INTRODUCTION MATERIAL HANDLING NEED: Increasing competition in the business environment has influenced produc tion industries during

the last decades. Also Volvo CE(Construction Equip ment) Bras needs to adjust to these changes. A new Volvo production system was recently developed. In order to define a level of implementation the curren t situation needs to be analyzed. The main objective of this thesis is to descri be the internal material handling process at Volvo CE Bras and give suggestions o n how to improve it. A continued disposition will show the structure of this thesis and a timeframe picture, how the work of this thesis was sche duled and how the work was finally performed. In the last decades companies have faced more and more competition on the world market. Today it is common practic e to source and supply globally. This is a great potential for the manufacturing companies, but also an increasing necessity for cost- effectiveness, which alon e is not enough anymore . Because of the high competition, companies have to ch ange internal processes continuously. The intensity has increased more and thi s results in shorter life-cycles, shorter lead times and more need of flexibility. These, and also the focus on time and responsiveness, link the external market changes with internal activities to stay competitive. Lean manag ement is a concept developed by the Japanese company Toyota Motor Corporation to create fast and flexible flows in processes. It helps to improve the quality an d productivity and minimizes all unnecessary stages in the production that do no t add value. There are several tools that can be used to reduce waste and impro ve processes for example value-stream mapping (VSM) and take time (a method of translating true quantitative customer requirements into production targets and balancing the workload among the operators and different work stations . VSM r efers to the drawing of an existing state map and afterwards developing a prospe ctive map with improvements. By decreasing the amount of inventory and by handli ng it more effectively the company will be able to reduce waste. Material handli ng is a large part of a companys internal work and represents between 15 % and 70 % of the total cost of a manufactured product. Furthermore the mater ial handling in average takes 55 % of all factory space and 87 % of the producti on time. By improving the internal handling of material more efficient distribut ion and manufacturing flows are possible. It is important to have the right ma terials in the right amount and at the right place to perform well. Other advant ages of a well-