CHALLENGE

Industry – Courier/Express delivery

Scenario – Pertains to package delivery to consumers living in densely populated geographies where  the parcel volumes are highest and brings unique challenges and complexity to delivery operations

Design Tool used in this Scenario – Learning launch

Description – Parcel delivery at densely populated localities need a lot of administrative and sorting  work and since the volume of parcels are high, the delivery vehicle needs to make multiple rounds  between the office and the delivery area. The multiple to and fro movement adds to transportation  cost, human cost and also increases the risk of delivery delays. I was the manager for a project which  involved design and delivery of a new operations procedure which was expected to reduce the  delivery time to such localities with minimal incremental cost and higher customer satisfaction.

SELECTION

The project team had come up with various innovative solutions to tackle this problem, but the  trade-offs between Cost of implementation Vs. Benefits realisation was not attractive for most of  the solutions. One of the solutions seemed practically feasible from all aspects; the idea was to have  an office mounted inside a customised vehicle; this would act as a moving office which can cater to  high volumes and also reduce the to and fro movement for the delivery vehicles during peak hours.

This concept did not have any predecessors and neither was it tried by any player in the industry.  The team had too many assumptions which needed some real testing to lower down the  uncertainties involved in the suggested solution. The team decided that Learning Launch would be  an ideal tool to test the concept and also gather some data and insights which can approve/disprove  the key assumptions made during the solution planning phase.

APPLICATION

The team studied different scenarios and came up with the suggestion to test the concept at 3  different metro locations with a Learning launch and had assembled a team to gather the data on  various measurements during the pilot period. Three vehicles were custom modified with office  interiors and equipped with all necessary amenities to back the parcel delivery operations. The  delivery personnel were trained on the new SOP and the pilot was scheduled to happen in parallel at  3 cities for a period of 1 month to gather the learning and decide on the future course of action

INSIGHTS

The pilot was closely monitored by the execution team and results were analysed based on the  success criteria predefined for the project. The results were impressive; the service quality metric  increased by 15% for the geographies that were handled by the Mobile office. Surprisingly the  project team noted that the operations cost was 7% lesser for the operations as compared to the

conventional delivery method; the team had anticipated 3% higher cost before the learning launch.  The findings were presented to the senior management and since the numbers were clearly  favourable; the decision committee sanctioned to roll out 75 additional such facilities across the  nation within the next 3 months!

APPROACH

The team had studied the problem and came up with a list of workable solutions and from the list,  shortlisted one solution which was most promising based on various business parameters. The  learning launch was based on various assumptions and some of the assumptions were pivotal for the  success of the solution. One thing which could have been done differently is that some of the key  assumptions could have been pre tested even before the learning launch which would have helped  avid some setbacks and bottlenecks during the learning launch.

