Co operate November 2015 by OpCellence, SIBM Pune

From the Desk It's an honour for us to bring you the November, 2015 edition of "Co-Operate", the Operations magazine of SIBM Pune. This is the legacy which we acquired from our seniors and this time around we are back not as an independent magazine, but as a part of the initiative of OpCellence—Operations Club of SIBM, Pune. Today’s global supply chains are becoming more and more complex. With the increased complexity in organizations, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain efficient supply chains. Inclusion of latest technological devices makes our job easy. But, Analysis of the data generated by use of technologies has created an entirely new world of possibilities. IoT, Business Intelligence, Artificial Networks, Cloud are all new buzz-words in a world which is highly interconnected. It has made our supply chains more inter-dependent. A small shock in supply chain in a far of country can lead to repercussions in another country. This brings us to the theme of this edition which is "Supply Chains: Turning global into local". The articles in this edition are focussed around this theme to re-iterate the same. We continue the tradition of providing new insights through our columns – Fun Facts! We sincerely hope that you will thoroughly enjoy reading this edition and encourage us in our endeavour. The Team!

Bhavik Makwana, MBA-II

Debopam Das, MBA-II

Co-Editor & Cover-page design

Co-Editor

Pooja Deshpande, MBA-II

Gourab Deb Barma, MBA-II

Ideas Team

Content Team

Table of Contents

From the Desk ............................................................................................................................ 1 E-Commerce Vs Brick and Mortar Supply Chain ........................................................................ 3 Green Supply Chain Management: A Source of Global Competitive Advantage ...................... 6 Big Data Analytics for Supply Chain in Retail Industry ............................................................. 13 Modes of transportation in Latin America............................................................................... 20 Revitalizing the Shipping Industry............................................................................................ 25 Challenges of Air Cargo Logistics in India ................................................................................ 31 E-commerce companies reaching out to rural India ................................................................ 35 Humanitarian Logistics: Disaster Relief Management ............................................................. 38 Risk Mitigation in Global Supply Chain Management ............................................................. 43 Supply Chain Management in an age of Internet of things ..................................................... 46 Fun Facts! ................................................................................................................................. 51 Team OpCellence……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….54

E-Commerce Vs Brick and Mortar Supply Chain -Amit Bonde

Due to rapid advancement in technology and involvement of internet in almost each and every sector of business, the traditional way of retail management has also changed in significant manner. In today's tech-savvy world, it is essential to incorporate all these new technologies in business in order to sustain in the competition.

adopted by brick and mortar retailers while E-commerce adopted many cost reduction strategies to attract new advanced generation. The middle man is totally eliminated which results in direct and effective relationship of manufacturers or service providers and customers. Brick and mortar requires hiring and management of skilled workforce and their working hours which limits the availability of shops and services. If location of the brick and mortar outlets is way beyond the reach of consumers, then there are high chances of getting declination in sales. On the other hand, in click and mortar supply chain, everything is digital and hence less amount of workforce is required. Global reach by one click and 24×7 availability makes ecommerce more popular.

Brick and mortar retailing in the conventional way of doing business in which the buyer goes to retailer, enquires about the product or services he wants and finally buys it if he wants to. The new way of retailing is ‘E-commerce’ also coined as ‘Click-and-Mortar’ or ‘Brick-and-Click’ retailing which deals with the selling of products and services at one click via internet through any electronic medium such as computers, mobiles, tablets, etc. ‘Eshopping’, ‘M-commerce’ are various names that fall under the broad concept called ‘E-commerce’.

Discussing the main advantage of Brick and mortar retailing is Personal touch and feel, which is the main drawback of E-

V/S

There is always a tug of war between the two supply chains as both wants to remain in business. Attracting new customers by enhancing the 'Trust’ factor of older ones was the only obvious strategy

commerce. Technology can be taken to any advancement but it surely cannot overcome the comfort zone of customer. Example: apparels. One cannot ensure his/her comfort without trying clothes, which is not 3

possible in e-shopping. Although one may get help from the 'reviews' and 'Expert's opinions' sections available on e-shopping websites, but as a consumer, it depends on the individual that how much priority should be given to these reviews. Another reality check is that many people do not trust online transactions and providing credit card details while purchasing. Fear of bank account getting hacked and problems of identity theft lowers the interest of eshopping. Sometimes faulty goods are delivered to customers and deliveries are also not within the declaration period. But again, these things vary from individual to individual. Those can be solved by healthy customer relationship management. The brick and mortar supply chain not only lacks in the global recognition but it also lacks in providing the same service to all the customers qualitatively as well as quantitatively. This also proves the threat to the traditional retailing. This can be prevented by merchandising the available stock into new franchisee. ‘Showrooming’ can also be put forward in order to attract new customers for specific brand or newly launched appliances. Organized players have already started implementing ‘showrooming’ to enhance reach of product. E-commerce provides all the information regarding not only the product of a particular brand but also same product with other brands. It helps buyer to compare two brands and also decide which product is best suitable for his/her requirements. Brick and mortar shops can deploy ‘kiosks’ for such purpose. E-commerce also offers coupons for discount which is another marketing strategy. To use these coupons, customers get tempted which ultimately hikes the sales. Brick and mortar shops

announce ‘sale’ in order to clear the stocks which gets less response as compared to ecommerce discounts. Thus, conventional shops should establish the effective social network which will definitely help to increase sales in each season. Both the supply chains have their own pros and cons. Brick and mortar retailing is more suitable for few sectors such as textiles, grocery while E-commerce is more reliable for selling electronic goods and providing services such as mobile recharge, online cab booking etc. but there is always a golden way to bridge the gap between both supply chains. ''Frenemy" (friend + enemy) way of integration can always be efficient which have all the pros of both supply chains. In modern way of retailing, growth of “dark stores” has not only given the hike to business dealer's profits but is also beneficial for early delivery of products ordered online. It also helps to outsource the old stock in faster ways as well as it helps to reduce the ‘bullwhip effect’ in push based supply chain. In simple words, the shop owners not only sell their products offline in traditional ways but they also outsource their product to the online store or e-shopping websites. It's a kind of winwin negotiation. Here, online stores get inventory available whenever they get particular product order. The shipping and packaging of product is also ensured with proper way from offline warehouses and faster delivery can be provided by click and mortar supply chain. On the other hand, offline stores also get an opportunity to sell their goods and enhance the business globally.

In general, customers prefer to pay through retail outlets for products such as apparels which require personal touch or human interface. The next time when they have to purchase the same or similar kind of product, they will prefer E-commerce as

they already have experienced the basic features of that product personally. Brick and mortar retailers should also incorporate the new technologies and innovations in their businesses to attract new generation but keeping own integrity untouched.

Green Supply Chain Management: A Source of Global Competitive Advantage -Arvind Kumar

What is Green Supply Chain? The word “Green” refers to being environment friendly. A green supply chain is a strategy that involves the integration of a traditional supply chain with the best sociological and environmental practices thereby resulting in a sustainable model that optimises the trade-offs between environmental consciousness and supply chain effectiveness. With the increase in global awareness regarding environmental degradation, it is inevitable for companies to move towards formulating a sustainable supply chain strategy that will permit them to compete at a global level. Why would Companies Care? This is a valid question that can crop up in many of our minds. Is it that all the companies are environmentally conscious and want to preserve it in its pristine form for future generations? Yes, there are some organisations who are genuinely concerned about minimising their carbon footprints and reducing their contribution towards instigating a negative climate change. But it would be naïve on our part to assume such a scenario with all the companies. Over the last few years, organisations have started looking at green supply chain strategy, not as a hindrance, but as a means of gaining a global competitive edge. Green supply chain strategy minimises the usage of nonrenewable sources and reduces wastages at all stages in a supply chain. The companies are forced to harness other alternative

sources of renewable energy, which in the long run, will prove cost effective. Also the pollution control norms worldwide are getting more stringent by the day and going “green” will enable companies to foray into global markets. Also, being environmentally conscious will enhance the reputation of a company and will create a positive impact on the minds of the people which will in turn, widen their customer base. Green supply chain also improves agility and adaptability as it can cater to the changing demands of the customer and facilitate implementation of the fruits of discovery and innovation. There are two facets involved in the implementation of a green supply chain strategy. One is the legal compliance which makes it mandatory for companies to adhere to pollution control norms and the other is the increased effectiveness of the supply chain. Over time, the legal compliance has begun to be considered by the companies as something mandatory which is part of their operating costs and the benefits arising from going green have far outweighed any perceived drawbacks or ill effects. In a survey conducted by WIPRO Technologies which was mulling over going “green” in terms of supply chain revealed the following as perceived benefits by organisations,

Source: Survey “Wipro Green exploring green Supply chains” – April 2014

Organisations are seeking to go green in every stage of the supply chain right from product design and development to procurement, transportation, packaging and storage, manufacturing, delivery and reverse logistics.

Source: Survey “Wipro Green exploring green Supply chains” – April 2014

Product/Process Development:

Design

and

Implementing optimum environmental practices in product design and development involves minimising the wastages at various stages in the life cycle of a process.

This can be achieved by lifecycle analysis or assessment which identifies and strives to eliminate the various potential sources of wastes in the life of a product spanning from sourcing raw materials for that product, across product manufacturing and right up to product disposal after final usage by the customer. The product should be designed in such a way that the energy consumed during its manufacture is minimised. Also, the scope for recycling and reuse of the discarded end product must be high. The product packaging also influences the extent of “greenery” in the supply chain. Non-toxic, mercury free packaging that is devoid of PVC and DEHP content is desirable. In industries there are generally two types of packaging; ‘Industrial packaging’ that refers to packaging of materials as it moves through the supply chain and the final ‘customer packaging’ that refers to packaging of the final product that is to be delivered to the consumer. Packaging is inevitable for almost all the goods, more specifically food items, volatile fuels and other hazardous and perishable items. Thus a balance must be worked out between providing sufficient 7

protection to transported goods while not adversely impacting the environment in the process by introducing excess nondisposable materials. The concept of DFMA (Design for Manufacture and Assembly) can be tweaked a bit to accommodate green manufacturing. In addition to technical constraints, fuel, power and material constraints from an environmental perspective can be considered before designing a particular product.

