| Summary: | Companies exist because there is a demand for their products and services. Companies need to logistically coordinate all their processes for them to grow and optimize their profits. Logistics is an area in constant development, where the old views become accepted and new ones become focus areas where the direction has gone from being cost-oriented to focusing on change processes, lead times and competitive means. This case study was performed towards a manufacturing company where the work was carried out with an affiliate company in Shanghai, China. The main company has its headquarter and production in Gävle, Sweden. The case study was limited towards the sales department and its impact on inventory control from a cost perspective. The study purpose was to examine how the sales processes affect the inventory control by going through the process from when the first contact being taken with the company to the final product arriving at customer. By mapping the entire process, one can find out the improvement areas and identify what causes long storage times for the company, how the company should work to minimize these times and how the company can work with processes for a more efficient operation. The problem of this study was that the chosen case company had a long storage time ranging from a few days to a few years, which caused high capital ties and costs for the warehouse operations. The empirical data was collected through interviews with employees who works closely with the processes that have been investigated in the study. The observation was conducted in Shanghai, China, where the case company has a warehouse. The observation and the interviews led to the results and empirical data describing how the company currently works with the sales processes and the basis for the problems that they are experiencing today. By comparing the theoretical theory and results, it turns out that the company’s view of how they work with the sales process is different from the reality. The study shows that deficiencies exist in the processes described by the interviews. One part of the problem was the lack of communication within the company. The departments focused on their own tasks and tried to perform good results without seeing the overall picture for the company. By improving the communication within the company, processes around improvements will be easier to implement. The result of the analysis in combination with literature theories led to that improvement measures could be distinguished. The company was recommended to review its processes, warehouses and packaging from a lean perspective in order to streamline and optimize its operations. This is done by constantly working on the communication and process work. For continued research, proposals are made for in-depth research within sales and its processes from a cost perspective. Sales are the part of companies that contribute to profitability, but it also needs to be studied about its impact on costs. The study's theoretical contribution suggests how a process that contributes with profitability also accounts for costs and how these can be improved through continuous process work.
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