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INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD INDIA Research and Publications The Logistics Sector in India: Overview and Challenges Pankaj Chandra Nimit Jain W. P. No. 2007-03-07 March 2007 The main objective of the working paper series of the IIMA is to help faculty members, Research Staff and Doctoral Students to speedily share their research findings with professional colleagues, and to test out their research findings at the pre-publication stage INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD-380 015 INDIA INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD INDIA Research and Publications The Logistics Sector in India: Overview and ChallengesPankaj Chandra Nimit Jain Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Vastrapur, Ahmedabad 380015 [email  protected] ernet. in, [email  protected] ernet. in Abstract The logistics industry in India is evolving rapidly and it is the interplay of infrastructure, technology and new types of service providers that will define whether the industry is able to help its customers reduce their logistics costs and provide effective services (which are also growing). Changing government policies on taxation and regulation of service providers are going to play an important role in this process.Coordination across various government agencies requires approval from multiple ministries and is a road block for multi modal transport in India. At the firm level, the logistics focus is moving towards reducing cycle times in order to add value to their customers. Consequently, better tools and strategies are being sought by firms in order to enhance their decision making. In this paper, we provide a perspective on these issues, outline some of the key challenges with the help of secondary information, and describe some interesting initiatives that some firms & industries are taking to compete through excellence in managing their logistics.IIMA INDIA Research and Publications 1 Introduction The Indian economy has been growing at an average rate of more than 8 per cent over the last four years (Srinivas, 2006) putting enormous demands on its productive infrastructure. Whether it is the physical infrastructure of road, ports, water, power etc. or the digital infrastructure of broadband networks, telecommunication etc. or the service infrastructure of logistics – all are being stretched to perform beyond their capabilities.Interestingly, this is leading to an emergence of innovative practices to allow business and public service to operate at a higher growth rate in an environment where the support systems are getting augmented concurrently. In this paper, we present the status of the evolving logistics sector in India, innovations therein through interesting business models and the challenges that it faces in years to come. Broadly speaking, the Indian logistics sector, as elsewhere, comprises the entire inbound and outbound segments of the manufacturing and service supply chains.Of late, the logistics infrastructure has received l ot of attention both from business and industry as well as policy makers. However, the role of managing this infrastructure (or the logistics management regimen) to effectively compete has been slightly under-emphasized. Inadequate logistics infrastructure has an effect of creating bottlenecks in the growth of an economy, the logistics management regimen has the capability of overcoming the disadvantages of the infrastructure in the short run while providing cutting edge competitiveness in the long term.It is here that exist several challenges as well as opportunities for the Indian economy. There are several models that seem to be emerging based on the critical needs of the Indian economy that can stand as viable models for other global economies as well. Chandra and Sastry (2004) have pointed towards two key areas that require attention in managing the logistics chains across the Indian business sectors – cost and reliable value add services. Logistics costs (i. e. inventor y holding, transportation, warehousing, packaging, losses and related administration costs) have been estimated at 13-14 per cent of Indian GDP which is higher than the 8 per cent of USA’s and lower than the 21 per cent of China’s GDP (Sanyal, 2006a). Service reliability of the logistics industry in emerging markets, like India, has been referred to as slow and requiring high engagement time of the customers, thereby, incurring high indirect variable costs (Dobberstein et. al, W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 3 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications 2005).However, the Indian logistics story is one with islands of excellence though there has been a general improvement on almost all parameters. It is this aspect that we explore further in this paper. The paper is organized as follows: the next section gives a brief introduction of some of the peculiarities of the Indian logistics sector. In section 3 we discuss the determinants of growth in this industry. In section 4 we prov ide some interesting initiatives that point towards a renewal of the sector. The challenges facing the sector are discussed in the last section. 