A pioneer in this field is Coca Cola which delivers 98% of its products in plastic bottles that are recyclable or reusable. They have also set up 6 recycling plants around the world for this process. Another example is the American Software Company, Adobe Systems which, in 2012 minimised the amount of plastic used in software packaging and discs were packed with one layer of cardboard overlap instead of three. Their aim, by their own admission, was “Dematerialise the packaging while maintaining durability and a large surface area for shelf presence in stores”

Procurement: An organisation procuring raw materials and other requirements from its suppliers can use its superior purchasing and bargaining power to coax the suppliers into aligning with its environment-friendly strategy. This will serve to increase the goodwill for the organisation without

adversely impacting the supplier performance. An organisation must establish stringent quality norms to ensure that the materials they receive from their suppliers are not obtained by practices that result in environmental degradation. This stance, in the long run, will affect the supplier as well as the customer. Manufacturing and Re-manufacturing: Manufacturing has a direct measureable impact on the environment. Green manufacturing would involve minimising water, fuel and power consumption in addition to reduction of scrap, work in process wastes, raw material

An example is the American pharmaceutical goods manufacturer, “Johnson and Johnson” which participates in the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) Supply chain program and encourages its suppliers to measure energy consumption and greenhouse emission in addition to making it mandatory for them to develop and report their reduction plans publicly.

wastes, wastes of overproduction, defects (The 7 wastes of manufacturing) etc. The concepts of six sigma and lean manufacturing will serve to reduce scrap and defects while energy consumption can be reduced by using substitute materials that are easy to machine, by locating the facility in an environmentally conducive place etc. The energy minimisation can also be achieved using ‘pinch analysis’ which is used for tracking the thermodynamic heat 8

flows in a process thereby identifying certain energy targets which can be achieved by optimising the heat recovery systems such as heat exchangers. The process of remanufacturing generally deals with recycling the products discarded by the consumers. Useful value can be extracted from the discarded items even after they have served their intended purpose. Products, these days are characterised by their high degree of specialisation and small life cycles. This

“HERO MOTOCORP” has established a manufacturing plant at Neemrana which is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certified. This facility incorporates Big Foot Technology to regulate the temperature, maintain optimum balance of Oxygen and CO2 and also reduce dust emissions. An Automatic Storage and Retrieval System, for vehicle dispatch, with a capacity of 4500 vehicles, is incorporated with an online vehicle tracking system and fully automated vehicle handling system.

has made recycling indispensable. For e.g. when ink cartridges have breached their refilling limit, they can be crushed and made into fuel that is utilised by the cement industry. This will contribute to secondary sources of income for an organisation. Transportation: Logistics account for around 4045% of the total supply chain cost in India. In order to design an efficient supply chain,

Again, in the LEED certified factory of HERO MOTOCORP, the waste water from all sources is recycled thereby ensuring zero liquid discharge from the plant.

it is imperative to focus largely on transportation. By completely utilising the available transportation resources, it is possible to minimise the risk of damage to the environment. Optimisation in this regard can be achieved by designing more efficient routes, using alternative fuels and utilising storage capacity completely. By efficient routes, we don’t always mean the shortest route in terms of distance. A route that is shorter in terms of distance might require traversing bumpy, steep inclines which might result in higher fuel consumption than a longer and level terrain. Also ‘Shipping’ is preferred for long distance transportation in many cases rather than air freight as a result of lower cost. However, ships are slower and this will result in inventory accumulation for longer periods which might incur higher storage costs and also result in water pollution. Thus various trade-offs are to be considered before deciding the type of transportation and devising the optimum route for it. Disposal and Reverse Logistics: A product, at the end of its lifecycle, is disposed of in landfills. However, the burial of wastes under the soil might result in infrastructure disruptions in addition to the release of “landfill gases” due to anaerobic digestion of wastes by bacteria. Thus in order to limit this, the discarded items have been made the responsibility of 9

the organisation. These organisation collect used or discarded products, recycle, reuse, rework, repair or remanufacture it in order to extract more value out of it and also to minimise the hazardous impacts of landfills. The reverse logistics network design plays a vital role in the seamless execution of this process. Reverse logistics can be defined as the flow of material and information from the customer to the supplier for repair, rework, recycling or remanufacture. The framework for reverse logistics in a supply chain is as shown under. The importance of reverse logistics has grown so much so that dedicated organisations have been set up that focus solely on the backward flow of defective or poor-quality goods from consumers to the source.

of another product lifecycle and all this happens while wastage is simultaneously minimised. Few examples:

Apple Inc. offers free recycling of any Apple Computer Product when a customer purchases a new product. If a product is returned out of customer dissatisfaction, then the product is checked, the problem is rectified and then sold at a discounted rate.

Reverse logistics helps in establishing a closed supply chain wherein the effective life cycle of a product is increased or the customers are made a part

Tangible benefits of certain Organisations:

decision to implement it, will seem a nobrainer. If only everything was so easy.

Texas Instruments: Texas Instruments saves 8million dollars every year by reducing its transit packaging budget for its semiconductor business through source reduction recycling and usage of re-usable packaging systems.

Barriers to green implementation: 

Coke: Coke saved 44 million dollars by shifting from corrugated to re-usable plastic shipping containers for 1 litre and 20 ounce bottles thereby saving 196 million pounds of corrugated material.



Hero Motocorp: The green supply chain that was implemented by Hero resulted in a reduction in the consumption of water by 20K lakh litres. This can be used to satisfy the needs of 8400 families in a year. Also, considerable savings in electricity (50 L kWh) have been achieved which can be used to light 50000 homes in a year.

Commonwealth Edison: Commonwealth Edison derived a benefit of 50 million dollars in financials as a result of managing its materials and equipment on the basis of life cycle assessment.



supply

chain

Green supply chain strategy will involve modification and sometimes obsolescence of existing practices and technology. If the top management of an organisation takes a rigid stance in support of preserving the “essence” of the company and is reluctant to change with the times, then implementation will be a problem. The next problem arises after getting the nod of the top management. Successful implementation of a green supply chain strategy will involve comprehensive understanding of its principles and practices. Inadequate training and lack of relevant experience will certainly hinder the process of seamless supply chain integration. Another detrimental factor is the huge initial investment in the face of market risk and uncertainty. Also the return on investment happens over a long time period which might plant second thoughts in the minds of the organisations.

Having outlined the societal, environmental and organisational benefits of a green supply chain strategy, the

Source: Survey “Wipro Green exploring green Supply chains” – April 2014

CONCLUSION Thus with the increase in environmental awareness, technological exposure and also in the sheer volume of organisations coming up, it is imperative

for organisations to constantly innovate, reinvent and re-orient their supply chain strategies to achieve and sustain global excellence. The types of products and services offered by a company can be rivalled by other organisations; an effective and efficient supply chain is, therefore, where one can gain a competitive edge.

Big Data Analytics for Supply Chain in Retail Industry -Soham Biswas

It is a known fact that enterprise data is inherently valuable. But it is important to solve the problem of segregating the useful data out of the huge junk and unstructured volume. As data volume is ever increasing, managing data and processing them to make it useful becomes a challenging task. In present business scenario companies do not see data as mere information but leverage them as a very powerful tool in strategy making and important business decisions. The scope of data integration has broadened considerably over the past decade. The value of data can only be felt when correct information is provided to right people at right time. The delivery of data thus becomes a complex process. To put the study in perspective it is important to discuss a few terminologies which are indispensable while handling these huge volumes of data and make it useful for business world. Big Data – It is a term given to the unstructured data sets so large in volume that traditional data processing applications are inadequate to handle such data and process it for its proper utilization. Today 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created daily—so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.

 



Extract is the process of reading data from a database. Transform is the process of converting the extracted data from its previous form into the form it needs to be in so that it can be placed into another database.Transformation occurs by using rules or lookup tables or by combining the data with other data. Load is the process of writing the data into the target database.

Source: http://risnews.edgl.com/Libraries/RIS-Media/PDFs/rcas14_1010data.pdf

Data Warehousing - A data warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant and non-volatile collection of data in support of management's decision making process.

ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) - ETL is short for extract, transform, load, three database functions that are combined into one tool to pull data out of one database and place it into another database.

ETL is used to migrate data from one database to another, to form data marts and data warehouses and also to convert databases from one format or type to another

where they are developing new tools and software that implements and process data for the businesses to build a strong base for

Hadoop - It is an open-source framework that allows to store and process big data in a distributed environment across clusters of computers using simple programming models. It is designed to scale up from single servers to thousands of machines, each offering local computation and storage Big data analytics has become so affordable and usable that its technology is touching every industry for gaining advantages over its competitors. This has given opportunity to IT service industries to a great extent With Big data and tools to analyze and understand the data, it has been a revolution

delivering cost effective and high quality services and products.

Advantages of Big Data: Retailers Obstacle with Data Analytics: There is a need for â&#x20AC;&#x153;single version of truthâ&#x20AC;? in retail industry for optimization of the business strategies. There are some of the primary obstacles faced by the retail Industry in data analytics given in figure 2.

Big Data Impact on Retail Business Teams: in retail business sphere. The business teams like merchandising, e-commerce, 14

supply chain and store operations have leveraged a great benefit in business in terms of cost effectiveness, quality and service optimization. Customer satisfaction

can be increased manifold with the timely delivery of the products which can be considered as a direct result of the Big Data analysis.

