CASE STUDY

New Logistics Manager

Marcelo is the new logistics manager at BelAir LLC, a U.S. manufacturing company based in the state of Georgia (U.S.A). It provides abrasive surface preparation and spray painting equipment. The company recently started selling equipment in Sri Lanka.

An International Customer Complains

To date, BelAir’s only customer in Sri Lanka is SnapGear. SnapGear’s president, Dhruv Kumar, complained that products have not been delivered on time. Dhruv was told in January that it would take four weeks to have all the ordered products delivered to Sri Lanka, but it is now March and he has only received some of the equipment. He also noted that he had ordered electric motors that were urgently needed for a client, but they have not yet arrived, despite his flagging the order to the previous logistics manager. Dhruv has also been waiting on BelAir to send a signed statement certifying the country of origin of the products and that the products were in accordance with the invoice. Dhruv advised Marcelo that if BelAir did not fix its problems immediately, SnapGear would begin using a Miami-based company that had recently approached him.

Marcelo Investigates

Marcelo began investigating what type of equipment was being shipped and where the bottleneck was. He reviewed the purchase order and saw that SnapGear had ordered storage and blast cabinets, vacuum equipment and a few smaller items including the electric motors. With this information, he would determine how the products were sent from the warehouse and then try to track the exact location of the products on their way to Sri Lanka.

Status of Loading and Transport from BelAir

In March, BelAir started to use the budget U.S. carrier Tempo Logistics to transport larger products from the warehouse to the shipping port in Charleston, South Carolina. The owners of Tempo and BelAir were good friends. The companies had negotiated a new two-year agreement in early March. Marcelo searched through emails and files, but couldn’t find the contract from Tempo Logistics. He had no idea what the carrier was supposed to do. He contacted Tempo to get further details about the services it offered BelAir, but was unable to reach anyone there. Marcelo then went to the warehouse to speak with Gary, the shipping manager, about the products shipped to SnapGear – particularly the electric motors. He was surprised when Gary told him, “We thought that the electric motors could go with the rest of the equipment, so we packed them in the ocean container, too. You know, it might save us some money. We ran out of filling material, but don’t worry—we packed it in a way that nothing will happen to them.” Marcelo knew that some of the larger equipment had protruding parts, so he became concerned the smaller items would be damaged en route. Marcelo also realised that the blasting cabinet that SnapGear had ordered was still in the warehouse. Gary said the light box component had to be removed from the top of the blast cabinet in order to meet the ocean container height regulations, and his staff needed the company’s engineer to help make the modification before the shipment could proceed. SnapGear was also waiting on the vacuum equipment, which was found next to the blasting cabinet in the warehouse. Gary and his staff had never sent vacuum equipment by sea, and they needed a forty-foot container with an open top. Someone had ordered a hard top container instead. If the open-top container was not used, the container could not be loaded by crane onto the cargo ship. Marcelo thought to himself, “How did we not know this before?” After Marcelo finished speaking with Gary, he went back to the office and received a call from Bryan at Tempo Logistics. Bryan advised that there was a verbal contract between Tempo and BelAir; a written contract was still being prepared. He also said Tempo was experiencing a shortage of truck drivers and could not come for another four to five days to take containers to the port. Bryan added that Marcelo would be very fortunate to find a company able to assist in trucking, as finding new truck drivers to replace those retiring had become a nationwide problem. Marcelo had to find a solution to this, as he needed to get equipment moved not only internationally, but in the U.S. as well.

CORRECTIVE ACTION

Marcelo called the freight forwarders that BelAir used, ABC Global Express, which offered a full range of services, such as export packing and containerization. To save costs, BelAir did not use ABC’s U.S. pick-up service or any other packaged services. It used ABC as shipping agents and customs brokers to arrange the export customs clearance and to pay the export duties. Marcelo was used to working with freight forwarders who offered door-to-door service, so this would be an adjustment. However, ABC did offer satellite tracking, so Marcelo used his smartphone to track BelAir’s latest shipment to SnapGear through the mobile application. To Marcelo’s disappointment, the latest shipment was in Sri Lanka, but delayed due to customs clearance issues. At the seaport in Colombo, Sri Lanka, goods are unloaded from the ship and then inspected by customs and stored. The consignee has four days to provide the required documents needed for customs clearance and then remove the goods from the storage area. Dhruv has been waiting for a missing document from BelAir to be able to provide the complete set of documents to Sri Lankan customs. The demurrage has been accumulating for the past two weeks. Dhruv knew that the sales agreement with BelAir stated that SnapGear was responsible for charges once the shipment arrived in Sri Lanka, but as he believed the missing documentation was BelAir’s fault, he wanted BelAir to pay for the demurrage. As a part of the sales contract between BelAir and SnapGear, they negotiated the following shipping delivery terms: “CFR, Port of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Incoterms® 2020.” SnapGear had a solid relationship with its own freight forwarders, located in Sri Lanka, and were able to negotiate favourable freight rates. Keeping this in mind, BelAir had already offered SnapGear a reduced price for the equipment that it shipped. Marcelo called Dhruv to explain the situation, and that he would be getting all the outstanding equipment shipped, just as soon as possible. He prepared the signed statement – which certified the country of origin – and sent it by email to Dhruv, hoping the Sri Lankan customs authorities would accept it while waiting for the original document to arrive by courier in three days. Marcelo also offered to pay for the extra demurrage incurred. Dhruv was still not happy with the service offered by BelAir. He told Marcelo he would not be purchasing equipment from BelAir again.

