VIDEO CASE What if you could take a commercial airline flight any time and anywhere you...
Fantastic news! We've Found the answer you've been seeking!
Question:
Transcribed Image Text:
VIDEO CASE What if you could take a commercial airline flight any time and anywhere you wanted to go? Just show up at the airport without the need to consider time schedules or layovers. Aside from the potentially cost-prohibitive nature of such travel, there are also constraints in the airline system that preclude this kind of operation. From the lobby check-in process through to boarding at the gate and processing plane turnaround, the process of operating the airline is filled with constraints that must be managed in order for them to be success- ful and profitable. Flight schedules are tightly orchestrated and controlled, departure and arrival gates at airports are limited, and individual aircraft have seating capacities in each section of the plane, to name a few. Southwest Airlines is one company that has figured out how to manage its constraints and generate positive customer experiences in the process. No other airline can claim the same level of profitability and customer satisfac- tion Southwest regularly achieves. What is its secret? Talk to any loyal Southwest customer and you will hear rave reviews Constraint Management at Southwest Airlines each flight that often are not evident until the passengers actually arrive at the gate, ranging from families with kids and strollers to large quantities of carry-on bags and passengers needing wheelchair assistance, operations managers must be ready for any and all situations to avoid a boarding bottle- neck while also ensuring a pleasant and stress-free gate experience for all passengers. In 2007, as part of the company's continuous improvement activities, Southwest focused its attention on the passenger boarding process to deter- mine whether there was a better way to board. Its existing process consisted of three groups, A, B, C, with no assigned seating. Depending on passenger check-in and arrival time, passengers were given a spot in a group. Those first to check-in received choice places in the A group. The last to check in ended up in the C group and usually had a choice of only middle seats in the back of the plane upon boarding. As passengers arrived at the gate, they queued up in their respective boarding group areas to await the boarding call. ▼ Talk to any loyal Southwest customer and you will hear rave reviews about its low fares, great customer service, and lack of assigned seating that gives customers a chance to choose who they sit next to onboard. From an operations perspective, it is much more than what the customer sees. Behind the scenes, operations managers carefully manage and execute-3,400 times a day in over 60 cities in the United States a process designed to manage all potential bottleneck areas. Southwest's famous rapid gate-turnaround of 25 minutes or less dem- onstrates how attention to the activities that ground operations must com- plete to clean, fuel, and prepare a plane for flight can become bottlenecks if not properly scheduled. In the terminal at the gate, passenger boarding also can be a bottleneck if the boarding process itself is not carefully managed. Since the individual mix of passengers presents a different set of issues with queued up in their respective boarding group areas to await the boarding call. Seven different alternate boarding scenarios were designed and tested. They included I New family pre-boarding behind the "A" group of first-to-board passengers Family pre-boarding before anyone else, but seating choices limited on- board to behind the wing I Six boarding groups (within A-B-C groups) instead of the original three A-B-C groups Assigned boarding gate line positions based on both boarding group and gate arrival time ■ Single boarding chute at the gate, but up to nine groups all in one queue U Boarding with a countdown clock to give customers an incentive to get in line and board quickly; incentives given out if everyone was on time Educational boarding video to make the boarding process fun, inform passengers how to board efficiently and provide the company another Passengers boarding a Southwest Airlines flight. Pearson ■ Boarding with a countdown clock to give customers an incentive to get in line and board quickly; incentives given out if everyone was on time 1. 2. Educational boarding video to make the boarding process fun, inform passengers how to board efficiently, and provide the company another way to promote its brand. QUESTIONS Analyze Southwest's passenger boarding process using the TOC. Which boarding scenario among the different ones proposed would you recommend for implementation? Why? 3. How should Southwest evaluate the gate boarding and plane turnaround process? 4. How will Southwest know that the bottleneck had indeed been eliminated after the change in the boarding process? VIDEO CASE What if you could take a commercial airline flight any time and anywhere you wanted to go? Just show up at the airport without the need to consider time schedules or layovers. Aside from the potentially cost-prohibitive nature of such travel, there are also constraints in the airline system that preclude this kind of operation. From the lobby check-in process through to boarding at the gate and processing plane turnaround, the process of operating the airline is filled with constraints that must be managed in order for them to be success- ful and profitable. Flight schedules are tightly orchestrated and controlled, departure and arrival gates at airports are limited, and individual aircraft have seating capacities in each section of the plane, to name a few. Southwest Airlines is one company that has figured out how to manage its constraints and generate positive customer experiences in the process. No other airline can claim the same level of profitability and customer satisfac- tion Southwest regularly achieves. What is its secret? Talk to any loyal Southwest customer and you will hear rave reviews Constraint Management at Southwest Airlines each flight that often are not evident until the passengers actually arrive at the gate, ranging from families with kids and strollers to large quantities of carry-on bags and passengers needing wheelchair assistance, operations managers must be ready for any and all situations to avoid a boarding bottle- neck while also ensuring a pleasant and stress-free gate experience for all passengers. In 2007, as part of the company's continuous improvement activities, Southwest focused its attention on the passenger boarding process to deter- mine whether there was a better way to board. Its existing process consisted of three groups, A, B, C, with no assigned seating. Depending on passenger check-in and arrival time, passengers were given a spot in a group. Those first to check-in received choice places in the A group. The last to check in ended up in the C group and usually had a choice of only middle seats in the back of the plane upon boarding. As passengers arrived at the gate, they queued up in their respective boarding group areas to await the boarding call. ▼ Talk to any loyal Southwest customer and you will hear rave reviews about its low fares, great customer service, and lack of assigned seating that gives customers a chance to choose who they sit next to onboard. From an operations perspective, it is much more than what the customer sees. Behind the scenes, operations managers carefully manage and execute-3,400 times a day in over 60 cities in the United States a process designed to manage all potential bottleneck areas. Southwest's famous rapid gate-turnaround of 25 minutes or less dem- onstrates how attention to the activities that ground operations must com- plete to clean, fuel, and prepare a plane for flight can become bottlenecks if not properly scheduled. In the terminal at the gate, passenger boarding also can be a bottleneck if the boarding process itself is not carefully managed. Since the individual mix of passengers presents a different set of issues with queued up in their respective boarding group areas to await the boarding call. Seven different alternate boarding scenarios were designed and tested. They included I New family pre-boarding behind the "A" group of first-to-board passengers Family pre-boarding before anyone else, but seating choices limited on- board to behind the wing I Six boarding groups (within A-B-C groups) instead of the original three A-B-C groups Assigned boarding gate line positions based on both boarding group and gate arrival time ■ Single boarding chute at the gate, but up to nine groups all in one queue U Boarding with a countdown clock to give customers an incentive to get in line and board quickly; incentives given out if everyone was on time Educational boarding video to make the boarding process fun, inform passengers how to board efficiently and provide the company another Passengers boarding a Southwest Airlines flight. Pearson ■ Boarding with a countdown clock to give customers an incentive to get in line and board quickly; incentives given out if everyone was on time 1. 2. Educational boarding video to make the boarding process fun, inform passengers how to board efficiently, and provide the company another way to promote its brand. QUESTIONS Analyze Southwest's passenger boarding process using the TOC. Which boarding scenario among the different ones proposed would you recommend for implementation? Why? 3. How should Southwest evaluate the gate boarding and plane turnaround process? 4. How will Southwest know that the bottleneck had indeed been eliminated after the change in the boarding process?