Source: http://risnews.edgl.com/Libraries/RIS-Media/PDFs/rcas14_1010data.pdf

Big Data Impact on Retail Business Processes: Big data analysis hugely impacts the business processes like demand forecasting, workforce management and store design. On implementation of big data analysis Retail players can be highly equipped to handle challenges of Bullwhip effect where a huge amount of cost is incurred to the business house. Also the inventory

Management can be highly optimized as demand forecasting and supply chain modelling can be worked out efficiently through the process. Also retailer can share data suppliers which helps both the parties in cost optimization and product/category knowledge which ultimately results in strengthening business partnerships.

Source: http://risnews.edgl.com/Libraries/RIS-Media/PDFs/rcas14_1010data.pdf

Benefits on supplier management: With Big data analytics suppliers are also highly equipped to forecast and meet customer demand. A detailed understanding can be viewed in Figure 5.

Source: http://risnews.edgl.com/Libraries/RIS-Media/PDFs/rcas14_1010data.pdf

Improving On-shelf availability with Big Data: On-shelf availability represents more than $800 Billion+ worth problem in retail world globally. Product assortment and categorization through data modeling can reduce this cost to a great extent. Big Data handling and ETL tools: Companies like Informatica, Oracle, HP and IBM are handling data of huge volume and are coming up with various products

that can process big data volumes and categorize them according to the business requirements. Informatica tools like Heiler, HP tool like Vertica comes with the properties of ETL processes which transform data into potential business information. Also they are capable of generating timely reports which takes as less as 30 minutes which previously needed 6 to 8 hours. This has revolutionized the retail market which has shortened its lead time for product delivery to the customers.

Source: http://risnews.edgl.com/Libraries/RIS-Media/PDFs/rcas14_1010data.pdf

Big Data impacting businesses in a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bigâ&#x20AC;? way: AmazonAmazon is leveraging big data in a highly strategic way to bolster its service value towards its customers. Amazon has unparallel volume of data acquired from its 152 million customer base. The company strategically uses this data to feed a product recommender online to create a big impact on its business. Amazon 17

has continuously improved its state-of-theart recommender engine.

To give a better shopping experience to its users. They have used customer clickstream data and historical purchase data of all those 152 million customers and provided each user with customized results on customized web pages. Amazon added a remote computing service, via Amazon Web Services (AWS), to their already massive product and service offerings. AWS was launched in 2002, but only recently they added Big Data services and they now offer tools to support data collection, data storage, data computation along with data collaboration and data sharing. All are available in the cloud. The Amazon Elastic MapReduce provides a managed, easy to use analytics platform built around the powerful Hadoop framework that is used by large companies, including Dropbox, Netflix and Yelp. Amazon also uses Big Data to monitor, track and secure its 1.5 billion items in its retail store that are laying around it 200 fulfilment centres around the world. Amazon stores the product catalogue data in S3. This is a simple web service interface that can be used to store any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It can write, read and delete objects up to 5 TB of data each. The catalogue stored in S3 receives more than 50 million updates a week and every 30 minutes all data received is crunched and reported back to the different warehouses and the website.

in AWS cloud-based solutions. Everyone can now use this public data, such as the data from mapping the Human Genome Project.

Ace HardwareAce Hardware is a leading hardware wholesaler and retailer, stocking more than 4,800 independently owned and companyowned hardware stores in all 50 US states and more than 72 countries. The enormous amount of the data of the company has been managed on Informatica Heiler platform to analyze and strategize business potentials. Informatica integrates critical data from 1,500 retail locations with its wholesale and inventory systems for strategic analysis by sales, marketing, and pricing managers. Real time data analysis enables Ace to replenish inventory systems and in-store stock more quickly, reducing inventory holding costs. Ace has increased profit margins and pricing structures. E.g. if a store sells a hammer for $3.99, but other stores sell it at $4.99, a recommendation is sent to the region to standardize on the higher price.

At AWS, Amazon also hosts public big data sets at no cost. All available big data sets can be used and seamlessly integrated 18

Conclusion:

Ace is empowered to target customers more effectively by analyzing historical buying habits detecting trends.

WalmartWalmart was, by revenue, the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest company last year. It is the largest retailer in the world, employs over two million people and takes in $36 million dollars at its 4,300 US stores every day. Their attempts to use data to predict customer behaviour reportedly date back to at least 2004, when chief information officer Linda Dillman examined sales data after Hurricane Charley to determine what would be needed following the forecasted Hurricane Frances. Walmart empowered predictive analysis which led to the creation of @WalmatLabs. Since its inception in 2011 it created the Big Fast Data Team with the purpose of finding pioneering uses for data in retail. One recent development is the Social Genome project, which aims to increase the efficiency of advertising on social networks by guessing what products people are likely to want to buy based on their conversations with friends. According to their blog, its syntax analysis is sophisticated enough to tell from a conversation about â&#x20AC;&#x153;saltâ&#x20AC;? whether the customer is speaking about the movie Salt, or the mineral.

As the data volume has increased exponentially over the years and requirement for its analysis has become indispensable, it is very important that the technology should improve with the growing requirement. Handling customer demand with agility and appropriate cost and time utilization by the retails companies is considered to be the primary goal for growth in business. In this context, Big Data gives a great leverage and opportunity to spread business network globally.

References:

1. https://www.datapipe.com/blog/20 15/01/19/retailers-increasinglyturning-to-big-data-analytics/ 2. http://www.zdnet.com/article/fivebig-data-trends-revolutionizingretail/ 3. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/ ETL.html

4. https://www.1010data.com/company/p ress_detail/1010data-retail-studyexecutives-discuss-the-impact-andfurther-potential-of-big-data-in-theretail-industry 5. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bigdata-walmart-future-retail-bernardmarr 6. https://www.informatica.com/aboutus/customers/customer-successstories/acehardware.html#fbid=MvOmPoeOI60 7. https://datafloq.com/read/amazonleveraging-big-data/517

Modes of transportation in Latin America -Manoj Kankani Introduction: When thinking about writing an article for the next edition of Co-Operate the thing that came to my mind was FIFA world cup concluded almost a year back. That night the entire world was tuned to one location, the legendary MaracanĂŁ Stadium in the heart of Rio de Janeiro. Another notable thing about the world cup was, a lot of Latin American teams qualifying for the quarters. A lot of effort was put behind organising that event. One of the biggest challenge is the supply chain in this vast continent, I thought why not focus on the transport facilities in this wonderful and culturally varied yet underutilized region with vast opportunities. Many companies are on a look out of new locations or countries to be precise, for better growth opportunities all around the globe. One such region is the Latin American region. From Nuevo Laredo to Tierra de Fuego lies a land with immense prospects for businesses to develop and expand their supply chains. The economy

growth, attractive free-trade agreements (FTA), growing education standards and biggest advantage of all, the proximity to the USA have rendered these regions to be hot investment destinations. Latin America significantly lags behind in the availability of modern logistics infrastructure and efficient transport facilities. This calls for an urgency to create and improve, generate consistency, flexibility and the opportunity for supply chains to adapt to contemporary requirements of trade, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t it? In this article we are going to look at the transportation aspects in Latin America. Here is an overview of the state of modes of transportation in Latin America: Inland Transport: Roads Roads are an utmost important mode of transport here because it is a very large region with diversity of physical environments. Roads provide a costeffective means of primary passenger transport for majority of people as well as moving goods. The road density in Latin America is around 15 km (per 1000 sq. km) against the world average of around 32 km which is quite low. But road network is swiftly expanding in the region. Still, a relatively small percentage of the roads are concrete roads. The other roads are not wide enough or are of poor quality.

The figure shows that with the exception of Costa Rica, the road density in all the countries in Latin American countries is less than the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s average

The dearth of proper maintenance of roads especially secondary and access roads is another major problem plaguing LA. Talking of development of international highways, a lot of effort is put to roadintegration projects across the countries. The Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank had funded a lot of these projects, in the 70s. As far as major roads are concerned, a road connecting Venezuela and Brazil allows north-south movement through the Amazon basin. Brazil has the lions share in the PanAmerican Highway system that extends throughout the region. Railways Railways in Latin America are not as developed as some of the other regions of the world. The various reasons for this being the terrain and the political instability. The Andes Mountain ranges that stretches across the continent of South America creates a lot of barriers for railway

network. Moreover, railway is dogged by operational snags and obsolete equipment. Majority of the rail lines are single-tracked, which renders movement

The figure above shows the extent of variability in the railway gauges in South America

Some of the cross border railway networks with the same gauge have become dysfunctional due to various reasons. Major countries like Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil and Uruguay to some extent have decent rail network. Certain other countries like Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica have very little or no dedicated railway network. Last year, China signed a memorandum of understanding with Honduras to build railway and is showing immense interest in other countries in the region. Maritime Transport The Latin American region has a very large coastline spanning across most of the countries. Sea transportation is of utmost important for the region and has long been a vital component of the transport systems. There are many natural harbours, such as Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Montevideo, and

Valparaíso, along with several developed ports.

Countries, such as Chile and Brazil, are making a unwavering effort to improve and extend their state merchant marines. These

The Panama expansion When discussing transportation and logistics one just cannot ignore the “Panama canal”. Panama is of huge strategic importance to the global trade platform as it lies at the crossroads of the North and South America as well as connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Annually, around 14,000 container ships make an eight-hour journey through this waterway. But this was proving to be insufficient for the ever increasing cargo traffic through this region. Eventually in 2007, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) started work on the $5.25 billion Panama Canal expansion project (also called the Third Set of Locks Project). This expansion project is of utmost importance for the world trade as well as to the waterway’s competitiveness and augment the value of the canal. The economies of scale in maritime trade is the rationale behind the expansion of Panama Canal. Once completed, its capacity is intended to double by 2015 by creating a new lane of traffic and allowing more and larger and wider vessels through the canal.

countries are forced to make these efforts for 2 basic reasons, first to arrest flow of Majority of their trade by ships from other parts of the world and other to encourage regional integration and improve the balance of payments of the countries in this region. “Latin American and Caribbean ports have seen outstanding growth of containerized 22

traffic with the growth and expansion of port infrastructure. Port facilities and the hinterland have replied with infrastructure investments “Transport infrastructure capacity must be supplemented with freight logistics reliability, effectiveness, and resilience”. However, Latin America’s port infrastructure is still rated “below average” by the World Bank. Channel capacity at most ports is inadequate, with productivity and berthing delays a continuing issue. Waterways Transport South America has thousands of miles of navigable waterways. There are two inland international waterway systems, the Amazon basin (Amazon-Solimoes, Madeira - Beni -Madre de Dios, Negro, Putumayo-Ica, Huallaga-Marañón, Ucayali) passing through 6 countries and the the Paraguay-Uruguay basin through 4 countries. The Paraguay-Parana rivers waterway system also known as Hidrovia or HPP (running through Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay.) has a potential to be the definitive axis for cargo movement in the sub-region. It can also act as possible integration mechanism for the MERCOSUR countries. However, 90% of freight in the sub-region is moved by road transport. For over a decade and half the Southern cone countries have tried to harmonize their policies to improve the navigability of the HPP to make this as the game changer in the region but still it is underutilized,. Very limited investment is needed to make the HPP the principal lowcost, low-impact freight transport system in the sub-region, it is meaningful to scrutinize the reasons for the inability of HPP to fulfil its promise.

