Inventory Ordering and Sharing Between Ships within a Cruise Fleet

open_access
Open Access
Author:
Marshall, Gabriel
Area of Honors:
Supply Chain and Information Systems
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Robert Alexander Novack, Thesis Supervisor
Suresh Muthulingam, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
supply chain
inventory
floating inventory
ordering
sharing skus
stock keeping units
bulk ordering
cruise line
cruise ship
vessel
fleet
floating stock
Abstract:
Company X, a large cruise company, is challenged by the constantly changing locations of each of its ships, the high variance of SKUs ordered, and an inconsistent consumption pattern, which exponentially increases the complexity of its supply chain inventory management. Company X would like to understand how to more efficiently order and share stock keeping units (SKUs) between its ships to decrease purchase orders and increase efficiency within the supply chain. The research conducted for this thesis utilized a year’s worth of purchase order data for Marine & Technical goods, ordered by the ship managers of the vessels within the Company X fleet. Data cleaning and mining were performed; this was followed by analysis of the orders made, the distance between the orders, and a method for sharing SKUs between ships. The analysis of the thesis reveals the frequency of orders between highly consumed Marine & Technical SKUs, a sharing method for inventory of SKUs between sister ships in a cruise fleet, and a proposed location for shared inventory. The result of this research is a repeatable process for combining purchase orders, deciphering SKU sharing potential, and sharing SKU inventory between cruise ships. The recommendation is to combine purchase orders quarterly for “GRL” SKUs in Class A ordered to the Florida Region to create a shared inventory between five ships in Company X’s fleet. Additional recommendations include the general combination of orders between cruise ships in the Company X fleet. The practice of sharing SKU inventory in different regions, across cruise classes, and with different types of SKUs can be deciphered in future analysis.