A PORTAL ON EVERY FORKLIFT

It sounds like a joke, but it is a genuine process innovation dreamt of by Cargo Airport Services, the largest air cargo handling operator in North America. It is an Apple iPad mounted to the forklift!

Walking into any CAS warehouse at JFK International Airport, you will immediately notice all of the motorized equipment are outfitted with a bold red arm. Housed on the arm is an iPad, yes the ubiquitous Apple iPad, running the cargo warehouse operating system made in-house. Later this year CAS started to bring out mobile devices into the warehouse operation connecting cargo and data together, optimizing the processes between the documentation department and the warehouse, thus enabling CAS to accomplish its mission – being a truly “different kind of cargo handling company.”

It is a long standing dilemma faced by many air cargo handling operators  – keeping service quality the same or improving it while controlling or bringing down costs. With C-suite level’s sponsorship and intensive support, CAS’ ePic project team has been rolling out a series of cargo handling solutions with the latest centerpiece code-named ePic 2 introducing mobile-technology to the warehouse workforce. ePic 2 ends a decade-long tradition of cargo handling, and starts a brave new paradigm shift of warehouse operation.

Traditionally, to check in one typical import cargo shipment, the documentation department and warehouse would need as many as 26 steps / activities before it was flowed to the next process – cargo delivery the last phase during the cargo throughput time at the terminal. However, with ePic 2, the whole check in process is reduced to 11 steps / activities.  ePic 2 not only optimizes, but actually  eliminates steps, delay and/or waste with over 57% achieved efficiency. See a motion study conducted by the ePic project team: Flow Process Comparison Before and After.

What’s more important is that CAS has accomplished efficiency and productivity without sacrificing or compromising on quality.

Cargo 2000, of which Cargo Airport Services is member, specifies a set of events. Airlines have different shades of C2K compliance commitments and therefore requirements for the ground handling vendors to meet. With ePic in place, CAS will be able to exceed the compliance. For example, instead of sending FSU’s within a specified timeframe, messages can be sent against events at real time. Once ULD breakdown is done, as the location information is input into the system at the forklift, an FSU/RCF is sent. When cargo is recovered from the warehouse and on the truck, a FSU/DLV message is, once again, sent right from the forklift with one simple finger tap. Besides, the message is not only transmitted to the airline EDI system, but to the consignee’s mail box as well.

CAS sustains a steady, phenomenal growth from year 2005 to 2011. The number of employees from 347 is growing to over 1500, number of operating facilities from 4 to 22, handled tonnage from 150 to 900 million kilos per year with 13 airports in North America. Cargo Airport Services has reached this remarkable business growth record by setting its effective business objectives backed up by a simple belief: offering and materializing a clearly differentiated value proposition – a delightful customer experience, increased shareholder value, and yes, its own employee satisfaction as well.

While others are talking about streamlining and standardizing processes, CAS is focusing on optimization and, in many cases elimination of them. When others are talking about prevention of communication breakdown by increasing resource-consuming training time, CAS is going against the tide – reducing training costs by systemically instituting and simplifying SOP’s in the daily workflow.

Now as the system bears the burden of traversing cargo processing complications and complex routines, employees skillset is shifted from the time consuming, error-prone, improvised collection of information before making or improvising to make decision, to a much more simplified state of process – verifying true or false, yes or no in most cases. They will have more time to handle exceptions. As a result of this change, the service quality is exponentially increased. Employees are empowered to carry out the duties more accurately and expeditiously. In the meantime, routine SOP’s, work instructions, work sheets, daily duty rosters and so on all become clear and obvious. Therefore, the precious training resources can be devoted to more productive areas such as excellent customer service, teamwork buildup, trouble-shooting skills, and personal development.

It is almost counterintuitive to consider that improved product quality can be driven by greater efficiency. Being more efficient allows you to put more resources into quality, of course, but the surprise comes when one realizes that efficient processes lead directly to a higher quality service. With ePic, efficiency and quality are comfortably complementary to each other, not contradictory.

 

STAND AND DELIVER

Efficiency supports quality

In the popular mind, there is a disconnect between efficiency and quality – a feeling that truly competent, cost-conscious companies can’t deliver truly premium services. Quality is held to be synonymous with painstaking care, which is thought to rule out operational efficiency and incurs higher costs. The truth is that efficiency can and should go hand-in-hand with superior quality. As the case of Cargo Airport Services so clearly demonstrates, developing ever more proficient, less costly processes delivers financial savings that can then be applied to developing and maintaining ever more superior services.

Efficiency improves quality

CAS has created efficiencies that not only cut costs but also directly improve quality. ePic is ahead of the game by ridding of a process heavily depending upon the flow of physical paperwork. In addition to replacing paperwork, the app deployed on the forklift portal, while saving processing time, also reduced human errors or even eliminated mistakes due to miscommunication or communication breakdown, creating high degree of information accuracy and allowing a faster cargo handling process. When CAS installed iPad to the forklifts, it reduced the time required for processing cargo. In addition to the money it saved, new operational efficiencies can directly deliver better service quality. Also costly training time is reduced.

Achieve quality by design, not just through policy

For a company to achieve a consistently high level of quality in its actions and operations, it must embed a commitment to that goal deep with its culture. The dedication to quality must become a shared value amongst all employees, or that high standard cannot and will not be maintained. But the fact of life is that it is very costly if only using conventional methods to achieve this tall order.

Here is where the rub is. For the first time, ePic has made it possible by systemically and pleasurably instilling a built-in process into daily operational routines for everybody to execute and excel! Information is updated from the source and instantly available to and shared with every party in the logistic chain. Full visibility and knowledge of every shipment during the entire throughput time is not only available to internal functions, but to external stakeholders as well.

ePic empowers both CAS own employees and its valuable business partners to operate and collaborate in a way much smarter, more efficient, more connected and therefore more elegant.

Maintain a sustainable growth backed up by a focus on quality

All great companies must eventually fail. History suggests that they must and strong growth tends toward disaster: witness the not too distant past woes of Swissport. But that is not to suggest that failure should be accepted as given. Growth with quality can be managed if you can determine at an early stage where breakdowns that come with scale might occur and adjust for them. The impressive efficiency of CAS has made the challenges that come with growth far more manageable. Efficiency, combined with a focus on quality, can do that for you.

Thus it is no longer a tall tale to achieve efficiency and quality as the same time. The elegant ePic 2 has clearly demonstrated it is not. An ePic-driven CAS truly delivers in a fast, flawless and frugal manner.