Furthermore, there are three other minor systems: the Magdalena in Colombia, the Orinoco Basin: (Orinoco - Apure Portuguesa, Casiquiaré -Negro, Orinoco – Meta) in Venezuela, and the São Francisco in Brazil. Even though there are many rivers in the region, many of them are not navigable due to natural conditions. Hence there is a relatively small movement on these waterways. Air Transport Air transportation is another important mode that can take the countries trade to very high level. Air transportation is crucial for economic development in general and for market integration in particular. This mode of transport has seen a rise in the region but it is predominantly passenger traffic rather than the handling of freight. Each country in the region has internal air services system of its own. Historically they were chiefly operated by government or by heavily subsidized private companies, but privatization in the airline industry has spread to internal carriers. All the capital and other important cities in Latin America are connected by direct air services to the major centres of the United States and Europe. As far as airports are concerned Brazil leads the pack of the busiest airports in the region as expected. The major airports are São Paulo, Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Santiago, Lima, Caracas, Buenos Aires etc.

The challenges that exist for businesses tapping different Latin American markets are manifold. But there are also opportunities for companies to work with logistics services providers that can help orchestrate solutions, and provide support and leverage in a region that is primed for growth.

shown a lot of interest in infrastructure construction and development in the region thereby demonstrating China's interest in Latin America. Also due to the proximity to USA many US based companies are interested in this region. Once all the regulations are streamlined and the issues resolved among the countries, this region has a tremendous potential and can unlock

In a summit between China and 11 Latin American and Caribbean leaders, China has

Revitalizing the Shipping Industry -Nirmal Misra Overview The shipping industry is a global service industry that has been the one of the primary ingredients for achieving globalization & is the backbone of the global supply chain. Approximately 90% of international trade happens by sea. Yet despite its vital importance to global trade, the container industry has seen several years of extreme unprofitability, driven in part by economic turmoil stemming from the financial crisis, but also self-inflicted over-capacity and overbuild. In this article, we look into the issues & trends prevalent in the ailing shipping industry and attempt to provide solutions to achieve that ever elusive profitability. Introduction: Shipping deals with the transport of goods (cargo) and people (passengers). With the proliferation of the aviation industry, much of the people traffic has reduced; however, it still remains the cheapest & primary mode of transport of goods despite CAF (currency adjustment factors) being added to the costs.

The shipping industry is categorised into two market sectors â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the bulk shipping sector, dealing with the transport of raw materials such as oil, coal, iron ore, grains etc. & the liner shipping sector dealing with transportation of final and semi-final products such as computers, textiles etc.

Bulk shipping operates as taxi service, a contractual relation between the cargo owner and the ship owner, expiring on the completion of the trip. Large and unsophisticated ships, such as tankers and bulk-carriers are used. The industry is highly competitive with prices (freight rates) fluctuating wildly within time periods as short as a week. Network modelling for this sector is based on supply-demand functions and freight-rate forecasting.

Liner shipping on the other hand is geared towards high-capacity, ocean-going ships providing regular service between specified ports, at prices negotiated in advance and a weekly timetable. Up until the 1960s, liner shipping cargo (known as general cargo) was packed in pallets, boxes, barrels and crates and transported by relatively small vessels, known as general cargo ships. These were twin-deckers and multideckers, i.e., ships with holds (cargo compartments) in a shelf-like arrangement, where goods were stowed in small prepackaged consignments (parcels) according to destination. This was a very labourintensive process and, often, ships were known to spend most of their time in port, waiting to load or discharge. Congestion was therefore, a common problem in many ports and these delays added to the transportation costs in the form of warehousing & large holding stock costs thus hindering international trade and economic development.

The liner shipping sector saw a revolution with the introduction of containerization, where general cargo would be carried in steel boxes (containers) of standardized dimensions (most common is the 8×8×20 feet unit known as TEU –Twenty (feet) Equivalent Unit). Containers can be packed (stuffed) and unpacked (stripped) away from the waterfront, either at the premises of the exporter (consignor) and/or the importer (consignee), or at Inland Container Depots (ICD), warehouses, and distribution centres. Standardized containers could be moved seamlessly between ships, trucks and trains simplifying the whole logistical process, reducing port space pressure & ship in port time and eliminating the expensive, unionized port labour.

1990, world container port throughput volumes were around 85 million TEUs, and they have since grown six-fold to 572.8 million TEUs over 20 years (Review of maritime transport, 2012).

The container shipping industry is one of the fastest growing segments of both domestic and international markets. In

As a way to combat these issues, industry has redoubled efforts to control costs, consolidate through extensive M&A, and

However, despite facilitating deepconnectedness and low-cost transport of goods, the industry has been suffering the past few years. The recent financial crisis created a significant slow-down of global trade which there has only been a very spotty recovery. The industry, based on past good cycles extrapolated the good times and increased capacity that now seems unneeded. Corporates have also begun looking into ways to cut costs, thus reducing profit –margins.

employ improved and more fuel efficient vessel technologies. However, hidden behind these challenges, lie another set of more systemic issues plaguing the industry. Most container liners rely on outmoded approaches to design their routes and suffer from the heavy costs created through the “empty leg”, wherein trade imbalances necessitate that liners transport backhaul containers partly or completely empty.

Issues and Trends

Operationally, bunker (fuel) is treated as another operating costs with no regards to optimize consumption and procurement. From sales perspective, liners still charge based on cost of goods rather than value perceived by customers.

Market Saturation The quest to acquire, retain and expand market share is squeezing out smaller players and has started another wave of price wars. Guidelines on pricing, both in spot rates and general rate increases are ignored to acquire new customers and remain outwardly competitive.

Excess Capacity A big part of the problem is that the industry continues to add capacity. By 2020, the typical vessel delivered will handle about 15,000 TEU and not surprisingly, pressure to fill this capacity and capture the efficiency benefits of larger vessels has led to hasty decisions by carriers causing profits to become exceptionally volatile.

Ineffective Cost Management Systems Non-standardized contracts, aggregate invoices, marginal costing, etc. all cause

IMAGE COURTESY – VIRTUAL CONTAINER YARD GONE GLOBAL, BY KATHERINE IRELAND, OPENFORUM.HBS.ORG

Inaccuracies in determining the prices to be charged by the industry. For example, when using cost management to determine pricing, fuel costs are only partially priced into many charters. When marginal costing is brought into effect, companies begin passing on all of the cost savings they have achieved in recent years to customers. While valid for some companies, if the entire industry starts doing so, it hurts the industry. Stagnant Service Offerings Due to lack of innovation in service offerings, carriers generally do not get to add premium pricing for value added services such as intermodal and guaranteed delivery times. This failure to add new service offering causes the industry to lose out on new ways to increase revenue and create a niche service offering for willing customers. Outdated Network Models Fleet changes have caused existing network models to become inadequate in maximising profits. Introduction of ultralarge container ships has caused a cascading effect on smaller ships and resulted in the creation of complex hubspoke intermodal networks, leaving a large number of un-used mid-size ships on the balance sheets. Management Dilemma There exists great conflict between assetmanagement, transportation optimization and the general inflexibility of the industry. The owners wish to maximize asset value, the operation heads wish to optimize transportation costs whereas the ship operators are inflexible to changes to current SOP. Most lines invest only basic amounts in analytics, either in the corporate

centre or the business units and decisions are often undertaken and forecasts made with only a minimal information, much of it often borrowed from external providers that also supply their competitors. Opportunities for Profitability Of the many challenges the industry faces, some, such as supply/demand imbalance and swings in demand, are systemic. They are often caused by a cyclic effect of the global economy. But the rest are readily addressable. Three sets of actions―commercial, operations, and network and fleet―can be taken by the companies within the industry to improve performance and earnings. Commercial Changes The industry needs to change from a costdriven valuation to a value-driven valuation of its prices. Lines should get paid full value for the services they provide. Companies should create targeted sales campaigns to pursue and capture high-contributing customers to maximize return on sales. There needs to be a better commercialization of last miles services, including standardization detention & demurrage through accurate invoicing and expedient collections. Companies should also adopt a flexible contracting system to exploit the opportunities during peak pricing and privileged capacity events. Carriers can also extract higher prices from customers in certain industries, to whom smooth and reliable transport and the resulting stable inventory are quite valuable. Operational Changes Unlike the commercial changes requiring customer ‘wrangling’, these are completely in the companies’ wheelhouse. Bunker 28

management is a must to create any sort of improvement in the profitability of a company. Bunker often accounts for nearly 40% of all costs. Reducing fuel consumption can be done through a variety of manners â&#x20AC;&#x201C; optimizing vessel speeds to reduce speed variability, more frequent hull & propeller cleaning for better propulsion, inventory management for better weight distribution & port turnaround times, automated dispatch for incoming and outgoing intermodal transfers through IT integration between carrier and port for lean terminal operations etc. A lot of the above changes can be achieved via real-time reporting, data analysis and greater integrated planning between carriers and ports. Finally, though bunker is a commodity, companies can achieve savings through better sourcing processes, drawing from a wider range of suppliers and using lower-quality fuels where available. Port costs are another area where costs can be reduced. Shipping lines can make it happen through tough negotiations with competitive ports, service-line agreements that cement the deal, and guarantees of berth availability. Companies can use RFQs (request for quotation) to ensure best prices for various legs of the intermodal network. RFQs can ensure best prices for terminals and accessorial services such as storage, security etc., Lines should understand suppliersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; cost of the next phase of the network such as truck prices, rail prices etc. and associated logistics to ensure best possible choices for reducing costs. RFQs and other approaches can also help find optimal partners for maintenance and repairs, container purchasing and logistics

such that the value is best in a longer period of time. Network Modelling and Fleet Changes

