K M Trans Logistics: Workshop Operations

Description

Kundanmal Mukanmal Trans Logistics Pvt. Ltd. (KM) is a well-known road transportation company in Western India, operating out of its headquarters as a family business in Jaipur. It functions as a logistics provider for flatbed steel and finished automobiles (primarily four-wheeler passenger cars and light to medium cargo vehicles). The co-executive directors are grappling with large delays with the workshop repairs that are hurting the timely truck availability and causing immense customer dissatisfaction (with about 14 per cent of the trucks taking more than one day to complete their repair). The co-executive directors believe that staffing the workshop with the right number of labourers may address the issue of long repair delays — but is the issue just with the labour availability? Is the number of bays available for repair sufficient for the volume of truck repairs? What is causing the trucks to pile up at the workshop?

Learning Objective

·To acquire first-hand knowledge of logistics management in a real life transportation company facing issues, delays and inefficiency in repair and maintenance operations. The case text also illustrates the various nuances faced by a manager of operations in a medium- to large-sized vehicle repair and maintenance workshop. ·To identify how management of labour can address labour inefficiency in workshop operations, in addition to idiosyncrasies frequently encountered while dealing with unorganized labourers. ·To gain in-depth understanding of functions in a vehicle maintenance workshop, especially from the perspective of how subtle labour problems can affect daily operations in repair and maintenance.

Keywords

India maintenance management rightsizing labour Transport management workshop operations