Identify an emerging concept such as reverse logistics, green logistics, etc. and analyze its impact on the future of transportation and logistics management.

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Transportation and logistics management

The Final Research Project will be 20-25 pages and due in week 8. The project must include a title page, table of contents, abstract, and a reference page. The project will demonstrate the knowledge acquired through course work completed to date. The project is an application of this knowledge and requires the student to analyze and interpret the topic of interest. The use of graphics and charts is highly encouraged.

This report must be original work. This report cannot include papers submitted in previous courses.

Format

APA cover page

Abstract (1/2- 1 page)

2. Introduction to the topic, problem or thesis statement

3. Literature Review Background Research on the topic (use from week 5)

4. Discussion of your ideas on the topic and problem

5. Discussion of new solution(s) to the problem

6. Conclusion

The final paper must have the following key sections, clearly identified, though they can be titled creatively to reflect your question and interests:

I. An introduction that states the problem and why your topic is important.

The research question, clearly and concisely stated as a question. What do you hope to answer with this research? This section should also include definition of terms.

II. Literature Review – background research on this topic

III. The results/ discussions, describes what you have learned that helps answer the research question. What are you ideas about this topic?

IV. The discussion of potential new solutions.

V. The conclusion, which summarizes the key points of the paper and suggests further research needed on this topic.

VI. A list of references in APA format.

Topics for the course project include but are not limited to:

1) The convergence of transportation congestion and transportation security at a U.S. seaport.

2) A review of past Transportation legislation while developing a new proposal to address past weaknesses and omissions.

3) The transitioning of the Defense Transportation System toward complementing best practices in supply chain management efficiently and securely.

4) A review of the U.S. economy and its impact on transportation and logistics management.

5) Identify new challenges within transportation and logistics management and develop viable solutions to these challenges.

6) Identify an emerging concept such as reverse logistics, green logistics, etc. and analyze its impact on the future of transportation and logistics management.

7) Other topics will be considered.

Which methodologies are used in similar problems? What theories exist to solve these problems? What methods have been used to solve these problems in history? Which method are we going to apply to our research?

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Designing a logistic model for a complex logistic situation in Costa Rica

Chapter 1: Introduction
For this you can use the part until literature review in the Project Plan. Furthermore, use the documents: Chopra & Meindl Information and KPIs Elaboration.

Chapter 2: How does the logistic system work in Costa Rica?
Can we get Real Estate sales data to forecast customer demand?
Can we get relevant information on depot selection?
Can we get relevant information about the transportation system?

Use and expand the excel sheet: DataSet and the document Chapter 2 – Data Gathering of the Costa Rican Network.

Chapter 3: Literature review
Which methodologies are used in similar problems?
What theories exist to solve these problems?
What methods have been used to solve these problems in history?
Which method are we going to apply to our research?

Use the Literature Review provided in the Project Plan. Check the feedback of my professor to improve the Literature Review.

Chapter 4: The Mathematical Model
Workout the model in mathematical terms.

What is your advice on where to locate the logistics and supply chain activities of the company? How do the selected clusters compare to main European logistics clusters?

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Logistic Clusters: Excelling the Logistic Management of Coyote Logistics’ Operations in Northern Europe

 

Learning-objectives:
Explain and discuss the characteristics of logistics clusters using relevant theory
Identify and discuss logistics actors and activities of logistics clusters and how they relate to global supply chains
Explain and discuss the role of networks among logistics cluster actors for supply chain efficiency
Identify and characterize the main logistics clusters in Europe and globally
Analyze a Danish logistics cluster and make comparisons to Vancouver and Shenzhen

Formalia
You are assisting the manager of an international logistics company that is reviewing different locations in Northern Europe for setting up an important customer’s supply chain.

You are supposed to come up with a report that should support her proposal for the customer. The report should take the point of departure in the logistics company’s own organizational set-up and capabilities.

The manager has recently heard about the topic of logistics clusters and wants you to emphasize this aspect in the design of a global supply chain in the review report.

The manager is an academic herself and wants theory and references in your report so that she can be sure that your analysis is sound and well grounded. She also wants a proper problem statement, research question(s) and research design followed by the analysis and concluded with the answer(s) to the research question(s).

The specific questions that the report should address are the following:
What is your advice on where to locate the logistics and supply chain activities of the company? Here she wants a comparison of two potential clusters where she is especially interested in what Denmark has to offer.
How do the selected clusters compare to main European logistics clusters?
What benefits will there be from locating the activities in a logistics cluster? What are the prerequisites from capturing these benefits? (Network theory)
How does the Øresund/Greater Copenhagen logistics cluster differentiate from the logistics clusters in Vancouver and Shenzhen?
Your manager would like you to use as much as possible from the curriculum of the Logistics Cluster course, but also recommends you to search for additional information about the selected and mentioned clusters on the Internet. She expects the main emphasis on your answers to questions 1, 2 and 3 but in the end, she will make an overall assessment of the quality of the report. You can freely choose type of logistics company and/or intermediary, customer and the products your manager should help the customer handle.

Selected:
Coyote Logistics

Additional Questions to work with:
How do SCI strategies influence LCB?
How does proximity influence LCB?
How do value added logistics services (VALS) influence LCB?”
How does logistics infrastructure investment influence LCB?

 

How does scenario planning at DuPont offer an example of a company becoming outward looking in managing supply chain risk?

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SCMG/wk5/Risk Management Frameworks

Discussion Prompt:
Several elements are required of successful ERM systems. Take a look at this video on Enterprise Risk Management, which offers an overview of ERM.Section five details some requirements of successful ERM’s. Choose and summarize two of these elements. Could one of these be more important than another?
Ch. 10 offers examples of probabilistic modeling. How does scenario planning at DuPont offer an example of a company becoming outward looking in managing supply chain risk?