As is obvious from the above figure, larger vessels provide a significantly better cost benefit over the longer run. They have a lower capital cost per shelf, require smaller crew per volume space and have a greater overall cost effectiveness with respect to bunker. The proliferation of these larger vessels has led to vast changes in the traditional models of shipping lanes. The capital intensity of these ships obliges them to limit their ports of call at each end to just a few hub ports or load centres from where huge surges of containers are further forwarded (feeders) with smaller vessels to regional and local ports. Complex hub-and-spoke networks have thus evolved whose fine-tuning and optimization bears directly on overall transportation costs. There also exists and great imbalance in the direction of trade as well as cost and competition of different shipping routes. The Asia to Europe head-haul offers high volume whereas the back-haul significantly lesser. There is a need for updated network models balancing all of the above issues â&#x20AC;&#x201C; large vessel feeding smaller vessels,

exploiting the hub-spoke network, managing vessel capacity imbalances. The shipping industry has been through volatile tiees in the last ee years and reeains in poor health. It eust transeore and re-invent theeselves to extract itsele eroe the trenches oe its current state.

References:Hidden Opportunity in Container Shipping â&#x20AC;&#x201C; McKinsey & Company Balancing the Imbalances in Shipping Industry â&#x20AC;&#x201C; ATKearney Structure and Operations in Liner Shipping - H.E. Harlambides Virtual Container Yard Gone Global Katherine Ireland, openforum.hbs.org WorldShippingCouncil.Org

Challenges of Air Cargo Logistics in India -Yashica Shetty The strong relationship between growth in international trade and logistics infrastructure is widely acknowledged. Growth in trade induced requirement for supporting infrastructure while availability of infrastructure at competitive rates promotes trade and improves global competitiveness of the country. Availability of infrastructure is also a key determinant of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. In developing countries like India an efficient logistics infrastructure can reduce cost of transportation which in turn can contribute directly to global competitiveness of the country. Efficient logistics industry acts as an economic catalyst by opening up new market opportunities, moving products and services with speed and efficiency. The demand for air cargo transportation has increased significantly over the last few years, because product life cycles have shortened and demand for rapid delivery has increased. Changing business models such as Just- in-Time Manufacturing and Global outsourcing models have contributed to the rapid growth of air cargo logistics business. In such a changing business environment, where speed-tomarket is a competitive imperative, movement of inventory is no longer viewed as a compartmentalized process. Rather, the sourcing of inputs, parts and components and the delivery of final product are all viewed as a continuous value-adding chain. Efficient supply chain management therefore offers significant benefits including lower inventory and intermediary costs; and simplicity in order

Placement, delivery and management of suppliers and customers. These benefits directly contribute to making businesses more competitive. The logistics performance (LPI) is the weighted average of the country scores on the following six key dimensions: 1) Efficiency of the clearance process (i.e., speed, simplicity and predictability of formalities) by border control agencies, including customs; 2) Quality of trade and transport related infrastructure (e.g., ports, railroads, roads, information technology); 3) Ease of arranging competitively priced shipments; 4) Competence and quality of logistics services (e.g., transport operators, customs brokers); 5) Ability to track and trace consignments; 6) Timeliness of shipments in reaching destination within the scheduled or expected delivery time. The final scores demonstrate comparative performanceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the dimensions show on a scale (lowest score to highest score) from 1 to 5 relevant to the possible comparison groupsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;of all countries (world), region and income groups. These findings are especially relevant today, as developing countries need to invest in better trade logistics to emerge in a stronger and more competitive position. Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s LPI rank in 2012 was 46 and fell down to 54 in LPI 2014. This should be a matter of grave concern to India.

Country INDIA SINGA PORE INDIA GERM ANY

LPI GLOBAL RANKINGS COMPARISON - INDIA VS BEST Internati LPI LPI Logistics Trackin Custo Infrastr onal Year Ran Scor Compete g& ms ucture Shipmen k e nce tracing ts 2012 46 3.08 2.77 2.87 2.98 3.14 3.09

Timel iness 3.58

2012 2014

1 54

4.13 3.08

4.1 2.72

4.15 2.88

3.99 3.2

4.07 3.03

4.07 3.11

4.39 3.51

2014

4.12

4.1

4.32

3.74

4.12

4.17

4.36

Key Challenges - Infrastructure Bottlenecks The Root cause analysis of the issues discussed in the previous chapter reveals challenges in the form of lack of enabling infrastructure, complicated regulatory processes and procedures, inadequate and poor quality of human resources deployment and lack of effective technological enablement of cargo handling supply chain are responsible for the current state of affairs in the air cargo logistics sector in India. These challenges are discussed in greater detail in the following sections. Inadequate and overloaded infrastructure facility Airports were developed primarily from passenger stand point of view, and thus requirement of cargo facility development was not taken seriously. Cargo is generally the last part to be thought of and is relegated to that part of the airport, considered not important otherwise. This leaves the entire logistics of cargo – infrastructure and facility in woefully inadequate and poorly managed area of the airport. Cargo infrastructure at any airport is just not the cargo terminal building that houses the warehouse but also the related facilities

including special facilities for express freight, frozen foods, airmail, and hazardous goods. Infrastructure also includes specialized equipment, connecting roads, truck parking terminal, public amenities like offices for intermediaries, public car parking area etc. The development and design of any warehouse including airport cargo terminal is mainly dependent on the business model and processes to be adopted which in turn is dependent on  Nature of operations e.g. Air express  Mix of different types of cargo  Level of automation planned  Volume of cargo to be handled  Peak time load factor  Customs procedure in a particular location  Nature of cargo to be handled - loose versus palletized  Storage period of import cargo prior to delivery of cargo amongst other conditions. Unfortunately in most cases in the past, it is the other way round. The warehouse facility is first created and then the

processes are fitted into it leading to inefficient operation and poorly developed infrastructure. It is important therefore the warehouses are planned based on the processes and business model adopted. Global best practices Segregated facilities for different types of cargo

iv. Lack of sufficient cold storage capacity for perishables cargo The tabulation below shows some glaring infrastructure gaps of cargo operations in India, when compared with global best Cargo operations in India Most terminals donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t offer separate facilities, except cold rooms

Dedicated and specialized perishable Inadequate investments in cold chain handling facilities that cater to end to-end infrastructure (temp-controlled warehouses, supply chain needs trucks) to handle agricultural, pharma and other perishable commodities Proper waiting area for trucks

Agent warehouses, office spaces and other processing facilities close to cargo terminal Promotes trans-shipment handling/ hub operations Dedicated facilities for Air Express Operations with air side and city side access, multiple freighter parking bays

Agents use the cargo terminal landside as a truck parking / holding area, leading to congestion Agent warehouse are often located within the city Promotes trans-shipment handling/ hub operations No fixed model and dependent on decision of individual airport operators. Very few dedicated freighter parking bays. Practices.

Gaps in Key facility infrastructure at Cargo terminals in Gateway airports There has been a lack of planned and integrated development of airports to cater to the needs of cargo business. Lack of adequate and appropriate air-cargo infrastructure at airports remains the key stumbling block to the future growth of the air cargo sector in India. Some of the key facility infrastructure which are lacking at majority of the air cargo complexes are: i. Shortage of landside truck docks, vehicle holding area and airside operational space ii. Insufficient entry gates and lack of upgraded handling equipment and trolleys iii. Lack of specialized storage and handling facilities for hazardous, radioactive and valuable cargo

Bottlenecks in truck docking The floor area at the truck dock is the first entry point for offloading the cargo before shifting for clearance. Reports25 received from the users of cargo terminals indicate that dwell time for trucks waiting outside the Air Cargo Complex ranges from 8 to 12 hours in one of the major gateway airports during peak seasons. In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s competitive environment it is ironic that export cargo vehicles are not off loaded due to lack of adequate space availability. Limited number of truck docking bays for imports also is said to severely limit the ability of the cargo terminal operator to clear the cargo on time resulting in delay and accumulating daily back log of undelivered cargo.

Nature of equipment to be deployed will depend on the process adopted by terminal operators for handling of cargo. It is also essential to install efficient and effective container device loading equipment in areas such as loading and unloading docks as well as relevant entrances for the freight movement The cargo terminal should be equipped with closed truck docks with dock levelers which can accommodate trucks platform height from 0.8 to 1.4 metres.

Inadequate X-ray screening facilities and lack of associated trained manpower

The lack of adequate screening machines, coupled with the fact that there is a lack of machines that can screen built-up pallets (BUPs) creates accumulation of cargo at the land side, particularly more so when a large part of the cargo is tendered at the same time. There is an absence of ULD screening facilities for heavy and palletized cargo. Machines frequently break down, and there are no on-site engineers who can trouble-shoot and provide the solutions

immediately. This stalls the clearance process and leads to a pile up.

