UPS FINAL - Print Ready
UPS FINAL - Print Ready
UPS FINAL - Print Ready
S.No. Page
Contents / Description
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5 Bibliography 13
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1.Business Process and Objective of the study
Business Process:
Objectives:
• It helps us to understand the different processes and their inter relations which
lead to desirable outcome.
• It helps to understand the various roles and their interactions involved in the
process.
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2.About the Company
History of Transformation:
UPS has been in the package delivery business for 95 years, providing services to
businesses and consumers worldwide in more than 200 countries. In 1994, UPS began
to investigate the potential of e-commerce and started an internal group focused on
enabling e-commerce. UPS redefined its core business and found ways to change its
structure and processes, forming new businesses to take advantage of new
opportunities.
UPS is in the transportation industry. They move goods, information, and funds
between individuals and companies. Their operations provide delivery by land and by
air, and they offer services at customer shipping centres, as well as online through
UPS.com. They operate in more than 200 countries worldwide, do business in 15
different languages and dialects, and deliver an average of 13.2 million packages per
day.
UPS was interested in finding ways to leverage their extensive infrastructure and
expertise in basic transportation of goods, services, and information. They wanted to
enter new markets and continue to grow. They also wanted to undergo a more
fundamental change—to transform their company into an enabler of global
commerce.
Mission: (what they seek to achieve): Fulfil their promise to constituents by:
Strategy: When UPS began the process of transformation, they started at the
basic level—taking a hard look at their core competencies and expertise. They also
examined the assets in their multifaceted infrastructure, from data communications, to
their fleets of trucks and aircraft, to their call centres. With additional investment in
information technology (at the rate of more than $1 billion USD per year), they were
able to transform a very sizable company in record time.
With the surge in e-tailing as well as B2B e-commerce, UPS was able to foresee the
importance of electronic information to the transportation industry. As early as 1985,
they began improving their data networking applications to enhance communications
with their customers and increase efficiency. For instance, they built up their IT
network and database in order to collect and track over 200 data elements for every
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single package that they ship(they ship over 13 million packages everyday)
Consequently, they were well poised to help the multitude of new B2C online
companies who came to rely on UPS for shipping. UPS was able to offer these new
companies tracking services as well. Now, through their eLogistics service, small
B2C companies (as well as large companies) can have their own virtual logistics
department hosted at UPS.
UPS has significant call centre expertise and infrastructure to handle the call volume
generated by more than 13 million package deliveries daily. Now as more of their
tracking requests come in through their Web site (about 2.5 million requests per day),
the excess call centre capacity is utilized for their customers' business infrastructure.
UPS is already doing this, and an example of one of their customers is Nike.com. All
of Nike.com's back-end systems are provided and managed by UPS, along with order
handling at a UPS worldwide logistics centre, and then on to UPS fulfillment, and
some of the shipping as well (depending on the destination).
• Dell Computer Corp. says about 5 percent of its online computer purchases are
returned, versus CompUSA’s 10 percent return rate.
• As of 2003, annual global service parts logistics (SPL) spending was estimated
to be $21 billion, increasing at a rate of 7 percent per year.
2. With the proper strategies and metrics in place, reverse logistics should be part of
the larger product and customer lifecycle strategies and can serve as a foundation for
establishing customer loyalties and increasing market share.
4. Toshiba expects to build customer loyalty, improve customer satisfaction, and save
millions of dollars by streamlining its service operations and gaining better inventory
visibility.
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3.Description about RAD and FLOW CHART for reverse logistics:
Reverse logistics is the logistics process of removing new, used or defected products
from their initial point in a supply chain, such as returns from consumers, over
stocked inventory and getting back to the manufacturer. A reverse logistics operation
is considerably different from forward logistics. It must establish convenient
collection points to receive the used goods from the final customer or remove assets
from the supply chain so that more efficient use of inventory / material overall can be
achieved. It requires packaging and storage systems that will ensure that most of the
value still remaining in the used good is not lost due to careless handling.
For example, T-Shirts with minor flaws like improper logo print of the manufacturer
or unnoticeable stitching flaws are often sold at discounted prices by specialized
retailers. The collection of the flawed clothes from the various stores and reselling
them at the discount shop is an example of reverse logistics.
The following steps are involved in the Reverse logistics process that we have
studied:
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STEPS INFORMATION CONTROL TRANSACTION
FLOW FLOW FLOW
1 CUSTOMER GIVES FROM CUST.
PROB. DETAILS TO C.C.EXEC
2 FROM
SUGGEST PROBABLE C.C.EXEC TO
SOL. CUST.
3 CUSTOMER C. EXEC FROM CUST. CC EXEC DIRECTS
GIVES CUSTOMER A TO C.C.EXEC PROB. & ADDR. TO
GREVIANCE NO. UPS EXEC.
