Milkrun concept
The milk run concept or milk bottle concept is a concept of procurement logistics , production logistics and distribution logistics in order to provide material in-house and inter-company as required.
Historical origin
The traditional milk boy in the USA and England served as a model, who only provided a milk bottle when he could take an empty bottle with him. This ensured that there was never too much milk in the house and that it could go bad.
Basic idea
The concept is based on the basic idea that only the material is replenished in the amount that has been used. The lot size is determined once (a milk bottle) and controlled by signal cards ( Kanban ) if necessary . The replacement cycle and the route are also determined in advance (similar to a bus timetable).
There are two types of milkrun :
- With an in-house milk run , the goods are usually transported from one source (supermarket) to various sinks ( e.g. production lines).
- In an inter-company milk run , the materials are transported from various sources (suppliers) to a sink (incoming goods of the producer).
By fixing lot sizes, routes (mostly minimal networks ) and timetables, an attempt is made to reduce the complexity in the procurement process, to increase the utilization and thus to lower (transport) costs. “ By using this new concept, the transport costs can be reduced by an average of 30%. "
Differentiation from other concepts of procurement logistics
The concept of the area freight forwarder does not include control of the replenishment quantity, which is based on the empty quantity of the previous cycle.
In contrast to the groupage concept, which works with pre-carriage and main carriage , the milk run concept does not consolidate goods at transshipment points. An attempt is made to optimize the utilization of the vehicles through a clever choice of round trips. With the eponymous milk bottle delivery, the concept combines, on the one hand, a fixed round trip and, on the other hand, the possibility of combining both deliveries and collections.
swell
- ↑ a b Wildemann, Horst ; Niemeyer, Axel: The Milkrun Concept: Reducing Logistics Costs Through Capacity-Oriented Consolidation Planning (PDF; 196 kB), read: 10-09-09.