2 Some Peculiarities of the Indian Supply ChainsThe Indian logistics sector has typically been driven by the objective of reducing transportation costs that were (and often continue to be) inordinately high due to regional concentration of manufacturing and geographically diversified distribution activities as well as inefficiencies in infrastructure and accompanying technology. Freight movement has slowly been shifting from rail to road with implications on quality of transfer, timeliness of delivery and consequently costs except for commodities which over long distances, predominantly, move through the extensive rail network. More on the infrastructure issues later.Figure 1 shows the relative value of transportation costs vis-a-vis other elements of the logistics costs in India. The transportation industry is fragmented and largely unorga nized – a large number of independent players with regional or national permits that carry freight, often with small fleet size of one or two single-axle trucks. This segment carries a large percent of the national load and almost all of the regional load. This fragmented segment comprises owners and employees with inadequate skills, perspectives or abilities to organize or manage their operations effectively.Low cost has been traditionally achieved by employing low level of technology, low wages (due to lower education levels), poor maintenance of equipment, overloading of the truck beyond capacity, and price competition amongst a large number of service providers in the industry. Often, one finds transportation cartels that regulate supply of trucks and transport costs. However, the long run average cost of transport operations across the entire supply chain may not turn out to be low. W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 4 IIMAINDIA Research and Publications Figure 1: Elements of Logistics Cost in India Trans por tation 40 War e hous ing, Pack aging & Los s e s 24 26 Inve ntor y Or de r Pr oce s s ing & Adim ins trative 0 5 10 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 percent contribution Source: Sanyal (2006a) Table 1 gives a breakup of the logistics cost across different sectors of the Indian industry and the changes therein over the last five years. It shows how the logistics spend is increasing, sometimes dramatically, across various industrial sectors. Steel, harmaceuticals, food & agro-business, and auto have also been the sectors that are growing most rapidly in the national economy – it is no surprise that their logistics costs have been increasing at a faster rate. A few observations are in order here. The low change in order processing & administrative costs in the cement sector could possibly be due to the use of call centers by various producers for order processing and dispatch planning. Steel and pharmaceutical sectors have seen maximum changes in compon ent costs.The distribution practice of pushing goods down the channel might be responsible for high increase in the inventory and warehousing costs in the pharmaceutical industry. Investments in new cold chains and losses might be the causes of high change in the warehousing, packaging & losses related costs. Warehousing, has also been typically dominated by small players with small capacities and poor deployment of handling, stacking and monitoring technologies. While it has had detrimental effect on almost all sectors, the food sector has been the one that has suffered the most due to low investment in cold chains and allied machinery.Erratic power outages have also meant low dependence on technology and a more manual operation. Another fact that has affected both the location as well cost of operating a W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 5 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications warehouse has been the â€Å"octroi tax1. † Firms have been locating warehouses outside city limits. Ta ble 1: Distribution of Logistics Costs across Some Sectors (2000-2005) Logistics Cost Components (in US $ mn) Transport ation Inventory holding Warehousing, packaging & loses Order processing & administrative Total Logistics cost SectorAuto Cement Consumer Durables FMCG Food Garment Pharmaceutical Steel Source: IAEIS 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 2000-01 2005-06 Avg. Change 285. 0 406. 5 20. 3 50. 6 55. 4 4. 8 331. 9 398. 9 11. 2 201. 5 280. 7 13. 2 398. 7 524. 5 21. 0 337. 3 454. 4 19. 5 174. 0 310. 0 22. 7 438. 3 693. 6 42. 5 171. 0 243. 9 12. 2 30. 4 33. 3 2. 9 199. 1 239. 3 6. 7 120. 9 168. 4 7. 9 239. 3 314. 7 12. 6 202. 4 272. 11. 7 104. 4 186. 0 13. 6 263. 0 416. 1 25. 5 185. 3 264. 3 13. 2 32. 9 36. 0 3. 1 215. 7 259. 3 7. 3 131. 0 182. 5 8. 6 259. 2 340. 9 13. 6 219. 2 295. 3 12. 7 113. 1 201. 5 14. 7 284. 9 45 0. 8 27. 7 71. 3 101. 6 5. 1 12. 7 13. 8 1. 2 83. 0 99. 7 2. 8 50. 4 70. 2 3. 3 99. 7 131. 1 5. 2 84. 3 113. 6 4. 9 43. 5 77. 5 5. 7 109. 6 173. 4 10. 6 712. 6 1016. 4 50. 6 126. 5 138. 5 12. 0 829. 6 997. 3 27. 9 503. 8 701. 8 33. 0 996. 8 1311. 2 52. 4 843. 2 1135. 9 48. 8 434. 9 775. 0 56. 7 1095. 7 1734. 0 106. 4 They delay moving goods into retail network as late as possible.It has also led to the development of a unholy business-government nexus to avoid the tax and extract rents. Use of technology is quite limited – both IT and engineering equipments in order to increase productivity and service. An in-appropriate evaluation of the diverse benefits of technology has led to higher usage of manual labour across the logistics industry whether An entry tax on goods coming into a city. The tax is a major source of revenue for city municipal corporations. W. P. No. 2007-03-07 1 Page No. 6 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications it is in the distribution activities or within pla nts.Many firms try to compete through the factor advantage of low wages which have necessitated hiring low or no skill personnel thereby sacrificing productivity related gains in the long run. Understanding the linkage between inventory and transport planning is a key to reducing operational cost of distribution. Chandra and Sastry (2004) identify transport & dispatch planning as an area of concern in a survey of manufacturing firms in India. Ninety eight per cent of sample firms