4 CUSTOMER C. EXEC
SENDS ADDR. FROM
DETAILS & GREV. NO C.C.EXEC TO
TO UPS EXEC. UPS EX.
5 FROM UPS
EXEC TO CUST.
6 A RECIPT IS ISSUED FROM CUST.
TO CUST. TO UPS EXEC.
7 DELIVERS
GREVIANCE NO TO FROM UPS
THE TCP EXEC TO TCP
8 FROM TCP TO
UPS EXEC.
9 CUST PAYS TO UPS
FROM UPS EX. WHEN LAPTOP IS
EXEC TO CUST. DELIVERED
ABBREVIATIONS USED
C.C. EXEC-CUTOMER CARE EXECUTIVE
UPS EXEC.-UPS EXECUTIVE
CUST.- CUSTOMER
Information flow describes the flow of information among the various actors of the
process based on the illustration above we can see that in various steps that there is a
flow of information like the problem that originates from the customer's end is
converted to grievance number which takes various forms during the transfer of
packages to and fro from the ups executive and Toshiba certified professional. Similar
is the case with control flow where the control switches between customers, call
centre executive, ups executive and Toshiba professional. In transactional flow the
flow of decision and values involved in the process is studied like customer care
executive directing the problem to UPS executive.
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Comparison of old and new System with Reverse Logistics
Toshiba is one of the leading suppliers of laptop in the U.S. Toshiba has recognized
that post-sales service and ease-of-use are critical ways to build positive, long-term
relationships with customers. Toshiba wants a wide-ranging customer service
designed to raise the bar in the highly competitive PC market. They expect to build
customer loyalty as its customers recognize that if they ever do have a problem with
their laptop, downtime will be held to an absolute minimum.
Toshiba also expects to save millions of dollars by streamlining its service operations
and gaining better inventory visibility by using UPS’s information technology. The
computer maker also expects to gain valuable data about product performance that
will help improve future product design and manufacturing.
In 2004 Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. and UPS announced a new laptop
computer repair process designed to reduce turnaround time for customers to four
days or less which earlier use to take up to ten days and up to seven shipments in the
process. The new repair program will utilize The UPS Store retail network for
professional packaging and convenient drop-off of laptops; UPS’s package delivery
network for movement of customer computers, and UPS Supply Chain Solutions for
parts management and technical repair. The new process benefits Toshiba’s United
States laptop customers, including consumers and business professionals.
The process utilizes a specially-designed repair centre at UPS Supply Chain Solutions
logistics and technology campus in Louisville, Kentucky. The 2 million-square foot
campus, which specializes in high-tech support, is adjacent to the UPS World port
global air hub. The proximity to the air hub means it is possible that a laptop can be
received, repaired and shipped directly to the owner in the same day, with delivery as
early as 8:30 a.m. the next morning. UPS Supply Chain Solutions repair technicians
are certified to repair the entire laptop.
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4.Our learning and findings from the assignment
In our study of the reverse logistics process of UPS we find that there are different
roles and responsibilities played by different people like customer, call centre
executive, UPS executive and Toshiba professional. Here UPS executives act as a
Unique Functional group because they have distinct set of actions and
responsibilities to act upon and customer and call centre executive acts as Generic
Type of a person.
We have observed that sequential relationship exists between call centre executive
and customer. While here conditional relationship exists between customer, UPS
executive and Toshiba certified professional. The basis for conditional relationship is
that customer calls for a UPS executive only when the problem is not solved even
after the measures provided by call centre executive.
We have understood the various roles (customer, call centre executive, UPS executive
and Toshiba professional) and interactions between them. This has helped us to
understand the reverse logistics process better and gives us an in depth insight of
whole mechanism.
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Roles/Actions/Responsibility:
Case Process:
Anything that undergoes a process before reaching a desirable state is called a Unit of
Work (UOW).
Unit of Work in reverse logistics are:
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Case Management Process:
1. Manage the flow of defected product to and fro from the UPS centre.
The main strategy of reverse logistics is to bring out the best synergy between
Toshiba and ups. Ups got a big client and Toshiba was able to provide better
after sales service. It was a win to win situation for both the companies.
1. Shipping time required for the flow from UPS to Toshiba and back to UPS
is reduced from 10 days to 4 days.
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2. It makes the returning process more convenient.
4. This new repair program will utilize the UPS store retail network for
professional packaging and convenient drop-off of laptops.
5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Flattener#8 Insourcing What are the guys in funny brown shorts really
doing- World is flat by Thomas Friedman(A brief history of the
globalized world in the 21st century.)-Allen lane publishers-2005.
2. www.ups.com/casestudies/toshiba
3. www.toshiba.com
4. www.mobileinfo.com/bestpracticecasestudies/ups
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