Atlas Copco is a global supplier of specialized equipment and tools headquartered in Sweden. The U.S. sales division headquartered in Denver, CO has been experiencing major growth over the past seven years. With such rapid growth the company has been experiencing issues in meeting customer demand and high freight costs with two of its supply chains: Focus RocBit and Swellex Bolts.

Atlas Copco’s U.S. division asked a BYU capstone team to determine methods for solving the distribution problems. The students were asked to create a computer simulation of these supply chains to identify and validate solutions that would reduce cost by 10% for each product line.

Capstone team 2's solution was to reduce the backorder wait from five years to one year by adding a third shift in production. They also recommend that orders be shipped by sea rather than air, reducing costs by 45% and reducing the lead time. Their recommendations are shown through the supply chain simulation models they developed.