Improving Operations: BarbNBrad's Big Trucks
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BarbNBrad's Big Trucks (BBBT) trains truckers and franchises out trucks and trucking routes. Their headquarters in Hicksville has fewer than 50 people on staff - all of them are Billy-Bob's family members (a very larger extended family). However, they service over 5000 truckers and trucks. Today all trucks must return to Hicksville for servicing once every 10,000 miles. This keeps the maintenance expenses down for BBBT but increases the cost for truckers (from whom BBBT receives a percentage of their revenue). As a result BBBT has lost several promising drivers to national trucking companies with better servicing options. They now have almost 100 trucks that have been idle more than 90 days - at a cost of $1500/truck per day. In addition, truckers complain that BBBT's maintenance scheduling process requires that they waste at least half a day of drive time each way getting in Hicksville and that they often must sit idle for a week in Hicksville while they wait for maintenance to service emergency repairs and other truckers who arrived first. BBBT knows that drivers who are not on the road are not earning money. However, they are not precisely sure how much this idle time is costing them.
As a friend of a friend of one of Barb and Brad's relatives, you have been hired to provide Billy-Bob and his executive team with an analysis of performance requirement.
I am not sure where to start...if you could point me in the right direction it would be appreciated
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Solution Summary
This detailed solution helps BarbNBrad's Big trucks with a solution of how to cut down on unhappy customers, lost productivity, and better schedule maintenance. It gives links, examples, and detailed suggestions for helping the company succeed.
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It seems key first of all to increase the family! But, since that might not be possible, here is what I would advise:
- Plot the most frequent routes of the trucks and set up satellite shops to service the 5000 truckers and trucks. Returning to Hicksville is costing time and money, plus clearly they are overwhelmed with the traffic (!).
- Hire non-family members. Time to get people trained in Hicksville that can fix the trucks that are backlogged. 100 trucks idle for 90 days is 13,500,000!!! There is an immediate need to get trained labor fixing vehicles. In addition, once the back log is eliminated these mechanics could be transferred to other locations, should they desire.
-Operate like a ...
Education
- BA, University of Southern California
- MSS, United States Sports Academy
- Ed.D, Boise State University
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