Blanka Transport, Inc.

After several years of driving long-haul trucks, Joe Blanka founded his own trucking company, Blanka Transport Inc. (BTI), which specialized in less-than-carload shipments in the midwestern part of the United States. Joe developed a successful method for scheduling BTI's runs that met or exceeded the delivery expectations of its customers. As a result, BTI shipments were growing at a rate between 15 and 20 percent per year. The growth, however, was not evenly distributed across BTI's territory. On some routes, capac- ity was overloaded in one direction and underloaded in the other. Joe noticed that the imbalance problem was not stable across time. In some months capacity was short in one direction, and in other months it was short in another direc- tion. He thought that one way of solving the problem would be through marketing, by offering incentives to customers whose shipments would improve load balance. Another approach to the problem was to analyze and restructure the route-equipment combinations. He also thought that it might be possible to warehouse some less-urgent shipments for short periods in order to help the balance. Joe's son, the ? rst member of the Blanka family to attend college, was a senior in engineering school. He had just completed a course in project management, and after brie? y describing some of the basic concepts to his father, he sug- gested that a project might be a good way to deal with the bal- ance problem. He thought that the Marketing Manager and the

Route Manager could serve as project co-managers. He also felt that some of the older, more experienced drivers might be helpful. The objective of the project would be to decrease the size of the route imbalances by 75 percent in a 1-year period.

Questions: Is this a proper approach to the problem? What, if any, helpful suggestions would you make to Joe?