Engineering analysis for the optimization of logistics processes


It is increasingly difficult for industrial companies to monitor and optimize logistics processes.

In particular, it is complex to identify which activities are of added value, which is the ideal layout to minimize internal transport and how to measure the productivity of personnel on the move.

Last but not least, many of these wastes are generated by a lack of synchronization between the physical flow of goods and the flow of information.


The optimization of each logistic process (and not) passes through a careful engineering analysis of the individual activities carried out within the warehouse.

Following the lean approach, the engineering analysis always starts from an initial phase of process observation.

This, in order to represent reality, must be carried out in the gemba (place where value is created).

Following a first macroscopic observation of the logistic processes, a general representation of the physical and information flows is drawn up using tools such as process flow charts or swim lanes in the event that the flow "moves" between different actors.




The next step is therefore to explode every single brick of the flow, creating, for each of these, a more detailed job description.

The following phase is represented by the measurement of the times of the individual activities previously observed, thus elaborating a first dashboard of the daily value-added times for each activity, to be compared with the total times paid in the same period of time.

Already following the observation and measurement phase of the processes, the first ideas for improvement emerge that populate the kaizen newspaper.

This will become a fundamental tool for the continuous improvement of every logistic process.