UPS: Compare and contrast the management style at your organization with the management style at an organization that has adopted Total Quality Management.

Solution Preview

Please see the attached file.

The company chosen for this problem is UPS:
United Parcel Service (UPS) is as a messenger company in the United States. UPS is now a US$ 36 billion corporation focusing on the goals of enabling commerce around the globe. It handles ~15 million packages a day. Today UPS is a global company with one of the most recognized and admired brands in the world. It is also a leading provider of specialized transportation, logistics, capital, and e-commerce services. Every day it manages the flow of goods, funds and information in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.

As much as ten years ago, UPS began a plan to redesign its technical support systems and distributed-computing network. Establishing 65 centers and installing remote-access hardware streamlined operations for technical support staff and led to increased efficiency in problem-solving. The Internet has completed the loop linking the customer directly to an interactive engine that initiates the pick-up process/delivery transaction.

Package Flow Technology (PFT) is one of UPS's greatest success stories. At the heart of PFT is the "smart label" that contains all information critical to a package. The smart label enables UPS to efficiently handle the 14.8 million packages a day in the system. From the smart label it can determined exactly what delivery vehicle to load the package on to, determine exactly where in the vehicle the package should be placed, and determine the best route to get that package to the customer.

To achieve "synchronized commerce," i.e. coordinating the movement of the three flows of commerce: goods, information and funds, UPS has created an information-driven inter-modal network. In addition to extensive ground package and air express network, they have added air and ground freight capacity around the world. UPS packages and cargo can be found on trucks, planes, ships and rail and they are working to make all these modes transparent to the customer. To keep customers' supply chains moving, one of the world's largest IT networks provides detailed information about progress of each shipment. And this vast network is made available to thousands of UPS business customers who need fast, reliable deliveries - despite a congested underlying infrastructure.

Establishing itself firmly into Global Supply Chain Management:
One service area that UPS is moving into aggressively is global supply-chain management, a $3 trillion market. Since 1999, UPS has acquired 20 ...