Publication Date

1-1-2022

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Sustainability (Switzerland)

Volume

14

Issue

2

DOI

10.3390/su14020713

Abstract

In recent years, the e-commerce market has grown significantly, and the online retail market has become very competitive. Online retailers strive to improve their supply chain operations to reduce costs and to improve customer satisfaction. Value stream mapping (VSM), a tool created by the lean production movement to identify and reduce errors, losses, and lead time and to improve value-added activities, has been proven to be effective in many manufacturing processes. In this study, we investigate the application of value stream mapping (VSM) in the supply chain of an e-commerce retailer on Amazon. By visualizing the entire supply chain with VSM, the waste that is produced during the delivery process from the retailer to the customer was identified. The five whys method was then applied to find the root cause of the waste. Furthermore, a scoring method was developed to evaluate and compare two different supply chain logistic models to identify a strategy for improvement. This study provides a systematic methodology to understand, evaluate, and improve the entire e-commerce supply chain process utilizing VSM. It was demonstrated that the methodology could improve supply chain management efficiency, customer satisfaction, and cost reduction.

Keywords

Cost reduction, Customer satisfaction, e-commerce supply chain, Value stream mapping

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Industrial and Systems Engineering

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