Totalline Transport Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Issues Identification

Mr. Eacock who is the general manager and the vice president of Total line Transport is one the owner of one of the major shipper of Canada. He has been looking for ways to reduce eliminate the late appointment fees and the detention charges for the delivery of the electronic products for one of the major Canadian electronic products shop, Electronics International. The suppliers of the major electronic products that require special handling and care in their product’s shipment hire the Total line Transport to deliver their products to the retailer’s warehouses. There are many soft costs incurred as a result of the waiting time at the time of the delivery of the vehicle.

These soft costs are created either for late arrival or for extra time required for unloading and include the late appointment fees that are charged by the retailer and the detention charges which are charges by Total line Transport. For instance, if the arrival of the carrier is not on time and it arrives late then the retailer charges the carrier $ 1000 for late or missed appointment fees. On the other hand, if the carrier has to wait in a queue at the time of unloading and there is a huge backlog then a detention charge is charged by the carrier which varies between $ 50 to $ 60 per hour.

Along with all of these issues, another issue is that all the retailers and the suppliers spend one day each week in order to identify the issues with the late delivery of the electronic products and/or what were the causes for the extra waiting time. The vice president of the company, Mr. Eacock had changed the philosophy of the company in order to emphasize on customer success rather than customer satisfaction. A range of options are being considered by hum in order to resolve all of the above identified issues. The first option is that he could request for two dedicated doors for Total line Transport at the warehouse, the second option is to cut down the waiting time by applying stickers on the boxes at the consolidation point and the third option is to deliver all the electronic products directly to the stores of Electronics International or their two distribution centers.

Environmental and Root Cause Analysis

There are a number of factors that has contributed to the number of the issues that have been highlighted above. The number is environmental and root causes for all of the above issues are as follows:

Competition in the Industry

The competition in the industry is fierce and most of the competitors deliver the same kind of the products with no difference and charge the same prices to their suppliers who are their customers. Therefore, in such a market any company has to differentiate it at a certain point from its competitors so that the company could win the customers for their delivery of their products. Since, the products are not differentiated therefore; companies have to compete by making their supply chain networks and logistics systems more efficient and reliable. The margins in the industry have also eroded because there is not much difference in a DVD player for instance, of the top five electronic companies in the market.

Totalline Transport Case Solution

Therefore, in order to keep the costs of the operations low and win the competitors in the market on margins, the companies had to make their delivery networks more strong. Total line Transport had shown impressive performance over the years which could be seen by its profits and revenue growth from 2000 to 2002. The management of Total line had to sustain its operations and win all the new opportunities as they emerged. Therefore, they were burdened to maintain efficient delivery systems which made the owner and the management of the company to consider a range of options to counter the late delivery problems at Electronic International.

Total line’s Service Concept

The owners of Total line had changed the service concept of the company from customer satisfaction to customer success. Therefore, in order to accomplish this company had to align its services with the requirements of the customers, their designed metrics and their specific objectives. The aim of the company was to build the confidence on the part of the customers so that they become successful. Therefore, the late arrivals of the trucks and the waiting time in the queues were making the achievement of this objective difficult................

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