Expert Answer:
Answer rating: 100% (QA)
1 Southwests passenger boarding process can be analyzed using the Theory of Constraints TOC TOC focuses on identifying and managing constraints that limit an organizations ability to achieve its goals ... View the full answer
Related Book For
Operations Management Processes and Supply Chains
ISBN: 978-0133872132
11th edition
Authors: Lee J. Krajewski, Manoj K. Malhotra, Larry P. Ritzman
Posted Date:
Students also viewed these general management questions
-
My unhappy paths for this function are not passing. Due to the grading software, I am unable to see what is being entered in so I can't see what I'm missing in this code. Can someone fix my code and...
-
1. Analyze Southwest's passenger boarding process using the TOC. 2. Which boarding scenario among the different ones proposed would you recommend for implementation? Why? 3. How should Southwest...
-
The Electronic Industries Association reports that about 50% of U.S. households have a camcorder. For a randomly selected sample of 800 U.S. households, use the normal approximation to the binomial...
-
Plot the following lines: a. y = 4 + x b. y = 5 - 2x c. y = -4 + 3x d. y = -2x e. y = x f. y = .50 + 1.5x
-
The internal energy of a gas decreases by 1.65 kJ when it transfers 1.87 kJ of energy in the form of heat to the surroundings. (a) Calculate the work done by the gas on the surroundings. (b) Does the...
-
Inflation (how much your money will buy) and interest rates (how much your money will earn if saved) are connectedand both of these economic factors should be considered in your financial planning,...
-
Presented below is information related to Brokaw Corp. for the year 2012. Instructions(a) Prepare a multiple-step income statement for 2012. Assume that 60,000 shares of common stock are...
-
Question 1 On 30 June 2017 Gisborne Ltd lease a vehicle to Tauranga Ltd. Gisborne Ltd had purchased the vehicle on that day for its fair value of $89,721. The lease agreement contained the foll...
-
Why is there a trend toward giving an increasing fraction of chip area to cache memory?
-
Question 32 (1 point) Which of the following represents a positive symptom of schizophrenia? being easily directed lack of energy hallucinations insight Question 33 (1 point) Personality disorders...
-
Which VMware feature maintains a live copy of a VM on another host to fail over to if the host the primary copy is running on goes down? HA O VM affinity 0000 O DRS O FT
-
Dr.cox orders 10 minutes of warm moist heat and a TENS unit application for 20 minutes to her patient Ray Maynard's lumbar area. How would these treatments ease Mr. Maynard's low back pain?
-
write the polynomial -7,-5, 13-5
-
$ 35x+ydy ax sshydy ak Evaluate the iterated integrat -10 -10 25x+ydy dx = [
-
Activity 3B Estimated Time Objective Equipment needed 60 Minutes To provide you with an opportunity to seek and discuss feedback and any reactions to the presentation from participants and relevant...
-
Problem 1 Capitol Health, Inc., is expanding its imaging department and needs to acquire a new computed tomography scanner (CT scanner). The CFO is trying to select the best option from among four...
-
What is an access control list?
-
Jane Dapna, the operations manager of Classico Inc., is using the Sales and Operations Planning with Spreadsheets Solver in OM Explorer to develop a five month production plan. Her initial plan is to...
-
Consider Managerial Practice 10.1 and the manner in which Air New Zealand schedules its flight crews. Relate each step in the process to the levels in the operations planning and scheduling process...
-
Gemini Inc. is using the Sales and Operations Planning with Spreadsheets Solver in OM Explorer to develop a five month production plan. Use the provided Derived outputs and Calculated costs to...
-
Comparative financial statements for the Rahul Corporation for the year ended December 31 are given below. A total of 500,000 shares of stock were outstanding. The market value of the company's stock...
-
Refer to the data in Exercise 13-15. Compute the following financial ratios for the year 2009: Data From Exercise 13-15 Comparative financial statements for the Rahul Corporation for the year ended...
-
Simply Spa Collections had a current ratio of 2.5 to 1 on December 31 of the current year. On that date, the companys assets were as follows: Required a. What was the company's current ratio on...
Study smarter with the SolutionInn App