The supporting components business unit is characterized by a wide variety of products and small batch sizes. The Intelligent Technology Company in particular serves almost all host machine business units, with thousands of product types and tens of thousands of material types, making the material procurement method an important breakthrough point for the lean production project. With resources extremely tight in all respects, the intelligent lean project team took the lead in implementing the "milk run" material ordering model.

The "milk run," also called "cyclic pickup," is an optimized logistics system currently generally used by automobile manufacturers, featuring high frequency, small batches, and fixed timing. The specific operating method is that at a fixed time every day, a material truck departs from the branch company, loads the raw materials ready for delivery at the first supplier, then follows a pre-designed route to the second and third suppliers, and so on, until all scheduled materials are loaded before returning. This eliminates the wasted time of all suppliers returning with empty trucks, while enabling timely material supply and achieving JIT (just-in-time) supply to the greatest extent. Through effective transport route planning and logistics system design, it also helps reduce costs.

The "milk run" method implemented by the intelligent lean project team is a transformation and innovation in material delivery. This "milk run" method was first carried out with two suppliers. Because this model differs greatly from the original material procurement method, suppliers expressed incomprehension at the start of the project. Through multiple negotiations, meeting discussions, and training on lean production knowledge related to the "milk run," suppliers' concerns about quality, transport costs, and other aspects were completely dispelled. After implementation, suppliers dispatched trucks once a day instead of twice, and the material inventory time at the Intelligent Technology Company was shortened from 1 day to half a day.

From the perspective of direct benefits, the value of the "milk run method" is reducing logistics costs and inventory; from the perspective of the supply chain, the value of the "milk run" is not limited to this. Through the cyclic pickup method, coordination between each supplier and the Intelligent Technology Company is achieved, and the quantity of parts retrieved matches exactly what the project requires, thus reducing waiting and ensuring complete and timely parts kits, improving system efficiency.

Next, the branch company will promote the "milk run" method from suppliers in Lugu to suppliers throughout Hexi and even all of Changsha, maximizing the benefits of lean production. It is believed that through these efforts, the lean production of supporting parts at the Intelligent Technology Company can become a benchmark for Zoomlion and a benchmark for the industry.