Warehousing

Reading Assignment 3 Questions:

Solving Truck Deployment Challenges (pgs. 1-2)

1) If a company has their own dedicated fleet of trucks (i.e. own trucks for delivery of products or transportation services), why is aggregating fleet costs potentially a problem?

* Aggregating fleet costs are potentially a problem because it does not give the true cost of operation. Many organizations base their decisions off of the highly grouped costing and determine where to deploy their fleets but these are not always correct and a better break down of costs can assist with this problem.

Target Considers Outside Help for Fresh Food (pgs. 3-5)

2) The article discussing Target’s consideration of outside vendors for help with its grocery business is an interesting one. On one hand, the Chief Operating Officer John Mulligan knows that Target’s Supply Chain is a patchwork of systems and different parts. However, Mulligan also stated that to catch up to competitors, Target does not want to follow a capital intensive strategy. How does Target’s plan of working with outside vendors fit with the strategy of limiting capital spending?

* Target supply chain for fresh foods is unreliable so they have plans to work with outside vendors to increase online grocery sales. This works with the strategy they have of increasing stores that will ship online orders. They will limit capital spending by utilizing their stores to fill online orders instead of building warehouses and distribution centers.

Modern Warehousing Capabilities Mirror the Goals of Industrial Internet of Things (pgs. 6-8)

3) What is the benefit of machine vision systems?

* The benefit of machine vision systems is it reduces the number of packages that require manual intervention, shipping container sizes are being minimized leading to a value proposition of Machine Vision that is being buoyed by increased warehouse efficiency.

In Store Fulfillment: How to do it Right (pgs. 9-10)

4) Based on the...