Al Madina Logistics Services is an Oman based private company that leads the supply chain sector. Some of the services of supply-chain services include transportation, container yard, professional logistics consultancy, warehousing, freight forwarding, and transportation. The warehouse and distribution centre .consists of ultra modern facilities with strategic locations in Oman. The Warehouse has storage facilities and handling systems. The value-added services provided at ALMS include sorting, inkjet coding, bar coding, quarantine management, and damage product destruction.
Manager/ Employee
1. Documentation delays
Some of the challenges that AlMadina faces in Oman include slow processes, ineffective sharing of customer data, heavy paperwork, and delays of documentation. As a manager, I feel that delays of documentation affect the customers in a negative way since they are not satisfied with the logistics industry. The delays of documentation affect the back office operations since they increase the concern among the stakeholders in the logistics industry. From an employee point of view, stakeholders are late to meet customer satisfaction in a timely way. Lack of a pre-packaged integration solution in the business process leads to back office becoming ineffective. Paperwork in the back office processes consumes much time at the outlay of the clients. Documentation delays affect the company’s productivity and the overall efficiency of operations. The problem affects the success of the firm businesses that cannot be overlooked due to data inconsistencies, potential errors, and the need for rework to cause many delays.
2. Reducing delays
Yes, there are better ways of reducing documentation delays. A resolve of the back office issues will enhance customer visibility that will meet the firm’s value creation and cost. I think the provision of pre-packaged integration solutions will allow flexible, easy, and effective back office operations. The firm’s financial billing cycle can utilize paperwork to have accurate up-to date information. Financial officers have to check every detail to eliminate potential errors and duplications. The company can formulate policies that will maintain control over the errors. The company can institute a proper infrastructure that will manage the back office documentation to reduce the delays, lost documents and huge files. The company has computerized its processes to avoid incurring repetitive manual tasks in the sections of human resources, material management, and finance. A computerized process will reduce the process to ensure the company maximizes the opportunities to create good relationship and efficiency in the process.
3. Proposal for change
Some of the measures that the firm can take to ensure quick recovery include business modeling, data management, and optimization. The management should consider hiring experienced staff that can influence change in different operations. The measure will restore the firm’s confidence by the clients and enhance the management’s ability to make decisions. I think with the increase of technology advancements, the firm can upgrade its documentation system to ensure real-time operations. Work automation will ensure fast locating of customer information and increased number of customer served within a small duration of time. The logistics industry can incorporate ultra-modern technology in the warehouse management system to continue in documentation and distribution services. A warehousing management system will assist key decision-making processes to influence a robust flow of the processing documents. The system will be swift to optimize, pick and pack procedures with accuracy.
4. Achievement of paper-based documentation
As a manager in AL Madina, I identify that paper documentation presents numerous challenges that prevent the company from achieving its objectives. There are many intense procedures to verify and approve clients’ request. The human and the finance departments incur many repetitive manual tasks that use much time. The reconciliation of stock transactions causes documentation delays since the company relies on the manual systems that require much time to organize. The retrieval of files from the cabinets wastes much time for the employees in the tedious manual system. As an employee in AL Madina, paper documentation affects customers in a negative way since it does not offer them satisfaction. Stakeholders are, usually, late and inefficient to meet the client satisfaction in time. Paper documentation causes delays to AL Madina logistics industry. Intense paperwork consumes much time at the cost of the customers.
5. Relationship between back office operations and documentation procedure
Back office operations are crucial in the firm since they enable the logistics companies to achieve high standards of services to the clients. The process entails the use of manual files to search and input data of the invoices in the system. Then the data goes through several stages prior to the approval of clients billing system. The clients have to wait for the data approval in the finance departments since the accounting system is also manually driven and consumes more time as well. Documentation process entails searching customer information in sales and purchases in everyday transactions. The staff encounters intense procedures to approve and verify client’s requests since the manual tasks in human and finance department are repetitive. The documentation process, the staff, reconciles stock transactions and the time. The personnel records the information on manual systems that are then stored in the cabinets orderly for easier retrieval.
6. Documentation process
Yes the company needs to more concerning the documentation process since it is prone to the following problems: taking a lot of time to summarize data and write reports, data duplication over and over since personnel cannot track documents, transactions, and other information. In addition to that data does not have security since it is stored in the filing cabinets where it is freely available to anyone. If the data falls on the wrong person’s hands, a person may use it in a harmful way such as blackmail. There are common and repetitive errors in the documentation process where they accidentally switch data since it is handwritten. Data inconsistency happens due to misplacement in the course of manual filing that will make it hard to trace documents in the future. Paperwork is too much, and it is repetitive ending up wasting much time.
7. Changes proposed
I propose a computerized accounting system to enable the bookkeeper to enter once the transactions while updating them when necessary. A program such an Excel can replace ledger sheets and journals. A computerized accounting system is quick compared to the manual system since it is easier to cross-check the journals. The software has an inbuilt error detection to ensure accuracy and data consistency. A computerized system will automatically pull out the relevant journals and ledgers to fill in the period reports. In a computerized accounting system, data is safe from intruders since one can assign passwords to prevent unauthorized access. Computerized system has data integrity, and it is easier to retrieve records and make a compilation in a report.
Customers
8. Level of satisfaction in relation to the documentation
The customers’ interview process provides with information concerning the level of satisfaction with the organization and the views on the documentation process. Most of the customers feel they have to wait for a long time as they are being served. Some of the customers find the firm inefficient since the processes take long and are redundant. Manual systems pressurize the personnel as the clients keep complaining due to their slow nature. Clients feel bad when their statements are misstated or are inaccessible since it is easy to lose a file in the manual systems. Clients are disappointed due to mistakes on manual transactions that are timely and expensive. It is costly, and time-consuming to produce reports. Data duplication is one the rise due to repetitive work and misplacement. Customers’ queries are not responded in time since the information is stored in different places.
9. Areas that need to be addressed
Some of the areas that need to be addressed are not restricted to the logistics industry but all the other sectors in the firm that are yet to embrace the current record keeping methods such as automation work process that will replace the paper-based procedures. The company has to address the continual use of manual processes that spend much time to invoice, approve, and client billing system. A computerized system will ensure easy retrieval and quick processing that saves time. The company has to invest in a computerized system that will reduce data inconsistency in the course of work. A manual system has difficulties in accessing data and making modifications. The cabinet file has to address since it is hard to trace a document there is much misplacement.
10. Consideration of an alternative company
Failure for AL Madina to implement a computerized system in all their processes I would have to locate one from their competitor. In an era of digitalization and global environment, all firms should automate their systems to ensure work is done fast with minimal time wastage. I find manual systems slow and expensive due to repetitive tasks that are done over and over.
11. A proposal to Implement
Introduce a computerized filing system that has password protection and encryption to ensure only authorized users have access to the data. The manual filing cabinets are bulky and use many office spaces compared to computer information systems. It is easy to sort, locate, retrieve, and update data in a computerized system other than in a manual system.
Interview methodology
Think aloud methodology
