Page 181 - DMGT523_LOGISTICS_AND_SUPPLY_CHAIN_MANAGEMENT

Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Notes case with the Just-in-Time (JIT) approaches invented in the 1950s and statistical process
control that dates back to the 1920s. All these techniques are still with us primarily because
they are systemic.
Systemic approaches are concerned with the system as a whole rather than parts of the
system in isolation. Though most of these approaches mainly evolved out of the
manufacturing domain, they have also found broader applicability in marketing, sales,
finance, strategy, and project management.

However, it is unfortunate that our policy makers and administrators are yet to learn and
apply the thinking behind these techniques.
Transportation Woes

Take, for instance, the traffic congestions on our city roads. These congestions are at their
worst at intersections. To address this, our administrators build flyovers. Anyone with a
basic understanding of the operations theory will know that any system will have
bottlenecks and these cannot be removed completely.
Adding capacity, at best, only shifts the bottleneck from one point to another. So, a flyover
may ease the congestion at a particular point but the bottleneck will only shift to another
point in the system. But then, our administrators probably know this.

So how do they propose to address this issue? This issue can be addressed by building
elevated expressways for several kilometres, costing hundreds of crores. All this is in the
name of infrastructure building and development agenda.
Perhaps building under-passages at some of these intersections would achieve the same
for a fraction of the cost. There are, probably, other better ways to address the road
congestions. This is not an argument against building flyovers or elevated expressways. It
is about lack of systemic thinking among our policy makers and administrators.

Flyovers and elevated expressways are essential for infrastructure development and nation
building provided they are part of the larger and well thought through strategy or agenda
that aims at global system optimisation – in this case, easing traffic congestions on city
roads and ensuring free flow of traffic. By addressing parts of the system in isolation, we
may achieve local optimisation, but not overall system optimisation, which is the goal.
Today in large metropolitan cities, the mode share for motorised, non-public transportation
systems such as cars, two-wheelers, autos, taxis etc. is about 34 per cent, while the mode
share for public transportation systems is about 66 per cent. This is expected to change by
2031 to 64 per cent and 36 per cent respectively.

The national average for public transport is about 26 per cent and this is expected to come
down to 14 per cent by 2031, while the share for private vehicles and other intermediate
modes of transportation, such as autos and taxis, is expected to increase from 74 per cent to
86 per cent in the same period.
In today’s consumption driven economy, it is unlikely that any Government will adopt
policies that will discourage private ownership of vehicles in which case the vehicular
congestion on our roads will only worsen.

The expected average journey speed in the major metropolitan cities that is about 17 kmph
now is progressively expected to fall to six kmph by 2031 if the public transportation
systems are not augmented.
Contd...

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