Air Cargo is becoming an increasingly important aspect of Indian external sector. Though some improvements have been witnessed in the recent past, numerous bottlenecks continue to bedevil the chain of air cargo sector. As a result, the turnaround time for exports/imports at gateway Indian airports is significantly longer compared to other major air ports in the Asian region. This compromises the competitiveness of Indian industry and also compromises Indian trade potential and thus it needs to be addressed on priority. Given the critical need to enhance efficiency of Air Cargo operations in Indian Airports and to meet challenges of growing needs of business and industry for their air freight operations it is essential to lay down a comprehensive policy framework governing air cargo operations in the country.

E-commerce companies reaching out to rural India -Nitin K. Nandan

According to 2011 Census, 70% of the Indian population live in rural areas. But there is no democracy in the distribution of the basic amenities or infrastructure. Rural India lacks road connectivity, clean drinking water and not even basic education. But future is not bleak, slowly and steadily India is growing and Telecom revolution is on the driver seat of this change.

A vast untapped market Many economists have come up with the theory that lack of informed decisions prevent the poor from breaking the barrier. The lack of information about the policies and ignorance about their rights force them to live on what has been handed over to them. Over time the government and telecom companies have realised the need for rural connectivity and had forayed into this untapped market. TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) data suggest the jump shift in the volumes if data being consumed in the rural India over the last few years. At a time when internet connectivity is fast reaching nook and corner of the country through novel government and corporate initiatives (Ex. Bharat Broadband, Airtel Jaldi and Facebook.org), millions of new smart phone users are born every year. 35

Smartphones have opened a whole new world to the Rural populace, it is acting as the lead foot of rural spending, It is like a chain reaction; Once a person buys a smartphone, he tends a lot more via the smartphone. With India at such a Cusp, how can ecommerce companies stay behind? Ecommerce companies such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon were competing for the same 30% Indian population, few years back, until Snapdeal finally decided to expand its market and go all out on rural areas.

Why Rural Logistics? In India, semi-urban and rural areas are seen as drivers of growth for manufacturers, but cost of marketing and logistics has always been a challenge. As the Indian retail, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors are poised for rapid growth, they are faced with new challenges when it comes to logistics and supply chain issues particularly in the untapped rural areas for farm produce and delivery of goods and services.

According to Professor Viswanadham, Executive Director of the Centre for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies (GLAMS), at the Indian School of Business. With over 70 per cent of the economy centred around the rural parts of the country, logistics players are now seeking ways to address this issue as about $100 billion worth potential is latent in the rural parts of the country. As consumerism fuels buying in rural India, a growing number of start-ups are finding space to mark their presence by providing last-mile linkage for delivery of goods and services by tying up with NGOs, microfinance

organisations, government bodies and farmers. After moving towards Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, Snapdeal is now moving its focus towards the rural markets. Snapdeal will launch around 5,000 e-commerce kiosks across 65 cities and 70,000 rural areas by the end of next year with the help of FINO PayTech, an Indian financial inclusion solutions company. These e-commerce centers will be manned by village-level entrepreneurs, have personal computers and tablets, and also serve as collection and delivery points of packages since most people living in these areas usually have no permanent addresses. Additionally, they will help consumers with zero internet connectivity to shop online. Rural markets are often the centers of agricultural production, with E-tailers such as Bigbasket and Local Baniya on the rise, the importance of a stable and potent food supply chain is important for the timely delivery of quality products to the customers.

CODâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; An unassailable dream? E-Commerce companies struggle to reach the unreachable in many remote areas including many states in Northeast India due to poor transportation facility adding to it more than half of the online sales being dependent on COD and unavailability of third party logistics services in rural areas. Online retailers in order to meet their PanIndia demand, use private courier services which then doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t allow companies to accept COD. But, retailers have revived an old and existing mechanism to hedge these 36

tides; it is the India Post. India Post is promises to deliver Pan-India and that too on COD, but their how reliable it is, is the Million Dollar question-commerce players should think in the lines of Toyota and bank of Keiretsu, invest in the infrastructure of India Post for mutually beneficial proposition.

Trends in Agri-logistics Private players like Star Agri that provide integrated post-harvest management solutions have entered the space to fill these gaps. Apart from providing warehousing services, provides collateral management and other value added services (quality testing, agri insurance, bulk procurement and rural retailing) to its clients.

logistics.

Future look bright With Value added products being produced and consumed in fast pace, rural areas and tier-II& III cities are posing to be hot spot destinations for E-Commerce and Logistics majors. With global attention comes huge investments and job opportunities in turn leading to more revenue generation.

References: 

Wikipedia.org



Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategies (GLAMS), ISB

ColdStar Logistics provides customized solutions for cold storage and refrigerated transportation across India for fresh and frozen commodities. Their services include specialized refrigerated storage¸ warehousing¸ transportation¸ distribution and

Humanitarian Logistics: Disaster Relief Management –Huzaifa Zohair

Introduction Humanitarian logistics is a branch of logistics that specializes in organization and implementation of warehousing and delivery of necessities during natural as well as manmade disasters to the affected people residing in that area. The primary purpose is to prevent further loss of lives and to avail immediate treatment to those with injuries. The effect of the disaster will be taken into account as to how much logistics effort would be required. There are basically four types of disasters:1. Calamities – These are natural disasters with extremely sudden occurrences like earthquakes, hurricanes. 2. Destructive Actions – These are manmade causes with sudden occurrences like terrorist attacks, industrial accidents. 3. Plagues – These are natural causes with slow occurrences like famines, drought. 4. Crises – These are manmade causes with slow occurrences like political and refugee crises. The logistics effort required is from highest to lowest in the order mentioned above. A calamity will require a greater effort then compared to plagues or even crises. This is because you cannot predict a calamity in near future, but you can in case of a plague.

Humanitarian efforts are organized along two broad lines. Firstly, disaster relief that deals with calamities, destructive actions and plagues. Second, continuous aid work that deals with plagues and crises.

Use of Humanitarian Logistics Logistics as well as supply chain management are both crucial in case of a disaster occurs. Logistics is more focused on the movement of necessities to the affected area and supply chain management manages the actors that make such movements possible. Logistics is the most important element in any disaster relief operation. The efficiency and effectiveness of a logistics set up can make the difference between a successful and a failed operation in a disaster relief situation. Since it is the most important part of the disaster relief operation, it is also the most expensive. It comprises about 80% of the total cost of the disaster relief effort. An estimated $15 billion dollars out of $20 billion of the annual expenditure by aid agencies is the cost of logistics. (Christopher and Tatham 2011).

Mitigation

Preparation

Response

Reconstruction

Disaster management Cycle Disaster management cycle constitutes of mainly four phases:Focusing on logistics and supply chain management, the phases that most concern the logisticians are preparation, response and reconstruction and together these constitute humanitarian logistics stream. 1. The preparation phase or the planning phase refers to the operations before the disaster occurs. This phase is important because it is one in which the physical network design, communication and information systems are developed. 2. The response phase refers to the operations that are carried out immediately once a disaster occurs. In this stage co-ordination and collaboration among all actors like the donors, suppliers, NGOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s that are involved in the humanitarian agency deserve particular attention. 3. The reconstruction phase addresses the problems from a long term perspective. It relates to the operations that are carried out after a disaster has occurred. The effects can continue for a longer period on the affected population as well as the companies. With regard to humanitarian logistics stream, the transition between the stages shifts focus from speed, that is carrying out the relief task as soon as possible to minimize the effect of the disaster to cost

reduction in terms of operational performance. Each stage have certain objectives that can be achieved by two principles as follows: ď&#x201A;ˇ

ď&#x201A;ˇ

Agility refers is responding to unexpected situations related to unpredictable demands with short lead time. It focuses on effectiveness and speed. Leanness refers to carrying out the operations in a better and bigger manner when demand is predictable. It focuses on efficiency and cost saving.

In Humanitarian logistics, effectiveness means the saving of time and efficiency means saving of costs of the logistics operation. When time is saved, more lives are saved and when cost is saved, more lives can be helped with available money. 1. The objective of the response stage is to save time which can be done through agility while 2. The objective of reconstruction stage is to save cost which done through leanness. Stakeholders Involved in Humanitarian Logistics Humanitarian relief operations management involves Stakeholders with a high degree of heterogeneity in terms of culture, interests, mandates, capacity and 39

logistics expertise. Stakeholders include governments, aid agencies, donors, NGO’s, military, private sector companies among which the logistics companies like DHL, FedEx are preeminent. Governments – which include the host governments and the governments of the neighbouring countries are the initiators of humanitarian logistics stream as soon as the disaster strikes since they have the power and resources needed to authorize the operations. Without the authorization of the host government, no other agencies except for the military can operate in the disaster struck areas. Private logistics companies are one of the best contributors in every stage of the disaster relief operations as logistics is their area of expertise. Thanks to their capabilities in carrying out relief operations in an effective and efficient manner, these companies are assuming a prominent role in humanitarian organizations. For example DHL – the have their own AID, Relief and Humanitarian services.

Contribution by Private Logistics Service Providers 1. FedEx for Nepal - FedEx pledges $1 million relief aid for the series of earthquakes that occurred in Nepal. They are working with international relief organizations and utilizing their massive global transportation network in assisting the recovery effort. Specific contributions include:



Transporting large volumes of IV supplies, medicines, surgical supplies and other medical essentials on behalf of Direct Relief. Sponsoring Heart to Heart International’s mobile medical clinic, which contains tents, vital medicines, medical supplies, portable medical equipment, communication equipment, nonperishable food and water purification systems. Donating $250,000 cash donation to American Red Cross Society which works directly with Nepal Red Cross Society.

2. UPS for Nepal – The UPS foundation, the philanthropic arm of UPS, commits $500,000 in cash and kind as well as logistics expertise to aid in the response and recovery effort for the devastating effects due to simultaneous earthquakes in Nepal. Those funds had gone to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for shelter supplies and solar lanterns as well as to The World Food Program for emergency food supplies and to CARE for blankets, toiletries etc. They are also working closely with United Nations Logistics Cluster for other logistics support needed once immediate and long term requirements are determined.