in that survey have a contract with trucking companies for making dispatches and only 11 per cent own their own fleet of trucks.While 36 per cent of these firms use third party logistics (3PL) service providers for making dispatches, about 30 per cent use 3PL service providers for procuring their material from their suppliers. Somehow, transport planning has remained a unglamorous area within Operations despite the fact that about 10 per cent of the cost of sales comes through physical distribution (Sanjeev i, 2003). Transport planning (e. g. , optimal dispatch quantities & frequency of dispatch, vehicle routing, loading pattern in the trucks etc. ) does not appear to have received the required attention.For example, in the same survey, only 21 per cent of sample firms report the use of some software for scheduling dispatches. It is worth understanding the structure of the Indian supply chains, in aggregate, to get a better appreciation of many of the issues raised earlier. In Figure 2 Chandra and Sastry (2004) present the structure of the supply chain of a sample of firms. It can be seen that about 4 per cent of firms have less than five suppliers, about 85 per cent of firms have less than five plants, about 14 per cent of firms have less than five regional distributors, and about 9 per cent of firms have less than five retailers.A similar statistics is obtained for other ranges of suppliers, plants, distributors, and retailers. What is worth noting is that 63 per cent of firms have m ore than 100 suppliers, about 39 per cent of firms have more than hundred distributors, and 77 per cent of firms have more than hundred retailers. In addition, about 17 per cent of firms claim to have more than 500 suppliers. The same for distributors and retailers is 22 and 54 per cent respectively. This is perhaps where difficulties in managing logistics in India lie – larger the number of suppliers or distributors, higher is the cost of coordination.W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 7 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Figure 2 : Structure of the Supply Chain of Sample Firms 90 80 70 Percent of Firms 60 50 40 30 20 10 5000-10000 1000-2000 2000-5000 500-1000 100-500 50-100 10-15 15-25 25-50 0 5-10 0-5 more than 10000 Range Suppliers Plants Approved Retailers Regional Distributors Source: Chandra and Sastry (2004) When we look at the spatial distribution of both plants and suppliers, the above statement becomes even stronger. Of the sample firms that operate more han one plant , 48 per cent of these plants are located more than 100 kilometers away from each other, 33 per cent of these plants are located more than 500 kilometers away from each other and 18 per cent of these plants are located more than 1000 kilometers from each other. Similarly, on an average, only 4 per cent of suppliers are located within 5 kilometers of the manufacturing plant, about 13 per cent are located within 5-25 kilometers of the plant, 16 per cent are located within 25-100 kilometers of the plant and about 67 per cent of suppliers have facilities that are more than 100 kilometers away from the plants.Location policies of the past may have forced some firms to locate plants away from each other. However, this may be coming to haunt today as the cost of coordination increases and the ability to provide quick response to customer requirements might reduce. This problem gets exacerbated with suppliers. Manufacturers have to either develop suppliers separately for each location (ther eby increasing the number and affecting consistency in quality, price & delivery times) else material has to travel longer distances if there is a common supplier to all plants. W. P. No. 2007-03-07Page No. 8 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications The logistics challenge in such an environment is immense – build the infrastructure, manage the requirements of a changing structure of various sectoral supply chain, change industrial policies to facilitate efficient production and movement of goods and services, deploy effective managerial practices and technology to enhance the competitiveness through better management of logistics networks, and develop new models for new sectors especially in the service sectors as well as traditional areas like agri-business etc.It must be mentioned that the logistics industry in India is transforming itself very interestingly despite its peculiarities by developing innovative business models and by chipping away at the such structural and polic y based rigidities. In a later section, we discuss some of these innovative initiatives that are leading the renewal of the logistics industry in India. 3 The Changing Logistics Infrastructure With rising consumer demand and the resulting growth in global trade, the role of infrastructure support in terms of rails, roads, ports & warehouses hold the key to the success of the economy.In this section we provide a quick overview of the status of the logistics infrastructure in India and the current initiatives, both private and public, in that area. Goods are transported predominantly by road and rail in India. Whereas road transport is controlled by private players, rail transport is handled by the central government. With the second largest network in the world, road contributes to 65 per cent of the freight transport (Rastogi, 2006). Road is preferred because of its cost effectiveness and flexibility.Rail, on the other hand, is preferred because of containerization facility and ease in transporting ship-containers and wooden crates. Sea is another complementary mode of transport. Ninety five per cent of India’s foreign trade happens through sea (Deccan Herald, 2006). India has 12 major ports, six each on the West and East coasts and 185 minor ports. Table 2 maps the various modes on different performance indicators, clearly indicating the vitality and importance of road transport in Indian economy. There is also evidence of an, across the board, increase in freight traffic for all modes indicating an increased logistics activity.For instance, the per cent change in road, rail, air and sea cargo traffic has increased, between 2001 and 2005, from 5 to 14 per cent, 4 to 7. 