TRANSPORTATION PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT FOR VIP PLASTICS GHANA LTD IN KUMASI, GHANA, A RESEARCH PROJECT TOPIC ON INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY
ABSTRACT
The idea of this project was to find a better way of arranging equipment and departments in a plastic manufacturing facility so that transportation cost can be minimized in the transporting of the raw material from the source to the factory and throughout the manufacturing process until the finished product was achieved. A case study was made on VIP Plastics Ghana ltd and it was found that one of the key determinants of the unit cost of the finished product was transportation of the material/unfinished product. A research was made on types of vehicles which are more economical, reliable and environmental friendly. Different types of factory layouts were also studied by considering the production process of the factory. Data collected was used to optimize the current product- oriented facility layout of the factory.
In conclusion in order for VIP Plastics Ghana Ltd to compete more efficiently in the Ghanaian market more environmental friendly and smart carriage vehicles were proposed. Moreover, the current facility layout of the factory was developed and optimized to minimize transportation cost so that VIP Plastics Ghana Ltd managers can make optimum allocation of departments/equipment. This will enable the factory to meet production capacity and customer demand at a low transportation and production cost.
1 INTRODUCTION
Transportation is the movement of goods, people, animals or services from one place to another. The different modes of transport are air, rail, road and sea. The field of transportation can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles and operations. Transportation is very important in the life of any business or company and better planning and utilization of transport increases a company`s profit and reduces cost.
Factories and businesses are mostly faced with economic optimization such as minimizing cost of non-economic items like goods or services that are very important to the growth and existence of the factory or business. Transportation models are mostly concerned with the best possible way a material or product can be transported from a source also known as supply origin to a customer also known as demand destination. The main objective of a transportation model is to fully satisfy the demand requirement of a company within its production capacity constraints at a least possible cost.