4. Challenges faced in the area of transportation and communication – Transportation infrastructure might be disrupted that could take extra time and incur extra cost to get the supplies to the affected location. Telephones and internet towers could be damaged causing a major problem of communication, as in the case of Hurricane Katrina in USA.

Future Scope in Humanitarian Logistics

Challenges faced by Humanitarian logistics 1. High Uncertainty in Demand – For example in case of two earthquakes with similar magnitudes, both may have different outcome based on their place of occurrence. If one is in a highly populated area in a developing country and the other one in a better prepared city in a developed nation, their relief demands will vary and also other will be hard to measure like disaster characteristics, local economy, infrastructure, politics etc. 2. High Uncertainty in timing – In general, it is difficult to predict when a disaster will strike. One needs to be in a state of readiness to plan and execute an efficient and effective operation when such an event arises. 3. High Uncertainty in supply – Donations given by donors in cash or in kind may not match the demand and building up relationships with local vendors in a very short time span can be a difficult task.

One of the challenges faced by humanitarian logistics is the transportation of relief supplies to the areas affected by disasters such as earthquakes where there is a huge possibility of road infrastructure being damaged and further limiting the access to such areas. One of the ways to counter this problem is the development and use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or specifically in humanitarian logistics aspect “Disaster drones”. First time a drone was used in a humanitarian capacity was in Bosnia 1994, when the US deployed the GNAT 75 to provide overhead surveillance for NATO convoys. Since then they have been used for mapping disaster sites as well as in search and rescue operations for various institutes. Apart from military contractors, civil manufacturers are also investing heavily in developing everyday use of UAVs which can also be used in the field of humanitarian logistics. For example:

OpenRelief Project: This project is launched by developers at the 2012 Linux Japan conference, which aims to build a cost efficient – remote controlled 41



airplane that will assess disaster damage in hard-to-reach area. Matternet Project: The vision of this project is to create “the next paradigm for transportation”. Through a network of small drones, goods and medicines will be delivered to remote areas. As a trial Matternet delivered medicines to a relief camp in Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

There is high potential for the use of drone technology in the humanitarian logistics. It could contribute in achieving extreme agility and leanness in the humanitarian supply chain management which in turn could save more lives and cost.

References 



http://www.analyticsmagazine.org/spring-2009/208supply-chain-managementhumanitarian-logistics http://www.supplychain247.com/ar ticle/ups_commits_500000_and_lo gistics_expertise_in_support_of_ne pal_earthquake http://www.supplychain247.com/ar ticle/fedex_pledges_1m_relief_aid _for_nepals_recovery http://www.springer.com/978-3642-30185-8 http://www.odihpn.org/humanitaria n-exchange-magazine/issue-58/thepromise-and-perils-of-disasterdrones

Risk Mitigation in Global Supply Chain Management -Karan Neralakatte

In today’s world, Supply Chain Management is considered as a lifeline of any organization. Any disruptions in the supply chain will have huge impact on the complete functioning of the organization. Hence it becomes a top priority for the organization to make sure the supply chain flows without any hindrance or at least try to identify possible risks associated with it and mitigate its impact. To manage the risks, the organization has to develop a process in which a proper documentation is made to identify the different types of risk that is associated with the current supply chain, to prioritize the documented risks and the steps that needs to be taken in order to avoid or lower the impact of the risk on the supply chain.

1. Risk identification  Identifying what could go wrong? 2. Risk Assessment/Prioritizing  Anticipating the probability of occurrence of a risk  Gauging the magnitude of the consequences and also the overall impact on the firm?  Assessing the probability of how early the problem can be detected?

3. Risk mitigation and management  Analyzing the various options that are available to mitigate the risks?  What are the costs involved and benefits of each option?

Identification The Supply chain strategy team of a company sets aside time to evaluate the risks faced by the company’s supply chain. The team then gathers data on the suppliers and on the countries in which the business is planning to run or currently working. Few types of risks that is identified are  Routine supply chain risks: These usually involve the day to day events like an unexpected delays in transit, changes in customers’ requirements, problems with suppliers, theft, and warehouse or production malfunctions, all of these issues can cause serious delays in customer shipments.  Natural disasters: These are unpredictable, but still a few firms try to anticipate climatic disruptions and develop suitable contingency plans to counter it. If a company has its facility/warehouse on a costal line area which is hurricane-prone, then it can assume it’s only a matter of time before the odds catch up with the location.  Quality problems: Quality issue is one of the key aspects in any supply chain. This risk often causes companies to carry more 43

inventories. One firm, manufacturing consumer durable products, discovered a quality problem and was mortified to find that it had two months’ worth of supply in transit on the Pacific Ocean, all with the same defect.  Forecast error: The Long-range

forecasts done by global supply lines can be at times inaccurate. Forecast error over long global lead times often results in major availability issues and excess inventory problems.  Damage: Whether the company is importing or exporting, the chance of goods being damaged exponentially increases because there is a significantly more handling in the supply chain.  Laws and regulations: This becomes a very important aspect especially when the company wants to expand and set its manufacturing unit in a foreign country. The laws and regulations of a particular

country can have a huge impact on the company’s supply chain.  Customs or port issues: Customs regulations are always in flux. Failure by shippers to understand the rules and regulations can often cause excessive shipment delays and fines.

 Source: Illustrative sample from Deloitte’s database of supply chain risks

Risk Prioritizing Once the team identifies the risks involved in the supply chain, the next daunting task would be to assess the risks and prioritize it based on the impact it would have on the supply chain. The different risks are tabulated and weightage is given to each risk based on the severity, probability of occurrence and the chances of it being detected etc.

Mitigation of Risks

document consensus responses that can be used in real time.

 Forward buying or hedging: Hedging is Once the risks are identified, assessed and prioritized the next step would be to develop mitigation plans for the top priority risks. Some of the frequently used mitigation plans are given below.  Budget: Many companies try to cut cost in risk mitigation strategies in favour of more efficient and cost effective supply chain, but the recent natural disasters has exposed the huge financial implications/losses caused to the company due to such events. Hence companies should have a dedicated budget allocated to have a strong risk mitigation plan.

 Insurance: Organizations need to work with insurance providers and create a suitable plan to use suitable insurance appropriate coverage’s to mitigate risks, based on an objective cost-benefit analysis.

 Reserve Inventory: It is very popular among small and large firms alike. This strategy can be costly, so having an appropriate financial strategy in place is critical. For example, a firm might have access to a flexible credit facility that allows funds to be advanced at many stages along the supply chain.

 Disaster preparation: Establish a crisis team that is responsible for making decisions and communicating those decisions throughout the supply chain. Run scenarios with the team ranging from the best case to the worst case and

a way for a company to minimize or eliminate foreign exchange risk, as well as the risk of commodity price increase.

 Design for globalization: The simpler the product design and the fewer parts involved, the less risk there is in a global supply chain. Leading firms design for globalization

 Lean/Six Sigma: When firms apply the principles of Lean and Six Sigma to their global supply chain, along with value stream mapping, they find a multitude of ways to reduce cycle time and variation by eliminating wasteful activities in the process. Risk diminishes as cycle time and variation decline In conclusion we can say that supply chain risk mitigation management plays a very important strategic role in the operations of a successful business, protecting its most valuable assets while creating a unified and high performance risk mitigation model.

References:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_c hain_risk_management  http://globalsupplychaininstitute.utk.e du/publications/documents/Risk.pdf  https://longitudes.ups.com/riskmitigation-in-the-supply-chain/

Supply Chain Management in an age of Internet of things -

Natesh Kaarthik NRR

Introduction The Internet of things (IOT) is the connection of every object on the earth, more precisely, devices talking to each other! In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world we expect every item we buy to be connected to the internet. An average individual nowadays has a laptop, a smartphone, a smart TV and even a smart refrigerator and smart AC all connected to the internet. Various devices such as the car GPS, traffic system, weather stations and many more are connected to each other and share information among them. All these information when placed in Big Data over internet can enable to take better decisions such as which alternative route to choose in case we know about a traffic jam in the highway or based your car position your Smart AC can even optimize your room temperature for your arrival or all this enormous information can be analyzed to ensure better business solutions. Real time customer demands can be analyzed and this information is made to be visible to the entire supply chain network making it a reactive supply chain network by optimizing the operations and logistics to meet this demand in the most cost effective and timely manner.

Not only devices but customers will also be connected through wearables and bodyfitted sensors. IOT will evolve the business process and supply chains to meet the newer customer or user expectations.

How does IOT transfer and connect information of devices in a supply chain? The critical components in the Internet of things are RFID tags and Sensor networks. Tags are characterized by a unique identifier which can be applied to objects to monitor them in real time without being in the line of sight. Sensory networks cooperate and synchronize with these RFID systems to ensure better track of the status of the objects such as their location, temperature, movements etc. NFC (Near field communications), Wireless sensors and Actuators along with RFIDs are utilized to ensure faster and optimized connectivity of devices and their relevant information.

