea was to make the map as accessible as possible, have the map reflect upon the processes as they really are, and to have all involved divisions on the same map. Since the total process of providing customers with spare parts also includes other divisions, it is important to have the map include those processes as well. | nb_NO |
