.. Students should read the Big Brown Numbers Case Application #1 (pp. 114- 115). The case study discusses the Orion system used by UPS to help drivers with their routes. Would you describe a UPS driver's route decisions as programmed or nonprogrammed decisions or both? Explain your response. 2. Students should read the Groupthink article uploaded in D2L. How were the elements of groupthink illustrated in the financial crisis? Based on the text and PPT overview, what could be done to try and avoid groupthink? CASE APPLICATION #1 Big Brown Numbers IE t's the world's largest package delivery company with the Consider that each UPS driver makes an average of 120 instantly recognizable trucks. Every day. United Parcel stops per day. The efficiency challenge is deciding the best Service (UPS) transports more than 18 million packages order to make all those steps (6.689 502.913.449.135 + 183 and documents throughout the United States and to more zeroes of possible alternatives taking into consideration than 220 countries and territores, including every address variables such as special delivery times, road regulations in North America and Europe (Total worldwide delivery and the existence of private roads that don't appear on volume was 4.6 billion packages and documents in 2014.) map***9 Another description of the logistics decision chal Delivering those packages liktently and on time is what kenge: There are more ways to deliver packages along an UPS gets paid to do, and that takes a massive effort in help average driver's route than there are nanoseconds that Earth ang drivers to make decisions about the best routes to follow has existed. Any way you look at it that's a lot of alter Efficiency and uniformity natives. The human mind have always been important to can't even begin to figure UPS The importance of work UPS has been described as it out. But the ORION 1 rules procedures, and analytic an EFFICIENCY FREAK gorithm, which has taken tools are continually stressed 10 years and an estimated to drivers through training and hundreds of millions of retraining For instance, drivers are taught to hold their keys dollars to build, is the next best thing, IT experts have de- on a pinky finger so they don't waste time rumbling in their scribed ORION as the largest investment in operations re- pockets for the keys. And for safety reasons, they're taught search ever by any company no-left turns and no backing up. Now, however, the company So what does ORION do? Instead of searching for the has been testing and rolling out a quantum leap in its long one best answer. ORION is designed to refine itself over used business model of uniformity and efficiency. It goes time, leading to a balance between an optimum result and by the name ORION, which stands for On-Road Integrated consistency to help drivers make the best possible decisions Optimization and Navigation. What it boils down to is helping about route delivery. And considering how many miles UPS UPS drivers shave millions of miles off their delivery routes drivers travel every day, saving a dollar or two here and there using decision algorithms built by a team of mathematicians can add up quickly. When a driver "logs on his delivery information acquisition device (DIAD) at the beginning of committed to ORION, saying that a driver together with his shift each workday, what comes up are two possible ways ORION is better than cach alone to make the day's package deliveries: one that uses ORION and one that uses the old method. The driver can choose Discussion Questions to use either one but if ORION is not chosen, the driver is 4-14 Why is efficiency and safety se ponant se UPS? asked to explain the decision. The roll-out of ORION hasn't 4-15 Would you characterite a driver's route decision is structured been without challenges. Some drivers have been reluctant on unstructured problems? Programmed or nonprogrammed to give up autonomy: others have had trouble understanding decisions? Explain ORION's logic--why deliver a package in one neighborhood 4-16 How would ORION technology help divers make better in the morning and come back to the same neighborhood decisions (Think of the steps in the decision-making process later in the day. But despite the challenges, the company is 4-17 How is UPS being a sustainable cumparation