This past week, some of my family and friends from Manila and Doha posted on social media that they had been vaccinated for covid. Some of them are the same of my age, so I wonder what are the reasons why I’m not receiving it? why in other places are delayed? I searched on the internet to know the situation in distribution and here is what I discovered…
As reported by CBS Evening News, the vaccine needs to be stored in the box at a certain temperature (Pfizer: 94 degrees below zero Fahrenheit) using dry ice made from carbon dioxide (CO2), which is not easy to maintain during shipping. So, for me that’s one of the gaps that caused delay in the distribution.
Above is a rich picture that highlight the issues, based on the video and my personal observation. What about you, can you think of another issues and propose a solution to fill the gap? Please write in the comment section.
As an MGEPS student, I believe that the prompt above (title) would be an interesting topic to discuss and even debate, specially in Logistics class.
It’s been 5 days since the blockade occurred in the Suez Canal, one of the world’s important trading/shipping routes. The manager of the canal is faced with a challenge of how to move the Ever Given ship that has a capacity of 240,000 tons.
The Great Big Story (2017) reported that “with a population of over 18 million people, Mumbai is one of the world’s largest megalopolises. To put it mildly, the city can be unpredictable. But amid the chaos, Mumbai has one thing that is nearly 100 percent reliable: your lunch delivery. The dabbawalas of Mumbai are an institution. Dabbawalas deliver homemade lunches to workers across Mumbai—nearly 200,000 of them per day. Crisscrossing side streets on bikes, balancing trays that weight almost 150 pounds on their heads, this group of 5,000 men helps define the city. But it’s not just the staggering quantity or exhaustive work that sets these guys apart; their 99.9% delivery accuracy and incredible efficiency is the envy of delivery services the world over”. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/c/GreatBigStory/about)
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, this is Vincent. How may I help you today?” This was my opening spiel when I was taking incoming calls for Virgin Mobile USA. So, after our discussion about queueing last meeting, I was inspired to relate it to my work experience in the call center industry where queueing is one of the challenges that needs continues improvement. Garcia (2020) stated that “queues grow due to variability and they do not disappear when utilisation levels are high.”
Most of us have experienced stress from waiting so long to talk to customer service over the phone. One of the reasons is called call queueing.
What is call queueing?
Call queueing is a concept used in inbound call centers. When calling a phone system that uses call queues, callers usually hear a welcome message and an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu and are then sent into a call queue, where they hear waiting music and position announcements until an agent becomes available.
Quality Department to monitor the Average Handle Time and Average Wait Time
Apart from your direct supervisor, your performance is also controlled by the quality department. They audit your call if you comply with the standard operating procedures including the efficiency of managing the time such as Average Handle Time.
Average Handle Time, or AHT, which is the average time an agent takes to complete a call or customer interaction.
Average Wait Time (AWT), also known as Average Speed of Answer (ASA), is the average time an inbound call spends waiting in queue or waiting for a callback if that feature is active in your IVR system. AWT can be measured globally across the contact center, by ring group, agent or phone number. The traditional call center industry standard service level is 80/20, or 80% of calls answered within 20 seconds, but there are a few reasons why this might not always be an optimal number.
In this photo, I am multitasking by talking to the clients over the phone while pulling up tools from the system
According to Lui, et al (2017) “customer waiting time in queueing systems is a key factor of service quality. Customer might negatively react to the long waiting time by switching to other companies.”
In my experience from working in the call center, I discovered that agent’s expertise about the product is one of the determining factor in improving the Average Handle Time. This expertise is acquired through product training. At this stage, agents learn the different aspects of the products and get familiarized with the database such as Oracle in order to answer queries, solve issues and/or provide troubleshooting relating to the product. Part of the training is to adapt with the company’s culture in providing quality service in the shortest time possible.
In the call center industry, you will keep the interest of your clients (in this case Virgin Mobile) as your business partner so long as you provide efficient management of calls, minimising long calls because the longer the time call center agents spend in taking calls the higher the cost (clients part). The same goes for customers (callers); if the queue is long, they might abandon the call and not call anymore.
In conclusion, queues grow due to variability and they do not disappear when utilisation levels are high. So, contact centre industry will continue to innovate and renovate solutions for keeping high customer satisfaction and retention.
References:
S. Liu, J. Gong, L. Ma and M. Yu, “Influence of waiting times on customer loyalty and queueing behavior in call centers,” 2017 29th Chinese Control And Decision Conference (CCDC), Chongqing, 2017, pp. 1130-1134, doi: 10.1109/CCDC.2017.7978688.
In the logistics sector, the fleet operations plays a big part. Vehicles used by companies in this sector can reach hundreds or even more. So, the management in the use of funds in this department can be challenging. Large funds are used for petrol. Imagine yourself as a manager in this department. With the huge number of vehicles and drivers, it is not surprising if you get confused about monitoring whether the petrol allowance you gave to your drivers was used for petrol or not.
Thus, there’s a need for a system to improve the accounting for the fund for petrol. One of the systems is the fuel card. I used to work in the fuel card department. I learned a lot about the benefits of using it. Using fuel card, companies can request for monthly statements showing the date of transaction, amount of fuel purchases (and other services available at the fuel station) and balance of the card. The fuel card has many features such as monthly consumption limits. And also, it can be assigned for a particular vehicle or general use (several vehicles).
In this photo, I was topping up customers’ fuel cards
Despite the systemized use of the fuel card, the fleet operation manager may need to assign a staff member to monitor the cards because it can be used incorrectly. For example, the driver can negotiate with the petrol filler. The filler will swipe the card for 100 euros but pump for 50 euros worth of petrol and the remaining amount can be negotiated between the driver and the filler. This is just one of the irregularities I discovered in my work experience in the fuel card department.
Proper use of petrol cards are very important not only to help with accounting and reporting but also because in some governments like the UK which offer VAT refunds for fuel purchases used for business purposes also have a stake in fuel card fraud detection and prevention. So, if the use of the card is wrong, the bottom line is that the government is defrauded out of the tax that should have been paid for the fuel.
The blog of Logistics at MGEPS at UPV 