Analysis of Scheduling in Woolworths Transport Department Operations

This report provides an in-depth analysis of scheduling within the Woolworths transport department, exploring the critical role it plays in the company's operations. It examines the various challenges faced, such as late deliveries due to vehicle routing problems, poor weather conditions, and vehicle maintenance issues. The report also addresses internal issues like poor coordination between departments and the impact of contracted transportation companies. It proposes solutions such as improved vehicle maintenance, better coordination, and strategic use of technology for logistics and tracking. The report emphasizes the need for efficient scheduling, identifying key improvements, and integrating modern technologies to enhance the transport department's overall effectiveness, ensuring timely delivery of goods and raw materials. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of a well-managed transport department for Woolworths' continued success in the competitive retail market.

Running Head: SCHEDULING IN TRANSPOT DEPARMENT
Scheduling In Woolworths Transport Department
Student’s Name:
Institution Affiliation:

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Abstract
Organizations are made up of different departments that work jointly to ensure the
smooth running of the business activities. The transport department oversees the movement of
products from the company to the market, the raw material from the source to the company and
movement of any other staff within the duty. Proper coordination of all the activities within the
transport department is essential to the business operations, and only if all the activities are well
scheduled and implemented. The schedule is subject to change, depending on the certain both
internal and external constraints.
Introduction
Every business organization thrives well with proper planning and coordination of all
departments that oversee separate tasks and responsibilities. The departments include human
resource, transportation department, marketing and sales department and production and service
departments. Within the departments, various projects are supposed to be properly managed to
conform to other departmental projects. The harmonious coordination of all the departments
ensures successful management of the organization as a whole. The purpose of this article is to
examine scheduling in the transport department, how it affects the operation of the company. It
discusses the critical issues that arise within the department and how to resolve the issues and
what should be done to improve on the transportation department about the scheduling of the
activities. The article further examines the gaps, analyses them and come up with a proper
revised operation management in relation Smart. It ends with an evaluation of the developed
management process against the common best practices.

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Woolworths is an Australian largest supermarket chain that poses an extensive retail of
about 995 throughout Australia and some in New Zealand (Arli et al., 2013). The company
forms the second company by revenue in Australia and mainly deals with take away liquor, fresh
food products such as fruits and vegetables, petrol, hotel and general merchandizes. Transport
department at Woolworths oversees the movement of goods from the supermarkets, warehouses
to various retail stores for easy distribution to customers, and the transportation of raw materials
such as farm produce to various supermarkets and retail stores. The department uses a variety of
means such as trucks ships and parcel services. For proper delivery of all these products, the
departmental heads must do proper scheduling. Scheduling is definable as the process of
arranging, controlling and optimizing the workload thereby allocating proper mechanism (Nurul,
2017).Scheduling in transport department , therefore refers to the process of making a planned
procedure in a written form for a particular objective concerning time for completion (Gestrelius
et al., 2017). In the transport department, a schedule is drafted by the manager and it always
indicates the period, the vehicle number and the personnel responsible for ensuring that a
particular products or raw materials are taken to the required destination (Karuno & Yuda, 2011).
For such proper movement, proper scheduling to get accomplished and the process
requires logistical approach. Efficient scheduling of the transportation department needs deep
concern in allocating the vehicles and determination of the routes within the given due dates
(Michaelis & Schobel, 2009). Just like any other departments such as production, the transport
department faces different issues that affect their scheduled programs on the delivery of the
products to the determined by customers requirements and needs. Woolworths Company engages
itself with various types of transport modes, which are the road, rail air, and water. The transport

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department uses different criteria to determine e the form of transportation (Tian &
Demeulemeester, 2013). In case of urgencies, the department, the department will deploy a more
reliable, a quick mode such use as air transport while the bulk and heavy will require the use of
trucks. The scheduling also depends on the stipulated delivery date, the possibility of product
damage.
The most common problems are the vehicle routing problem, bad weather, and poor
status of vehicles. The Woolworths’ transport department scheduling program depends on
numbers of issues such as the number of routes and destinations, the number of available drivers,
the distance that is covered to make the distributions, the road systems and conditions, the nature
of the goods to be distributed and the nature of circumstance. The schedules are into two
different categories, which are local and international deliveries (Wang, 2013). The local
transport schedule ensures distribution of the products within the locality of the company. Such
moving the bulk loads of the products from the company to the airports, local warehouses ports
using roads, while the international scheduling involves the movement of the products and the
raw materials to and from the foreign countries (Sama et al., 2015). The process will include the
use of contracted companies since Woolworths is not able to sustain the transportation of fruits
and fresh vegetables from foreign countries such as United States, China, and Netherlands
(Hanus & McClarre, 2016). The international movement involves different logistics such as
freight forwarders, clearing agents and the service inspections that are responsible of ensuring
that all the border-crossing goods conform to the policies.

