Category Archives: Domestic Business

Delta’s Unorthodox Scheduling System

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APRIL 11, 2014

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Delta's Control Room

“The crew of Delta Air Lines Flight 55 last Thursday couldn’t legally fly from Lagos, Nigeria, to Atlanta unless they waited a day due to new limits on how much pilots can fly in a rolling 28-day period,” writes The Wall Street Journal (April 3, 2014). The trip would have to be canceled. Instead, Delta headquarters told the captain to fly to San Juan, which they could reach within their duty limits. There, two new pilots would be waiting to take theBoeing 767 on to Atlanta. The plane arrived in San Juan at 2:44 a.m., quickly took on fuel and pilots, and landed in Atlanta only 40 minutes late.

The episode, unorthodox in the airline industry, illustrates the fanaticism Delta now has for avoiding cancellations. Last year, Delta canceled just 0.3% of its flights. That was twice as good as the next-best airlines, Southwest and Alaska, and five times better than the industry average of 1.7%.

As it cut cancellations with a more-reliable operation, overall on-time arrivals improved and Delta has fewer delays. Managers in Delta operations center (featured in our Global Company Profile  in Chapter 15) move planes, crews and parts around hourly trying to avoid canceling flights. How well an airline maintains its fleet and how smartly it stashes spare parts and planes at airports affect whether a flight goes or not. Delta’s new analytical software and instruments that can help monitor the health of airplanes and predict which parts will soon fail. Empty planes are ferried to replace crippled jets rather than waiting for overnight repairs. Typically the airline has about 20 spare airplanes of different sizes each day. About half are stationed in Atlanta and the rest spread around other domestic hubs and two in Tokyo.

This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.

 

The Danger of Workplace Noise

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APRIL 9, 2014

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Extremely loud noise on the job, as well as hearing loss from noise exposure, may cause workers to miss danger warnings, reportsNewsmax Health (April 3, 2014). Workers regularly exposed to noise levels of 100 decibels – about the volume standing next to a lawnmower – have more than doubled risk of being hospitalized for a workplace injury. Workers with hearing loss were also more likely to be seriously hurt.

“Noise induced hearing loss is a public health issue – in the US, up to 30 million workers are exposed to noise,” said a Canadian researcher. “From an occupational safety perspective, work-related injuries remain an important issue that generates significant costs for businesses, workers and compensation organizations.” Exposure to high noise levels increases fatigue, decreases the ability to concentrate and impairs the quality of communication between workers.
Both noise and noise-induced hearing loss could be involved in the occurrence of accidents. For every decibel of hearing loss, the risk of hospitalization due to work-related injury increased by 1 percent. Workers exposed to noise levels above 100 decibels had 2.4 times the risk of being hospitalized for work-related injuries compared to workers not exposed to loud noise. Workers with the combination of severe hearing loss and working in an environment where noise exposure is overly intense the risk of being hospitalized with a work-related injury is 3.6 times that of workers with neither factor.
Workers who can’t hear properly, either because of hearing loss or wearing hearing protection that’s too strong, might miss important communications and signals on the job. One thing that might help is if workers and supervisors devise special safety signals that don’t rely as much on hearing.
This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.

Laying Out the Bank of the Future

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APRIL 7, 2014

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bank“JPMorgan’s banks of the future will fundamentally upend Americans’ relationship with banking,” writes The New York Times (April 2, 2014). They will offer more services for customers in far less space. The layout of the new banks has gained urgency across the industry as a growing number of customers use mobile technologies to conduct many traditional banking functions, like check deposits and paying bills, without ever stepping into a branch. Either the bank branches adapt or they go the way of video stores.

JPMorgan is not the only institution trying to reimagine the traditional bank branch with its long rows of tellers standing behind glass. Across Wall Street, banks are looking to slash expenses and wring more profit from retail banking. Banking giants like Bank of America and Citigroup are working to overhaul branches with the goal of more closely resembling an Apple store, where employees holding tablets and other high-tech gadgets tend to customers.

Last year, Wells Fargo opened a 1,200-square-foot “minibranch” in Washington. JPMorgan, whose legacy bank branches averaged about 4,400 square feet several years ago, has already slimmed them down to 2,500 to 3,500 square feet. That firm began by convening focus groups to determine what customers wanted. The findings: space and simplicity.

Within the new branches, the teller line is no longer the centerpiece. That has been moved to the side. The focal point is now occupied by express banking kiosks, a kind of souped-up A.T.M. Aside from their new look, the machines allow more customized transactions. Customers can, for example, opt to get cash in any amount and any denomination, not just in $20 bills or $50 bills. The new machines are safer, too. Unlike traditional A.T.M.s that must be restocked with cash, these units replenish their own supplies from deposits, cutting down on the amount of times that employees have to ferry money to the vaults

This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.