 

Analysis of the future of the airline: Possible expansions, possible fleet changes, possible merger, layoffs/hiring. Where is airline expected to be in five years?

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Spirit Airlines

Research Paper:
At a minimum the paper must include the following information:
A. The history of the airline (mergers, acquisitions).
B. The size, scope, and operational figures: fleet size, personnel size, and various operational measures (RPMs, ASMs, ATMs, etc).
C. Operational metrics (Revenue Passenger Miles (RPMs), Available Seat Miles (ASMs), Actual Ton Miles (ATMs), Overall on-time performance.
D. Hubs/Route Structure (what cities do they serve, what cities are the hubs, code share agreements).
E. Fiscal Data: Long-term debt, recent profit/loss (P and L) statements from last fiscal reporting period, current stock price.
F. Management structure Company Info: Key people in the company, recent personnel changes, key departments, companies mission statement, vision statement, goals and objectives.
G. Analysis of marking and/or operations strategy employed by the airline. Who is their competition?

H. Analysis of the future of the airline: Possible expansions, possible fleet changes, possible merger, layoffs/hiring. Where is airline expected to be in five years?

Select and research an organization that will be the subject of the Procurement Plan Project that you will be working on during this course.

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Government and Commercial Environments

Within the Discussion Board area, write 400–600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

In this course, you will be creating a procurement plan for a commercial (private) or government (public) organization of your choice.
Each week during this course, you will build upon this document to create your plan.

Select and research an organization that will be the subject of the Procurement Plan Project that you will be working on during this course. Provide the following:

An introduction and description of your choice organization, characterizing it as either a government (public) or a commercial (private) entity.

A breakdown of the procurement process for this kind of organization.

An analysis of how the procurement process for your organization differs from its commercial or government counterpart.

Identify the correct raw materials and proper manufacturing processes by using the knowledge you learned from this course.

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How Things are Made

The purpose of this discussion is to make the course more interesting by relating the manufacturing processes to the real-world product development and manufacturing.

You are required to find a real-world product and find out ways to manufacture it. This product must be composed of at least 10 different components (parts). Please number your components. For each component, you will identify reasonable manufacturing processes to make it from raw materials. It may involve several materials and several processes. You only need to go to the level of a specific process, not the actual operating parameters such as the spindle speed, feed rate, and depth of cut. Note that you can attach figures, YouTube videos, and documents to help explain your plan to make your selected product. You will create a new thread in this forum and post the production plan for your product.

Make sure you identify the correct raw materials and proper manufacturing processes by using the knowledge you learned from this course. There are several websites on my watch-out list, including madehow.com.

Discuss a macroenvironmental analysis of the company in the case. Financial analysis of the company in the case. Corporate social responsibility analysis of the company in the case.

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Fitbit

provide at least a 10-page report (double-spaced ) discussing the following:
– A macroenvironmental analysis of the company in the case
–A financial analysis of the company in the case
-A corporate social responsibility analysis of the company in the case
-Strategic implications from your analysis

Evaluate the MSE, MAD, MAPE, bias, and TS (i.e., the KPIs) in each case. Which of the two methods is better? Why? Use Holt’s model to estimate the demand? Is it a better method? Why?

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Demand Forecasting for Domino Pizza at Melbourne, Australia Description:

Demand for supreme pizzas at Domino’s Pizza in a suburb of Melbourne in the last 12 days are as follows:

Day Demand
1 108
2 116
3 118
4 124
5 96
6 119
7 96
8 102
9 112
10 102
11 92
12 91

Questions:
Estimate demand for the next 4 days using a 4-day moving average as well as simple exponential smoothing with  = 0.1. (4 marks)
Evaluate the MSE, MAD, MAPE, bias, and TS (i.e., the KPIs) in each case. Which of the two methods is better? Why? (3 marks)
Use Holt’s model to estimate the demand? Is it a better method? Why? (3 marks)

If management at Teens Forever is to pick only one of the two suppliers, which one would you recommend? What is the NPV of the expected profit over the next two periods for each of the two choices? Assume a discount factor of k = 0.1 per period.

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A Potential Hybrid Strategy

The local supplier has also offered another proposal that would allow Teens Forever to use both suppliers, each playing a different role. The Chinese supplier would produce a base quantity for the season and the local supplier would cover any shortfalls that result. The short lead time of the local supplier would ensure that no sales are lost. In other words, if Teens Forever committed to a base load of 900 units with the Chinese supplier in a given period and demand was 900 units or less, nothing would be ordered from the local supplier. If demand, however, was larger than 900 units (say, 1,100), the shortfall of 200 units would be supplied by the local supplier. Under a hybrid strategy, the local supplier would end up supplying only a small fraction of the season’s demand. For this extra flexibility and reduced volumes, however, the local supplier proposes to charge $11/unit if it is used as part of a hybrid strategy.

Questions:
Draw a decision tree reflecting the uncertainty over the next two periods. Identify each node in terms of demand and exchange rate and the transition probabilities. (8 marks)
If management at Teens Forever is to pick only one of the two suppliers, which one would you recommend? What is the NPV of the expected profit over the next two periods for each of the two choices? Assume a discount factor of k = 0.1 per period. (6 marks)
What do you think about the hybrid approach? Is it worth paying the local supplier extra to use it as part of a hybrid strategy? For the hybrid approach, assume that management will order a base load of 900 units from the Chinese supplier for each of the two periods, making up any shortfall in each period at the local supplier. Evaluate the NPV of the expected profits for the hybrid option assuming a discount factor of k
= 0.1 per period. (6 marks)