Adam Land & Marine Ltd Company is a United States cargo company with its location in the Channelview, Texas. It was established in 1980, as a cargo handling company at the coast of the United States. However, various structural changes have accompanied its activities since its establishment and especially in the highly competitive cargo and shipping business in US.
Change to be introduced
As the company continues to find a good place in the market share, the loading department is however faced with various inadequacies where high cost and inefficiency loading activity is found within the company. Unless an adequate system in the loading department is done, the company’s activity is at a high discretion of facing high risk of been out of market. The loading department is engaged with all the facilities and activities of handling cargo. The transit system involve unloading as well as loading.
However, the loading department is faced with severity of high cost of operations due to the inadequacies faced by its structural and managerial system. It involves various stakes of insufficiency with the loading process taking quite long. Loading problems are highly costly and therefore does not provide standards of optimal costing. (Inqman, Kerstein, Brymer, 2000, p. 1) The main implication and the causing reason can perhaps be allied to the inefficiencies in lack of a value chain strategy for the support of its activities. As a basic requirement of this strategy, all the activities in an organization are supposed to be organized in a substantial manner so that the least cost is felt with the highest level of serviceability.
The process of receiving the inbound cargo is faced with the problem of inefficiencies in the receiving and the warehousing process. Either, the process of releasing outbound cargo from the warehousing and the delivery point is insufficient. (Thiru, 2006, p. 1) The general loading and offloading process is therefore faced with big challenge of activities that does not provide an authentic support for optimal costing. Either, service delivery to customers is poor and threatens the future of the organization especially in the highly competitive market where optimal costing and quality of services/output is never compromised.
The main sense of this inefficiency is however a poorly networked management system where optimal costing structures and low standards of service is compromised. Elsewhere, the technical devices which include both machinery support and the human resource capital that is of low standard is employed in providing loading facility. (Bhimani, 2003, p.45)
However, any change that adds optimal costing system is perhaps important to the organization. At one place, a suggested value chain strategy would perhaps comprehend the best strategy which would even ensure optimal costing standards above high quality of service output. Through this strategy, the company will therefore be able to pull out the economies of competitive advantages from a well coordinated management system.
(http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/industries/Transportation-Communications-Utilities/Marine-Cargo-Handling.html)
The loading department will then develop formalities in its economic efficiency where the levels of activity are done in the most appropriate manner for ensuring adequacy and flexibility in the support of its loading and warehousing activities. The most influential factor would be managerial leadership in the activities of the department through a well supported technical activity and a well coordinated procedures and processes. (Culp, 2001, p.45) It should therefore, include the approach of coordination between the organs involved in the loading department where optimal planning for the organizations structural supply channels of both loading as well as offloading is monitored.
Adequacy in this attempt implies a support for controlled costing system. This would encompass the choice in the department location of its activities as well as a well guided number of activity performances in the loading process which provides the least cost possible.
The supply of cargo and the delivery should be well monitored in the autonomy of value chain strategy with the right choice of the delivery and sourcing centers of its cargo been on the sites economical in terms of transport cost factors. (Roney, 2004, p.65) The value chain strategy will provide adequate flexibility for the balance of its activities for meeting adequacy and efficiency parameter in the loading process. The basic threshold would be standards which imply the highest standard of meeting its goals and aims in the market.
Current environmental conditions to the change
However, the short run implication to the change would be faced by severity in the environment where the structures and the general outlay of the company activities would seldom help to hold abrupt changes. The competitive scenario within the market would reflect high reflex rejection to structures that change the state of activity.
The basic factor would be the environment of operations which includes both standards of approach for ensuring the changes in the loading department concur with the required phenomenon. (Willis, Lightle, 2000, p.1) Firstly, the implementation process of the strategy would involve a change in the cost and spending system where new structures for use in the activity ought to be established. Such establishment which would even involve new programs for activities, new buildings and machinery support for the strategy would perhaps detriment and revoke its establishment in the short run. (Drejer, 2002, p.61)
Either, the process and activities are manned by human resource capital which has been developed to the current system through management action. Since they are used to the general situation, they will actively resist new changes to their general working conditions. Perhaps elsewhere, the strategy will incorporate a change in the activity and roles of the human workforce which would rationally be costly for the short run period. (Gordon, 2005, p.1) The broad change in the structures would be for providing a rationally admissible environment for the strategy which therefore compound various environmental resistance.
Generally therefore, though a good strategy which would help pull competitive advantages for the highest state of profitability, the same will not avoid partial resistance by the operational environment. (Thomson, Sheldon, 2003, p.24) The stakeholders including the workers, the physical structures and the customers will rationally conflict to one another over changes that choose to displace the originality of the processes. Elsewhere the general relativism of the organization within the business environment would lead to rational conflicts of finding equilibrium stability.
Strategies for overcoming resistance
However, a good and active role of corporate management will help to rationalize the standard support for ensuring the solution to the problem. Basically a good support for corporate management would provide coordination in the department where the stakeholder parameters in the process would actively be in coordination with one another. Management administration will provided the basic method for ensuring that the roles played by the structural outlay of the department would be in a good coordination. (Statt, 2004, p.47) Management support would help to provide adequate facilities for the instruments provided for the role playing in the department.
These include the technological management, process management, financial and costing controls, human resource management as well as others. Either, managerial activity would comprehend both internal and external management. The internal management would involve monitoring and establishing the most active role support within the internal framework of the department. External management would draw collaboration between the department and the external stakeholders such as customers. However, both sides of the managerial supply play an important role in the providing support for the best interest of the company. (Thierauf, 1999, p.52)
The problem solving through this strategy will help to formulate standards of sourcing facility for its product and customers’ at the most adequate and optimal costing standards. It will involve the most favorable arrangements with which cargo delivery to the external customer and cargo delivery to the central point at its location is made adequate. It will involve the location of the customer/product sourcing zones which are most adequate in facilitating standards of high cost saving methods. (Bannock, 2005, p.47) It will ensure methods for evaluating the sourcing and outsourcing of its products to provide the highest financial benefits.
The channel for cargo supply is structured in a phenomenon that facilitates a high competition in the market place. It should be a system of operation which provides autonomy in the competitive advantage for the organization. Through the administration of value chain strategy, the organization through high market demand will help to embrace various technical advantages in the costing facility against high levels of operation efficiency. (Byrant, 1997, p.79)
Recommendations
Summarily therefore, the loading department to this organization can only out do its current problems of high costing inefficient activities by a well founded and regulated management control through value chain strategy. This strategy will offer a support for efficiency and coordination in the activities of the department above providing the best incentive and services to its customers. Efficiency in customer handling would provide standard of approach for the most efficient methods of performing its business activities.
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