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Scheduling issues faced within the Transport Department.
The main issues faced by the department are the late delivery of the products and fresh
produce from the farms , caused by different factors such as less number of trucks owned by the
company and that are in poor status hence end up being inefficient during bad weather seasons.
The bad weather that interferes with the transportation since many trucks cannot go through the
farms that are muddy, resulting to stacking (Peng et al., 2013). As a result, there is delay in the
delivery of the fresh produce that may lead to them going bad. The delay of the many raw
materials is transmitted to the production process that eventually changes the period of the
provision of the products to the customers. The railway transportation system that is cheaper
mode of transport does not favor Woolworths services as the most of the heavy products are the
farm produce, and the railways line does not run to the sources of the fruits and vegetables,
hence forcing the company to use the trucks. There are times that Woolworths has to contract
other transportation companies to enable it to distribute its products to those regions that are far
for example in the international markets. The Contracted transportation companies such as air
cargo and Railway Corporation always cause inconveniencies with departure and arrival time
that keep on changing (Nossack & Pesch, 2013). Most of them also have fixed to schedule most
probably a weekly time plan and with a fixed amount of load. The problem arises when the
Woolworths delays sending the packed packages to the flight, meaning that there will be no
delivery to the international customers; as a result, the sales are affected. Some of the contracted
transport companies’ Offices are far away from Woolworths Company, hence creating more
expenses in the delivery of the products. The unreliability of many contracted transportation
departments and poor coordination of the organizational units results into products delivery time
changes.

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A large number of third parties authorities such as brokers, traffic police, port authorities
and customs agents that are involved in transportation end up taking a lot of money from the
tracks; this also makes the most expensive . Poor coordination of the departments also is a major
issue. The client service department at times fails to deliver the orders to the production and
dispatch department, affecting the process of packaging (Arli et al., 2013). The delaying at the
end forces the transportation department to use additional means to ensure that the customer’s
orders are delivered within the period. Such inconvenience leads to the extra use of money and
resources that are outside the plan. The poor status of the trucks also increases the probability of
the vehicles facing accidents, and such accidents lead to the loss of the millions of the company’s
products. The weather disturbance is a common issue that affects the transport department, as
adverse weather conditions result in the delay of both the trucks and freight deliveries. During
the bad weather, the estimated times always change.
How to address these issues
It is very evident that for the customer to receive the product at the specified time, all
departments must be in harmonious coordination so as the production, the packaging, and the
dispatch areas the stipulated period. With any delaying of any activity, then the scheduling of the
transportation department is bound to change. The manager should ensure that all the trucks get
good maintenance by changing the worn out tires, the brake system is properly working, and the
headlights are clear to illuminate the way during the night transportation. The manager should
also ensure that enough shipping trucks are availed to avoid any inconvenience to the deliveries
of the products and raw materials to customers and the company. It is beyond human being to
control the weather, but it is within the capability of the human being to ensure bad weather does
not adversely affect the operations. The manager can ensure this by having the proper trucks that

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are “all seasons” truck tires; this will avoid any vehicle stacking or even sliding during rainy
seasons. On the issue of other contracted transportation companies, the manager should ensure
that the agreement signed is accommodative to avoid any undelivered due to late submission of
the products to the freight. The contracted transportation companies should also be reliable in
times of the emergency and are viable financially to cover the cost of shipping. The manager
should also push the company to go an extra mile and plan how to acquire a private cargo
airplane that will solve the issue of the inconveniences.
What should be done to improve the Logistic issues
It is in no doubt that transport logistics is very critical Woolworth’s company success,
therefore essential improvements are needed to see the company stay in the global market. The
key logistic issues that are facing transportation departments are inadequate number of carriers,
containers, and transportation options. Therefore, in order to improve logistically, Woolworths
must familiarize with the available modes of transport that are cost effective and reliable.
Woolworths should also familiarize with the international trade and regulations to enable it
efficiently venture into the foreign countries. The familiarity will help the company from
engaging into unnecessary law cases. Due to the global technological change, many businesses
embrace the use of the internet to improve on the transportation logistics, such as mobile tracking
technologies and mobile printers. (Bodhani, 2012).The transport department can improve
logistically by improving the end-to-end visibility to sustain profitability and viability. The
manager should be able to detect any environmental issues that may cause the delivery delaying
of the products to customers, especially to the areas that need airlifting. These weather changes
can always be detectable by the improved mobile devices such as barcode scanners and radio
frequency identification to provide information on climate changes. The mobile technologies

