In this issue Review Article Facts Student Article Puzzle Events Feedback at octaphi@jgu.edu.in
Volume 01, Issue 03, October, 2012
"Victory is the beautiful, bright coloured flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed.” -- Sir Winston S. Churchill, The River War, vii (1899) “Role of Real-time Location Information in improving Logistics” Rajeev Singh, CEO, Intelliplanner Software Systems Inc., New Jersey. The Centre for Supply Chain and Logistics Management, invited Rajeev Singh, CEO Intelliplanner Software Systems Inc. to enlighten students at JGBS on ‘Real time location information in improving logistics’. Mr. Singh to start with explained about Global Positioning System (GPS). These are positioning service that helps to find specific locations on the earth. In addition to GPS, Global Packet Radio Service (GPRS) - a data service, transports data in form of packets wirelessly over the mobile telephone network thus helping to track the vehicles. Logistics companies before the introduction GPS and GPRS used walkietalkie, mobile phones as mode for communicating to driver the points where the goods have to be delivered and additional requests if any by the dispatcher. However, the drawbacks with this method is inability to know the status of in transit goods or when the driver is unable to find the exact location for delivery thus raising questions on the reliability of service offered by the logistic companies. Mr. Singh cited numerous examples faced by companies during transportation and how it can be improved using GPS. He cited that about 10% of the coal gets stolen or lost during coal transportation in the central India. The other challenge is being reducing the turnaround time as 46% of the time is observed to be consumed in loading and unloading. He stressed how this challenge can be overcome by using communication technologies like mobile communication as it has become very economical to transfer data through GPRS and GPS.
Most GPS systems have the option to adapt to the changed routes in mining. However he also cited that GPS have an accuracy of 15 to 20 meters. He also explained how GPS can be used to reduce theft in coal transportation. He suggested that as GPS can track movement of vehicles one can know the points where the truck stops and these are the points where the possibility of coal getting stolen is high. He added that location information is not enough one has to integrate it with own processes to get the desired result. - Review article by Yatish Prasad Dasari, 11 JGBS Supply Chain Risk Management in a Global Economy While some of the best strategies in the world of manufacturing like Lean Manufacturing, Just in Time Inventory and Outsourcing improve a company’s bottomline; at the same time it may also disrupt their supply chains. This is true of organizations working under a single global ambit where operations are scattered around the globe. There are many risks that a company is exposed to and one of them is the supply chain risk. This indicates the many possibly causes of supply chain risks.
Globalization also has a solution to manage this risk. One alternative is to choose a substitute supplier from a different geographical region so that the problems faced by one do not affect the other.
The more different they are in their strategies the more reliable the alternate supplier becomes. Reference: 1. New Models for Addressing Supply Chain and Transport Risk, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, World Economic Forum (2012, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 192-22. - Article by Akshay Tewari, 11 JGBS FACTS – Geographical Positioning Systems (GPS) Developed in the 1970s; owned, operated and controlled by the US military. GPS is free for everyone around the world. Normal GPS accuracy is greater than 20 meters but with Selective Availability (US military could cut off access to GPS by encrypting the signal) it is only 100 meters. It is made up of 24 military satellites circling the earth at an altitude of 11,000 miles such that at any given time and location a GPS receiver gets a signal from at least 6 of those satellites at a time. They are set up in 6 orbital paths with 4 satellites spaced evenly in each of the 6 orbits. Signals from these satellites are available anywhere on the earth, 24 hours a day and are not affected by the weather. As per Aberdeen Group on businesses where GPS tracking was installed showed a 23 percent increase in productivity, while operator compliance rose almost 28 percent, travel time reduced 15 percent, overtime decreased 10 percent and subsequently fuel costs were reduced over 13 percent.
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OCTANE-The Octaphi Newsletter Mandi Auction to Direct Buy - impact on Agriculture Sector
India loses nearly 20% - 40% of its 230 million tonne of fruits and vegetables annually due to lack of proper shortage. We require more cold chains in the country. –Sanjay Kaul, MD, NCMSL
K K I T T I N G T
N O W A Z T Q R P I L E C H E L O N B M W E I A E U D U R X A S N T S E O Y C F W D A E P N Q D E B O V L H E W S V E N D O R X P B H Z O W P B G T A K A N Y A N
Answers for Vol 1, Issue 2 crossword: 1. Carousel, 2. Push, 3. Line balancing, 4. Bench Marking, 5. Six Sigma
ICAR (2010) reports a decline in the agriculture contribution to GDP in India from 30% in 1990-91 to 15.7% in 2008-09. In the same period, the average growth of the agriculture sector is placed at < 0.5% vis-à-vis the overall average growth of the Indian economy (6-7%). As reported by CII-Boston Consulting Group (2012) an Indian tomato farmer earn up to 30% of the final price paid by the consumer. With the recent policy announcements by the Indian government under the foreign direct investment (FDI) it allows up to 51 percent in multi brand retail and 100% in single brand retail sectors.
For previous issues visit: http://issuu.com/octaphi/docs Crossword Puzzle C J L W S H K F C C F A I O T B R Y A H
Submission by Oct 20, 2012 to octaphi@jgu.edu.in
1. A set of parts or materials to be assembled 2. A mathematical model in operations management used to determine optimal inventory levels 3. In manufacturing refers to a status-display station 4. A structure or group of structures arranged in a step like form 5. A rotatory storage system which bring the product to the picker in warehouse Events
The impact of this new economic reform would bring the reduction in supply chain between the suppliers and the customers to get larger share of the final selling price and it will push away the traders and middlemen. With retail traders such as Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Tesco ready to open new stores in India and direct procurement mechanisms adopted by them, it becomes even more difficult for the middlemen and traders to dominate and restrict competition in Mandi-auction system. Indian small and medium farmers want Indian government to step up further from the Mandi auction system to make a compulsory option for the retails to buy 75% of the products directly from the farmers. As such agricultural supply chains could perform better and increase contribution of the agriculture GDP percentage to the overall Indian GDP growth in the coming years.
Octaphi Operations Management Club of Jindal Global Business School organized and conducted the Poster Design Contest“PERSPECTIVES 2025” on the theme “Green Supply Chain Management” dated 16 August 2012. The winners were awarded with cash prize sponsored by JGBS faculty member and the first and second winning team received a cash prize of Rs.1500 and Rs.750 respectively along with an appreciation certificate.
Reference: 1. Big farm lobbies support centre’s retail FDI move, The Economic Times, 17 September 2012. 2. Department of Agricultural Research and Education secretary worried about reducing farm land, The Times of India [TOI], 17 March 2012.
- Article by J.Joshuva Alexander, 11 JGBS The Octane newsletters have been a source of knowledge enhancement, where views of different practitioners of the industry have been captured and articles from the students like “Low Cost Sourcing” have high-lightened interesting facts which could be useful in our future endeavours as leaders. Moreover “Concept of the Day” series has enriched our knowledge of terminologies and basic concepts of operations management. The representation of the concepts was quite catchy and easily understandable. – Prashant Ghosh (11 JGBS)
Editorial Board: J.Joshuva Alexander (11 JGBS) Yatish Prasad Dasari (11 JGBS) Saroj Koul (JGBS) Contact: octaphi@jgu.edu.in
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