QUESTION

1. Discuss which shipping mode(s) would be most cost-effective for BelAir in shipping from the USA to Sri Lanka?

2. Discuss which shipping mode(s) would be most cost-effective for BelAir in shipping inside the USA

Lopez Pizza shop wants to determine the best forecast technique for its dough. It evaluates the "exponential smoothing" and "Weighted moving average" methods.

By using MAPE, assess forecasting techniques and provide your advice/explanation for your choice..

a) For "exponential smoothing" consider smoothing constant is ALPHA = 0.5. The firm assumes the initial forecast for month 1 was 11 units (F₁ = 11)

b) For the "Weighted Moving average" , the weights used will be 6, and 3. (CONSIDER RECENT TO OLDEST)

Explain how and why tourist destinations are classified?

What kind of nonverbal communication differs across cultures? Give two examples of where one would expect to observe differences.

Case Study II

Beckett Organics

John Beckett enjoys vegetables, so much so that he has given up his full-time job as a lawyer to concentrate on growing and marketing organic vegetables. He started growing vegetables 20 years ago in his back garden and eventually became fully self-sufficient in supplying vegetables for the family. Partly bored with his legal job and tempted by an attractive severance package, John decided he would try to establish his own vegetable supply business. Eighteen months ago he looked around for two fields to lease in which he could grow organic vegetables.

Organic products including vegetables, is a growth market in the UK. Growers must adhere to strict guidelines in order to gain organic certification. Increasing awareness of the problems associated with many pesticides and fertilizers, coupled with an increased interest in healthy eating habits and ‘wholesome’ food, has meant that many consumers are now either purchasing or interested in purchasing organic vegetables. This is true not only of household customers, but in addition, many restaurants are using the lure of organic produce to give them a distinctive edge in the market place.

All this has meant that many of the larger supermarkets in the UK have begun to stock more and more organic produce from what was a relatively specialized market in the 1990s; the market has grown to where overall organic produce accounts for some 12% of the total UK grocery market and in worldwide terms as of January 2010 it accounts for approximately 3% of all food sales. The market for organic vegetables has grown more rapidly than other organic products and it is estimated that by 2014 some 25% of all vegetables marketed in the UK will be organic. This growth has been sustained at a rate of around 20% per year in developed countries. However, organic yields are between 10% and 20% lower than conventional agriculture, with crops like potatoes some 40% lower. Unsurprisingly, this makes organic produce on average around 40% more expensive than non-organic produce.

A.C.Nielsen Co. cite the case of the United States where organic sales eased in the second half of 2009 as middle- and upper-income families have felt the strain of layoffs and declining investment portfolios. Sales in December 2009 were up 5.6 percent, year on year, against a 25.6 percent rise a year earlier.

Organic vegetables offer several advantages over their non-organic counterparts:

• They are generally tastier, and because they are not treated in the same way, are usually fresher than nonorganic products.
• They are good for a healthy lifestyle as they contain no pesticides and chemicals.
• The fact that no pesticides or herbicides are used in their production means that they are much ‘greener’. For example, they help to reduce the problems associated with nitrates in the soil and water supplies.
• On the downside, organic vegetables are generally less uniform, and as far as some consumers are concerned, are less attractive in appearance. This lack of uniformity has also been a problem in the past with supermarket buyers who have traditionally looked for uniformity in fresh products to aid merchandising and marketing in retail outlets.

• Generally, organic vegetables are more expensive than their non-organic counterparts. Currently, on average they are somewhere in the region of 40% more expensive.

In the UK, anyone wishing to claim that their produce is organic, and market it in this way, needs to obtain the approval of the Soil Association, which checks the organic credentials of a supplier. For example in this case, they check the conditions under which the produce is grown and how the seeds used.

Two interesting developments are taking place in the organic produce market. One is the growth of home supplies. This is where the producer supplies direct to the householder. There are a variety of ways of doing this. Some smaller growers use mail-shots and leafleting to build up a client base. They then deliver locally to customers who order from a list. Very often the supplier will simply make up a box of a pre-determined value or weight containing a selection of vegetables which are in season and ready for picking. Other suppliers are using a similar system, but take their orders via the Internet. This is particularly suitable for this type of product as customers can check on a regular basis what is available and order from home. The produce is then delivered at a pre-arranged time.