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help the department to improve the efficiency by giving information on the real-data time across
the entire supply chain.
Trucks management is essential in the every organization's Transport department and
therefore calls for an outstanding manager that can oversee proper operations. The everyday use
of the trucks leads to wear out of every part that must be replaced and properly maintained to
keep the machines in use for a longer period (Day & Tosey, 2012). Poor scheduling of the trucks
may also lead to a standstill when all fleets are out on the road and leaving none for any
emergency use. Therefore, to maximize the productivity of the trucks, the manager should use
the new technologies such as the mobile scanner, computer, and the radio frequency
identification to keep in planning and keep the fleet moving harmoniously. The mobile devices
can capture, share, and manage data on the trucks allowing continuous communication with the
drivers, who gives emergency updates for immediate actions to be taken by the office.
Woolworths Company can assist in transportation department by increasing the number
of the warehouses in far regions and storing the goods according to the customer’s preference
report. Through doing this, the problem of delay is solvable as the products can be easily
distributed and accessed by the potential clients (Yaghini et al., 2012). Distributing the
warehouses tends to be cost-effective, as less fuel usage. Systematic planning and scheduling of
all the activities should conform to other departmental programs such as the production timetable
(Hanus & McClarre, 2016). This conformity will allow the transport department to know the
time of deliverance of a particular product and when the production staff is ready with it, it will
assist the manager to assign the drivers accordingly.

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Gap analysis
Even though Woolworths Company has an extensive distribution of products throughout
Australia, they have not adequately met the customers’ demands because of the continuous rate
of growth of customers shopping (Asgersson, 2012). The primary deficiencies within the
Woolworths business transportation department that affects schedule activities because of the
inadequacy of the owned trucks that are not able to fulfill the demand of the distribution of the
products within the locality, as a result, the company spends so much in contracting other
transportation companies. As a result, calls for more sourcing of fresh fruits and vegetables,
which not met adequately with the Australian farming. The problem Chain addresses this
problem through the import the fresh fruits and vegetables from other countries such as from the
United States and Netherlands (Zhang et al., 2014). The importation faces some of the
constraints such as the international policies, that high perishable products in case the flight's
delay. The company is not also able to reach its target as there are fluctuations of the customers
buying habits that are mainly affected by the seasons changing economic status and introduction
of potential competitors. The situation always pushes the average prices to fall even despite the
fact that the availability of the fresh produces making the market share to decline in 2016 as
compared to the previous years. Woolworths Company concentrates the activities in Australia
and part of New Zealand, and to make a command on the global market, and the company should
expand its warehouses, supermarkets, and retail stores to other countries.
Many business companies have to use SMART to improve their performance. It is the
best way to set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Due to
a large number of employees within the company especially the transport department, smart
scheduling is very vital so as the vehicles and the drivers can be organized hourly through the

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use of cloud-based technique rather than the use of either whiteboards or simple pen and paper,
that are tiresome (Rocha et al., 2012). This technique is also is also advantageous since it allows
the transport department to avoid the chaotic moments such as holidays or festivals when most of
the drivers might tend to take days off. Smart scheduling also allows the transport department to
keep the driver's data of work that the manager can use to identify any deficiency among the
team (Prabhahar & Ravichandran, 2013). Smart scheduling does not only benefits the transport
department but the employees too within the department as they can view their working schedule
through the use of mobile applications and organize themselves in case of any changes in the
program. Through the mobile technique, the employee can request time off or accept additional
shifts.
The developed operational management, smart scheduling is more efficient than the
typical programming practice as a better and accurate timetable can be established that will
oversee the delivery of raw materials and products to their destinations at the required times
(Prabhahar & Ravichndran, 2011). The successful management of the movement of the goods
will reduce the cost and increase the customer's satisfaction since there will be a good
maintenance of the truck, a proper tracking system and well working hours for the staff to ensure
continuous service to the customers.
Conclusion
For smooth operation of the transport system in every organization, quite some issues put
in places, such as the availability of the vehicle, availability of drivers, the distance to be
covered the delivery time and the nature of the products or raw materials. It is observable that the
there are gaps in the daily operation of the transport department that eventually makes the

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company fail to attain its goal of providing enough food products to the Australian. The company
also has more opportunities in the international market that they can use to expand their territory
and increase their global market share. Through the utilization of the smart scheduling,
Woolworth's company transport department can efficiently manage and control both the
employee's work schedule and the movement of all the tracks in the road to enhance efficiency.
Therefore, it is vital for the department in every organization to have a well-developed
scheduling to ensure that all the raw materials and the products arrive at the customer's within the
specified time.

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