Evaluate the logistics operations carried out within the company highlighting the problems encountered.
Cartes Sans Frontières (CSF) is a multi-million organisation that produces maps for the European traveller. Based at Lyons in France, they produce maps, atlases and travel guides. The production is all done in house, saving on external costs. CSF has its own Surveying and Designs Division licensing out their designs to other external organisations, earning substantial royalties for the company.
Reading through the case study I have found that CSF is a very active company in terms of the movement of goods within the business. Their demand fulfilment system hosts most of the logistical activities. Looking over figure 1 you can see 2 definite independent logistical channels. The Channel on the right shows how the Map stocks move from the print planning to the Printing lines, the printed maps move to the Bulk store. Broken down orders are then taken to the Picking area. The channel on the left displays how the customers ' orders and trade orders meet up with the Moulin inventory control system. The system is in constant communication with the right hand side channel making sure there is enough stock in place. Through a bar coding system, using hand held scanners, Moulin automatically finds the requested orders in the Bulk store, a picker then brings it down to the picking line. The goods are then packed and dispatched using a contracted logistics service provider.
The movement of goods within CSF have both a manual and an automated system working together to produce maximum output. The printing department has the most activity, as much as 4 hours can be spent on setting up just one machine with the majority of time spent on configuring the plates and adjusting the colours. Once set up, the printing machines work two seven-hour shifts, each