The second development in the organic produce market is the growth of farmers’ markets. These markets are usually run by local authorities, often on Saturdays or Sundays. Local and other producers attend these markets, paying a small fee for a stall and then sell their produce direct to the consumer. These farmers’ markets partly came about as a result of the frustration felt by many farmers and growers at the way they were being treated by retailers and at the margins they were receiving. In addition, such markets have been successful because consumers feel they are getting fresh produce at lower prices than they might be able to obtain through supermarkets.

Despite the growth in the market for organic vegetables, after 18 months in his business, John is worried. Quite simply, his business has not been as successful as he envisaged it would be, and as a result he is not earning enough to make a living. The real worry is that he is not sure why this is the case. His produce, he believes, is as good as anything in the business. He is a very good grower and the land he has leased is perfect for the range of produce he wishes to grow. Starting with organic potatoes he now produces a range of organic vegetables including beans, sprouts, carrots, lettuce and his latest venture organic tomatoes and corn grown in poly-tunnels. Although customers he currently supplies are very loyal to John, indeed many are friends and acquaintances he has known over the years when he grew vegetables in his back garden, there are simply not enough of them.

As a result, his turnover which increased rapidly over the first year of the business has for the last six months has stagnated. He mainly supplies locally and has tried to increase his customer base by taking leaflets out and posting them through letterboxes in the area. He has done this by dividing up the housing areas in a ten mile radius around his growing area and dropping leaflets throughout the area to as many houses as he can cover on a systematic basis. Only some 2% of customers have responded with an order, usually contacting by telephone. These customers seem to come from the middle class areas. He has considered taking a stall at one of the farmers’ markets, the nearest of which is some 40 miles away and operates one day per month, but he realises this would not be enough to reach the turnover levels he requires. He has in the past supplied one or two local restaurants and hotels, but usually only when they have contacted him because they have had a problem with their existing supplier.

He has never followed these up. His growing area is currently too small to supply a major retailer, although he has been approached on an informal basis by the buyer of a voluntary chain of local grocers representing some 40 retail outlets in the county.

John is wondering where he goes from here. He cannot understand why his superior products are not selling well. A friend has suggested that John needs a more strategic approach to marketing. John is not convinced. He feels his business is too small to warrant any kind of marketing, never mind strategic marketing, and he has always felt that a good product should sell itself. He is, however, anxious to grow the business and become a leading organic vegetable supplier.

Questions 1:

What advice would you give to John about developing his business through more effective strategic marketing?

Scenario: There is a H1N1 outbreak in the area where the hospital where you work is situated. There have already been thirty-nine deaths arising from this outbreak. Do an epidemiological research of this epidemic.

Establish evidence based guidelines that will used to prevent and control the spread of the virus within and without the hospital. Create a success story of making EBP real and practical.

List and describe key biographical characteristics. How are they relevant to OB?

Ramsey Motors manufacturers water (hydrogen) powered automobiles. The company committed to producing 500,000 vehicles last year, but ended up only manufacturing half of that. The issue is with a part that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen in a process known as electrolysis. The part was supposed to be installed using an automated process, but the machines are having trouble doing this, so factory workers have to do it manually on the assembly line, causing delays. Use the balanced scorecard to evaluate this situation. Which perspective is most closely related to these manufacturing issues? Define the perspective and explain how it can be used to measure Ramsey’s performance.

Part 1

How should performance measures be viewed from a supply chain perspective?

Part 2

In what ways is a balanced scorecard similar to the SCOR model? Different from the SCOR model?

Use a resource if possible please!

TextBook: Industrial/Organizational Psychology: An Applied Approach (8th ed)

In chapter 9, you learned about many different theories for why employees are motivated to perform well. Even though none of the theories has been completely supported, each has something to offer. For this weeks assignment address the following:

1. Describe a job (or a class) you have had in which you were very motivated to perform well. Why do you think you were motivated?
2. Now describe a job (or a class) in which you were not motivated to perform well. Why?
3. Now based of the various theories you have read, as well as your experiences, design your own theory of job motivation and satisfaction. Feel free to borrow as much as you want from each of the theories discussed in your text (make sure you cite any of those theories that are not your own).

Your paper should be a minimum of 400 words

In CMH, it discusses the organizational development levers. Which levers do you think would have the most impact on leading successfully through a change initiative? Explain your response. 5 points.

CMH, “No matter how well prepared you thought you were there will be surprises- be ready to find them and respond accordingly! 5 points

1. "Consumers perceive digital firms as offering more value". What do you think of that?

2. What do you think about this kind of interview question:

You have a birthday cake and have exactly 3 slices to cut it into 8 equal pieces. How do you do it?

3. The interview time should be about checking in on the culture of an organization; how do you measure/observe the culture and evaluate if it is a fit for you?

Discuss and describe the synergy (i.e. alignment) between Gartner's business strategy and its use of information technology