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PGDM 2015-2017
III
Operations Management
Mr R.K. Singh
Cost reduction in Refrigerator Transportatio
Whirlpool India Ltd.
Original
Group 5, Section C
Akshun Sachdev
08146009871
akshun20sachdev@gmail.com
Sl Roll No.
Name
.
1
15010103
1

Ashish Anand

Rashmi Mittal
15010109
4
15010112
1

Subhajit Nandi

15010205
5

Manoj Kumar Bisht

15010302
5

Akshun Sachdev

15010310
0

Nandish Malhotra

15010310
6

Nishtha Bhasin

15010319
6

Tushar Saluja

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION OF ORGANIZATION
WHIRLPOOL IN FARIDABAD
OPERATIONS AT FARIDABAD
COST REDUCTION IN TRANSPORTATION
OPERATIONAL IMPROVEMENT

HORIZONTAL STACKING
REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATION
Whirlpool Corporation is multinational company which manufactures Consumer
Durables and Home appliances. It is headquartered in Michigan, United States. It is
in fortune 500 and has an annual revenue more than $30 billion, with more than
120,000 employees. The company has more than 70 manufacturing plants all over
the world, mainly in the south-Asian companies. At present the company in present in
more than 180 countries and is the largest home appliances maker in the world.
Whirlpool Company has three plants in India, situated in Faridabad, Pondicherry and
Pune. The Pondicherry plant manufactures small size home appliances like washing
machines and water purifiers and the plant in Pune has the main research and
development department and manufactures Non-frost Refrigerators (double-door).

WHIRLPOOL IN FARIDABAD
On February 24th 1995; Whirlpool acquired control the plant of Kelvinator in India,
known to be the countrys largest manufacturer and marketer of refrigerators till then.
Whirlpool of India Ltd is today situated in the industrial area, Faridabad, Haryana.
This plant fulfils the Pan India demand of single door refrigerators offered by
Whirlpool and has a net production of approximately 15 Lakhs refrigerators per
annum which are transported to different warehouses and dealer locations in India.
This palnt also has its own R&D department for designing single-door refrigerators
and manufactures a wide range of refrigerators.

OPERATIONS AT WHIRLPOOL FARIDABAD

The plant has three assembly lines where different models of refrigerator are
assembled. Prior to the assembly the formation of cabinet and door of the product is
done in house by constructing the shells at the press shop and the filling the foam at
high temperature in the foaming area. Rest all parts of the product assembled are
bought by the suppliers and are just assembled on the assembly line.

COST REDUCTION IN TRASPORTATION

ISSUE
Initially, whenever the finished goods were to be transported from the plant to
warehouses in different cities the finished goods were vertically stacked with one
product over the other within the container and there was a wastage of 1/5th of the
container capacity at the top of the stacks of products.

Space not utilized

2 Level vertical stacking

Before the operational optimization took place each container use to carry 136
products of a particular model and the expense incurred by the company was
15 crore 28 lakhs per annum, which was one major concern for the company as
transportation in india is not very efficient and due to frequent changes in the oil
prices the expenses were fluctuating and a lot of problem was faced in hiring
transport facilities.

OPERATIONAL IMPROVEMENT
The basic agenda of the company was to reduce the transportation and to which one
solution which was offered that of horizontal stacking of the finished good above the
2 levels of vertically stacked finished goods.
The challenge faced by this idea was that how to transport the horizontally stacked
product to desired locations without getting them damaged or without getting any
type of dent on its metal surface.
In the vertical stacking this problem was not faced because the bottom of the finished
good is covered by an EPS base which prevents any dent which can happen while
transporting the goods

EPS

To overcome this problem a solution was to increase one workstation in

the assembly line and add a process before packaging that is to paste a
sheet of EPS on the left side of the finished good to prevent it from shocks.

HORIZONTAL STACKING
By pasting the EPS sheet on the left side of the finished product the product could be
used in horizontal stacking and full space utilization of the container could be
achieved by stacking the first 136 products vertically and then stacking the rest 34
products horizontally.

Horizontal

2nd Level vertical

COST SAVING
Initial Transportation Cost = 15 crore 28 lakhs
New Transportation Cost = 12 crore 22 lakhs ( 4/5th of initial cost)
Cost Incurred In Adding EPS Sheet = 15 lakhs* Rs10 = 1.5 crore
NET SAVING = 1.56 crore

REFERENCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool_Corporation
http://www.whirlpoolindia.com/

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