Case Study Questions On Baggage Handling Systems

Southwest Airlines is a company that is known for its low ticket prices and profitability despite the highly risky industry in which it operates. This essay examines the cost behavior, cost volume profit (CVP), activity based costing (ABC), budgeting process, costing and decision making policies of the firm. The essay will discuss how the airline integrates these concepts in its daily operations.

Mike Sadle is the owner of Mike’s Wrecker Service in Huntsville, Alabama. Mike has been providing tow services in the Huntsville and the surrounding areas for the past 20 plus years. During that span, Mike has experienced firsthand the growth and evolution of the towing industry. The purpose of this project was to help Mike identify an area in his business where a significant contribution could be made to increase the overall success of the company. The goal was to present Mike’s Wrecker Service with a telematics solution that will not only bring added value to the company but also provide a significant competitive advantage.

The baggage handling system has poor scheduling, new and untested technology, complexity of the system and changing requirements, highly visible mechanical problems, does not deliver productivity and efficiency, lower

(e) Baggage handling – The ability of checking in two bags free of charge has created value for Southwest Airlines customers. Secondly, although this option does not create any additional value, the “value stream” in the airlines industry is more prominent in the amount of customers who exhibit brand loyalty in the future because of superior service, rather than the amount that is paid to check baggage. Taking a lean approach to all operations is vital to airline performance.

It is to help in ensuring that the inventory is up to date and helps in determining the material that can be seen if there is a discrepancy in the inventory or the bill of materials for the finished product. It also is done periodically to help identify the material that is not being used and can be disposed of properly. It is a good way to ensure that inventory problems can be resolved before an issue in production (Wisner , Tan, & Leong, 2012).

Jerome Simelane, the airline's Commercial GM, “By using what we have learned over the years about international airline best practice‚ we have also created a cost structure which allows us to offer competitive fares without cutting any corners on quality‚ safety and reliability."

1. Is the air taxi industry poised for take-off? What customer segments are most likely to lead to success?

*A change in the project specifications after the freeze date was agreed up on in the contract. These changes created a domino effect of problems. This was in violation of the contract with BAE which stated there would be a number of freeze dates for mechanical design, software design, and permanent power.

Part A: Describe how you would design a new logistics network consisting of only a single warehouse.

Going against their better judgment, BAE presented the city of Denver with a proposal to develop the most intricate automated baggage system ever built. The plan was to be very effective in delivering baggage quickly, reliable in its operation, and extremely flexible. This type of system would save ground time, decrease close-out time for hub operations, and reduce time in sorting and handling baggage. Although more expensive than an uncomplicated tug and baggage cart system,

Westjet Airlines has achieved considerable success in the past few years, winning estimable rewards related to its service, gaining loyal customers and, of course, increasing market shares. It devotes to a “high-value, low-fare airline” which provides humanized services to customers. Another pride of Westjet is its IT, which designs all systems in-house and is operated based on the business demands.

Overall, the city of Denver pursued an automated baggage system to improve ground efficiency, to reduce close-out times for hub operations and to minimize time consuming manual sorting and handling (Montealgre et al, 1996, p.1).

The main objective behind the Automatic baggage handling system was to reduce the delay of luggage transportation and passenger waiting time at the baggage carousel. Key stake holders for every project are Project manager, consumers, Performing organizations, PMO, Project team members, Project Management team, Project sponsors and influences (PMI, 2004) .For this project clients were the Airlines and passengers. Performing organization i.e. Airport authorities also got affected by the project; as the project was failure they suffered during the managing the travelers on the airport. Project management team led by Walter slinger was one of stakeholder of this project. The

1. From the point of view of the industry incumbents, is the express mail industry attractive? How has Airborne survived, and recently prospered, in its industry? Is its success attributable to its capabilities, its position, or industry attractiveness?

The Airline industry has experienced continual problems with rising costs with both fuel and maintenance which has caused them to increase their fees to the consumers to pay for those rising costs. This paper will help explain what an airline such as Delta does to help alleviate such costs without forcing its consumers to flip the bill through high fees that consist of tickets, baggage fees and food. The costs of doing business in aviation today have spiraled out of control making it very expensive for both airlines and the