This thesis was conducted between January and June of 2018 at a manufacturing company in Sweden. It was the final part of a Master of Science in Industrial Design Engineering at Luleå University of Technology. The purpose of this project was to investigate what products to store in the company’s planned new warehouse, designing the warehouse layout and storage solution, as well as suggesting where to store products that don’t fit in the warehouse. The space available for the warehouse was 4400 m², where the solution should manage a volume increase of 50 % and a summer stock of 20 %.

The company had outgrown their factory due to high product demands in combination with an introduction of a new production line. They had because of this, trouble storing material and manufactured products in the factory. This forced the company to rent an external facility to store some of their products. The manufacturing at the factory included item A, B and C in many colours and sizes. Item A were produced through line 1, line 2, line 3, and a future new line 4. Item B were manufactured by robot 1 and item C by robot 2. Sections for item D was also part of the production at the company.

Item A were stored at five different locations, which led to long and crossing product flows. Truck drivers at the company had to memorize where they were stored to find them. Either the storage spot was known by heart or the operator had to drive around and search for it. The items were stored mostly in deep racks, which didn’t enable FIFO. This enhanced the risk to a decrease in product quality. The items stored also had a fixed placing as well, meaning that the usage of storage spots wasn’t maximized.

The number of pallets to store in the warehouse with a summer stock of 20 % were 2949 for item A, item B, and item D, as well as 262 for item C at an initial stage. With an expansion of 50 % and a summer stock, a total of 4425 pallets should be stored for item A, item B, and item D, as well as 393 for item C.

Two requirement specifications were conducted, one to decide what product to store in the warehouse, and one for the warehouse layout and storage solution.

In the final concept, 3037 pallet spots were available. Products stored outside the warehouse were item C, both unpainted and painted. They were recommended to be stored close to the packaging section, as well as close to a production line. The storage solution contained 4 AGVs, with storage racks to enable FIFO and a floating storage.

To manage an expansion of 50 %, the company was recommended to exclude the summer stock as well as item D from the warehouse. By doing so, a volume increase of 18 % until expanding the building could be managed. For future work, the company was recommended to investigate how to be able to exclude the summer stock, as well as where to store item D.