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Feasibility of drone integration as last mile delivery

Sadia Samar Ali (Department of Industrial Engineering, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
Supriya Deka (PGDM-Operation and Supply Chain Management and Marketing, New Delhi Institute of Management, New Delhi, India)
Zulfiqar Ahmad (English Language Institute, King Abdualaziz University Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
Salma Ahmed (Department Of Business Administration, Amu, Aligarh, India)
Mansingh Jaswal (GenEx Logistics India, New Delhi, India)
Hemaid Alsulami (Faculty of Engineering, King Abdul-Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)

Publication date: 4 November 2019

Abstract

Supplementary materials

Padmanabhan A. 2017 “Civilian drones and India’s regulatory response”. Moushami P. Joshi and Jennifer E. Trock (2016) “India Moving Forward with Unmanned Aircraft Systems Regulations for Civil and Commercial Use” www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6d596577-7a4a-4ecc-916e-83c4d37cc90c. www.indrones.com/2017/04/27/drone-industry-india/.Zeimpekis, Vasileios; Ichoua, Soumia; and Minis, Ioannis (2013), Humanitarian and Relief Logistics. Research Issues, Case Studies and Future Trends;Operations Research/Computer Sciences Interfaces Series. Springer Publications, www.springer.com/in/book/9781461470069.

Learning outcomes

The learning outcomes are to illustrate the concept and features of cost-effective and responsive supply chain, to explain the concept of hub and spoke and milk run methods used for delivery, to identify financial, operational and technological risks, to elaborate the importance of social dimension (behavioral dimension) in any technological change in an organization and to understand the concept of management of change in organizations.

Case overview/synopsis

The case deals with a typical challenge of periodical delivery systems, in this case specifically of The Topical, an Indian periodical. The service manager of the company, Sara Jindal, recognized a problem with customer retention. She explored the causes and found that The Topical, a 20-year-old company, was losing its popularity due to the untimely delivery of the magazines. To solve the problem Jindal, tried to gain an understanding of the operational processes and realized that there was no issue in the warehouse regarding inventory control, management or order pickup. However, she found that the magazines were parceled through book post and that there was no tracking policy in the company for the deliveries. Therefore, it was not possible to know whether the magazines got delivered on time. The matter was taken seriously and as a solution, the possibility of integrating drones into the delivery system came up.

Complexity academic level

Undergraduate and Postgraduate students.

Subject code

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Disclaimer. This case is written solely for educational purposes and is not intended to represent successful or unsuccessful managerial decision-making. The authors may have disguised names; financial and other recognizable information to protect confidentiality.

Citation

Ali, S.S., Deka, S., Ahmad, Z., Ahmed, S., Jaswal, M. and Alsulami, H. (2019), "Feasibility of drone integration as last mile delivery", , Vol. 9 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-06-2018-0150

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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