Attempt all the problems.

Section-A

problem1) In the IT based supply chain management, what are the criteria be recommended to measure performance of manufacturing organization? Describe the merits and demerits of your recommendations                       

problem2) describe the need for Supply Chain Performance Measures? What are the factors which contribute to management’s need for new types of measures for managing the supply chain?

SECTION B

Case Study

Passenger Interchange

In most major cities amount of congestion on the roads is increasing. Some of this is due to commercial vehicles, but by far the majority is due to private cars. There are different ways of controlling the number of vehicles using certain areas. These include prohibition of cars in pedestrian areas, restricted entry, limits on parking, traffic calming schemes, and so on. A relatively latest approach has road-user charging, where cars pay the fee to use a particular length of road, with fee possibly changing with prevailing traffic conditions.

Generally, the most efficient approach to reducing traffic congestion is to improve public transport. These services should be attractive to people who judge them by the range of factors, like the comfort of seating, amount of crowding, handling of luggage, availability of food, toilets, safety facilities in waiting areas. Availability of escalators, lifts, and so on. Though, the dominant considerations are cost, time and reliability.
Buses are often the most flexible form of public transport, with time for a journey consisting of four parts:

• joining time, which is the time required to get to a bus stop

• waiting time, until the bus arrives

• journey time, to acnrallg do the travelling

• leaving time, to get from the bus to the final destination.

Transport policies could reduce these times by combination of frequent services, well-planned routes, and bus priority schemes. Then convenient journeys and subsidised travel make buses an attractive alternative.

One problem, though, is that people have to change buses, or transfer between buses and other types of transport, including cars, planes, trains, ferries and trams. Then there are extra times for moving between one type of transport and the next, and waiting for the next part of the service. These could be minimised by the integrated transport system with frequent, connecting services at 'passenger interchanges'.

Passenger interchanges seem a good idea, but they are not universally popular. Most people prefer a straight-through journey between two points, even if this is less frequent than an integrated service with interchanges. The reason is probably as there are more opportunities for things to go wrong, and experiences suggests that even starting the journey does not guarantee that it would successfully finish.

In practice, most major cities like London and Paris have successful interchanges, and they are spreading into smaller towns, such as Montpellier in France. For the ten years up to 2001, population of Montpellier grew by more than 8.4 per cent, and it moved from being the 22nd largest town in France to the eighth largest. It has good transport links with porti of Sete, an airport, inland waterways, main road networks and the fast rail link to Paris. In 2001, public transport was enhanced with a 15 kilometer tramline connecting main sites in the town centre with other transport links. At the same time, buses were rerouted to connect to the tram, cycling was encouraged for short distances, park-and-ride services were improved, and journeys were generally made easier, Consequently, there has been an increase in use of public transport, a reduction in the number of cars in the town centre, and improved air quality. When the tram opened in 2000, a third of the population tried it in the first weekend, and it carried a million people within seven weeks of opening. In 2005, a second tramline would add 19 kilometers to the routes.

problems:

(a)  Are the problems of moving people significantly different from the problems of moving goods or Services?

(b)  What are the benefits of public transport over private transport? Should public transport be encouraged and, if so, how?

(c)  Describe the benefits of integrated public transport systems?