All these devices connected to each other in the internet and constantly sharing information constitute the Internet of Things (IOT). According to Gartner Statistics, by 2020 it is estimated that there will be anywhere between 26 Billion to 50 Billion devices connected to the internet. 46

intimated by the system regarding the issue and potential delay in the delivery of goods so that necessary actions can be taken. All these actions and decisions are done in real time. Real time monitoring of almost every link in the supply chain makes it more agile. • Consumer data can be analyzed to predict future demands

Fig: 1 Information Value Loop Source: “Forging Links into Loops- The internet of Things potential to recast supply chain management”, by Joe Mariani, Evan Quasney, & Michael E. Raynor

IOT connects information and devices. Fig.1 portrays the Information Value loop of how the data is created, collected and acted upon in an IOT and supply chain. An Act or response given by any device is monitored by a sensor. This sensor creates the information and the status of the device. This information is communicated over the supply chain and the data is collected and aggregated. This information is analyzed by corporates by utilizing augmented intelligence systems. Then decisions are made using an Augmented behavior technology that enable automated actions which results in decisions that improve the productivity and efficiency of the supply chain. To illustrate this with an example, consider a delivery truck which is facing a mechanical difficulty. A sensor in the engine and other critical parts can alert the driver, an automated system can alert the nearest repair center and part supplier to get the necessary repairs done promptly, the customer and other stakeholders are

• Visibility of real time and accurate information throughout the supply chain thereby eliminating bullwhip effect • Manufacturing orders can be reconfigured or changed in a timely manner to match the new demand • Systems can be configured to make automated decisions based on the analyzed data • Entire upstream and downstream logistics can be tracked and optimized more efficiently and effectively • Inventory management and procurement can be automated based on demand • Various services such as machine repair, parts replacement request can be automated based on the collected information of device status

Industry examples to illustrate the improvement of supply chain through IOT: Hero MotoCorp, needed a way to improve its visibility on the fleet of vehicles that are available in different locations to ensure that their dealers were provided with prompt information regarding the availability of vehicles. They GPS-enabled 47

their fleet to get real time data of truck location and linked it with sales and distribution data. This enabled dealers and sales teams to get real time information on location of the vehicles. IOT enables supply chains to not only minimize variations but also to respond to these variations to mitigate it. General Motors (GM) installed a network of sensors in its various plants to measure humidity in its buildings. In case the measurements from the sensors are above acceptable limits for painting vehicle bodies, then the next vehicle body on the line is automatically routed to a different manufacturing process to ensure that there are no adverse effects. This reduced the repainting and downtime and saved GM millions of dollars. A connected supply chain of IOT enables location tracking, remote inventory level monitoring and automatic reporting of material consumption as they move through the supply chain. Dellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s supply chain is example of connected supply chain. Dell ensures an effective CRM (Customer Relationship Management) which ensures that employees are actively engaged with the customers to identify customized choice to fit their needs. These orders are then translated to manufacturing facility, which is able to build more than 20,000 custombuilt products. As and when parts are required the communications to suppliers are set to ensure that required materials are delivered to specific buildings and manufacturing lines. The IOT data and automation of specific process enables complete plant floor automation control. Sensors continuously detect the operating parameters and in case

of abnormalities send instructions to actuators to adjust the process to ensure normalcy of operations. Apotex, a Canadian pharmaceutical manufacturer utilized automated guided vehicles, RFID Tracking, and process flow tracking to enable consistent batch production which included automatic identification of materials, ingredients and additions of the same at the right time and also constant communication with the operators. This increased the productivity, quality, safety and lowered costs. Further, the facility was also honoured with the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Facility of the Yearâ&#x20AC;? award by the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering.

Problems faced in implementing IOT technology for supply chain improvement: 1. There are a myriad of networks, sensors and technologies. They should be selected in such a way to ensure standardized communication over the internet which is both effective and efficient 2. IOT software platforms must integrate with enterprise systems to manage, analyze and share data 3. The entire chain of information must be secured and encrypted to ensure that the data shared is secure 4. The network and infrastructure should be flexible and scalable to meet the increase in number of connected devices and Big Data shared over time

Future Scope of IOT in Supply Chain Consider an entirely interconnected world of things. A smart refrigerator can detect the things stored in it and makes an entry about each item stored over a regular period of time. Augmented intelligence technology can be utilized to enable the fridge to detect if has a shortage of items. Based on the regularly stored items in the fridge augmented automation systems can be programmed to connect to the network and place an order for the replenishment of the items in the nearby supermarket in online. The supermarket regularly analyzes the items maximum sold to identify the market demand. Sensors are placed in the supermarket to detect the brands most viewed, most purchased and least purchased by customers in real time. Based on this data the supermarket inventory and procurement system can be designed to forecast the customer demand. This analysis is utilized accordingly by the system to place automated orders to the manufacturers and suppliers to meet the demand. The Based on the orders received from the supermarket the manufacturers and suppliers source raw materials and produce the ordered products. They are faster and are more reactive to the change in demand by optimizing or adjusting the manufacturing process as all the information transferred is real time and accurate. Thus eliminating wastage, improving revenue and reducing costs. Consider a fully automated logistics system. The entire transportation industry is taken care by unmanned vehicles which are controlled by intelligently programmed

systems which shares data regarding the road traffic, status of vehicle, location, speed of the vehicle and destination. This can be used by the entire Internet of things to aggregate the information and enable an optimized transportation system which has vehicles travelling in the optimum speed, route and position to ensure timely, safe and accurate journey plan to reach to destination. With the advent of Internet of Things the world is changing in a rapid pace. Supply chains, business processes and everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way of life is changing. Soon from just smart items such as phones, TVs, refrigerators and homes, the technology is evolving to form fully smart cities. The next phase will be to develop and sustain a smart world where each and every object communicates with everything else to maintain a comprehensive smart supply chain where every link is synchronized everywhere. And that day of developing such a technology is not too far ahead.

References: 1. Designing for Manufacturingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Internet of Things by Cognizant. http://www.cognizant.com/InsightsWhitep apers/Designing-for-ManufacturingsInternet-of-Things.pdf 2. Forging Links into Loops- The internet of Things potential to recast supply chain management. http://dupress.com/articles/internet-ofthings-supply-chain-management/.

3. Supply Chain Management in the era of Internet of Things http://www.happiestminds.com/whitepaper s/supply-chain-management-in-the-era-ofinternet-of-things.pdf 4.

things-five-challenges-that-ciosface/articleshow/48001826.cms 6.http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes. com/2015-07-10/news/64283085_1_iotdevices-hero-motocorp

The Internet of Things : A survey.

http://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf _file/0006/97026/The-Internet-ofThings.pdf 5.http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ma gazines/corporate-dossier/the-internet-of-

Fun Facts! -Pooja Deshpande

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”, well said! Even though “Co-Operate” stands for all the new supply chain trends and creatively innovative ideas, here are some of the fun facts about Supply Chain:

The term “logistics” is actually used since 1898. Isn’t “logistics” too old for us? A pack of Wrigley’s gum was first scanned in a supermarket in 1974; realizing efficiency of barcodes. However; barcodes were FIRST used to label railroad cars! According to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), it is estimated that it costs approximately $0.37 to deliver a box of cereal to the U.S. consumer. I wonder how much it would cost in India to deliver one “Roti”! 53% of supply chain practitioners surveyed across industry think of cloud computing as “interesting, but unclear usefulness”. Pure Ignorance or a Resistance? If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be 26th largest economy in the world. Now, that’s a real ECONOMY! 10% say they are supporting a “smaller” number of SKUs in response to digital demand. This proves that there is macro trend towards more SKU complexity. Seems like a CRUCIAL opportunity! 35% of hi-tech companies have fully implemented social and environmental responsibility initiatives with key suppliers whereas only 9% of the Healthcare and pharmaceuticals companies have made such moves. Huge gap - 9% to 35%!

The 2nd highest rated “disruptive and important” technology among respondents is digital supply chain, which is a light-speed version of production and distribution delivering any value-add that can be digitised, like print-on-demand packaging, vehicle entertainment systems, etc. Industry is leveraging EVERY opportunities that a customer is willing to pay for! Logistics operations deliver the equivalent of 16,000 swimming pools of milk every year. Hats off to the capacity! Only 31% say that they use social media to inform product innovation priorities. Do other 69% companies, without a social media presence, actually exist? Fewer than 17% view emerging markets primarily as low-cost sourcing opportunities while 34% are looking mainly for new sales growth and 48% equally seek sourcing and sales in emerging markets. Globalization is indeed a two-way street! Mexico is the 6th highest rated growth opportunity, trailing only the BRICs and the United States. Emerging markets to the target markets jump looks like a sweet journey! 31% declare sales an “essential” skill for supply chain professionals, giving them direct experience in sales. Considering how highly respondents rate change management, 74% say it is essential. May be this is really about selling INTERNALLY! Geopolitical instability jumped 20% as a risk concern between 2013 and 2014, which is a point of concern for all the international supply chain organizations. Pretty big jump, compared to the small jump in natural disasters! If you joined together all the sausages that the logistics industry delivers in a year, they would reach beyond the moon. That’s more than 384,400 Km! The biggest lorry in the world carries That’s 272,155 Kg or almost equal to 43 elephants!

300

tons

material.

The biggest ship in the world can carry the Eiffel Tower and an Airbus comfortably. "Barzan", one of the container ships that is still in service!

Logistics operations deliver nearly 4 billion meals to pubs every year in the UK. That’s enough to feed 2/3rd of the world’s population! Amazon's warehouses have more square footage than 700 Madison Square Gardens and could hold more water than 10,000 Olympic Pools. Jeff Bezos truly rules!

12 million RFID tags were used to capture data and track movement of objects in the physical world had been sold in by 2011 and by 2021, it will be 209 billion. Thanks to the Internet of Things!

References:    

https://cscmp.org/media-center/facts-global-supply-chain http://www.integracore.com/blog/supplychainmanagement/suprising-and-fun-factsabout-the-history-of-the-supply-chain/#.Vdc2VPmqqko http://www.scmworld.com/columns/beyond-supply-chain/top-10-supply-chain-factsof-2014/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/see-some-interesting-facts-supply-chain-aroundworld-mohammad-mamun

Team OpCellence OpCellence is Operations Club of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune. The club has started its journey in January, 2014 and the first year itself has seen many activities like Internship guidance sessions, Six Sigma Green belt certification, Certification guidance sessions to name a few. Now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to assign responsibility to the newest members of the club. As a part of yearly selection process, we are welcoming three new members as Junior Team:

J-Team

Parvathy Sundaresan MBA-I, Operations

S-Team

Bhavik Makwana MBA-II, Operations

Nitin K. Nandan MBA-I, Operations

Debopam Das MBA-II, Operations

Natesh Kaarthik MBA-I, Operations

We congratulate the J-Team and wish them all the best for the future! 54