5 per cent, 6 to 20 per cent and 3. 5 to 11 per cent respectively (CMIE Database, 2006). W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 9 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Table 2: Comparison Chart for Various modes Rail 214760 10. 66 0. 11 Road 3487538* 5. 12* 3. 34 Sea 806 7. 9 12 Number (wagons, tr ucks, ships) Freight Capacity(mn ton) Route Length (mn km) /Number of major ports Freight Revenue (US $ bn) 7. 00 coal, steel, petroleum, primary metals 38. 64 automobile, electronic items, garments etc. 304 iron ore, coal, petroleum (and industrial and consumer products on the outbound export) Major Products Source: IAEIS, 2005-2006, Financial Express, 2006a *This figure is for 2002-03 1 US$ = Rs 44 In keeping with the increasing demand for road transportation, the National Highway Authority of Indian (NHAI) has been strengthening and widening national highways in multiple phases. As part of the National Highways Development Project, the work on the development of golden quadrilateral (connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata) and the North-South and East-West links were started in 1998.It will build 13000 km expressways that would connect the nation (Surabhi, 2006). NHAI is investing about $650mn towards the development of an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) which will make transport services on the highways (like reducing congestion, advance signaling, medical assistance, accident management, etc. ) efficient and automating many processes like toll collection etc. (Sanjai, 2007). Because of the growing opportunity and potential for high revenue, the Ministry of Railways has been taking measures to expand the rail connectivity and recapture the market share of freight business.By focusing on improving wagon utilization, the Railways have managed to reduce the freight cost from 61 paise2 per net tonne km (ntkm) in 2001 to 56 paise per ntkm in 2005 (Rastogi, 2006). At present, goods train run on same 2 100 paise = 1 Rupee W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 10 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications railway tracks as passenger trains at an average speed of around 25 kmph (Gill, 2006). With the proposed dedicated west and east freight corridors, the goods trains are expected to run at 100kmph. The West and East rail corridor of 1469-km and 1232-km will be bu ilt with an investment of $2. 0 bn and $2. 40 bn respectively and will be equipped with the latest centralized traffic control systems (Acharya, 2006a). Indian Railways has also decided to collaborate with bulk users of freight transport to build the rail network in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The first project on this line comprises nine public and private sector companies that are building a 82-km rail line between Haridarpur and Paradip at a cost of $ 120mn (Telegraph, 2006). Recently several steel companies have also shown interest in linking iron and coal mines in Orissa with a 98-km rail line (Business Standard, 2006).Multi-modal transport in India was a monopoly of the Container Corporation of India till 2005. With licenses being given to 13 new private players (Acharya, 2006b), rail trade should improve considerably. In order to encourage trade by small scale industries, Indian Railways has started a â€Å"road-railer†system where container vehicles are c apable of running both on highways hauled by trucks and on rail (Guha and Sinha, 2006). In 199899, the Konkan Railway (one of the railway zones in South-Western India) pioneered the ‘roll-on, roll-off' (‘RO-RO') concept between Mumbai (Kolad) and Goa (Verna).Privately owned trucks are loaded with their goods which are driven on to a rake of flat cars and are carried (trucks and their cargo) to the destination. In 2005-06, the ports handled 456. 20 million tonnes of cargo traffic. This is expected to increase to 700 million tonnes by 2011-12. In keeping pace with the growing demand, the government plans to increase port capacities to around 1 billion tonnes per annum in the next six years (Raja, 2006). Under the National Maritime Development Programme (NMDP), the government is encouraging public-private partnership to build and maintain ports.This scheme will cover 276 port related projects at an investment of $12. 40 bn (Raja, 2006). With rising congestion levels at majo r ports and with high average turnaround time, the government has decided to develop minor ports in seven states to ease the traffic of major ports (Financial Express, 20006b). Tables 3 the operational performance of various ports in India – while there is an improvement in performance, the pace is slow. The estimated cost of this development is expected to be around $350 mn. Further, private sector is likely to invest $ 7. 67 billion over the next six years.W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 11 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Table 3: Average Turnaround Time At Ports (in Days) Port Chennai Cochin Haldia Jawaharlal Nehru Kandla Kolkata Marmugao Mumbai New Mangalore Paradip Tuticorin Vishakhapatnam Average Source: IAEIS 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 CAGR 6. 40 5. 80 5. 30 3. 70 4. 60 3. 80 (9. 90) 3. 23 3. 10 2. 37 2. 19 2. 22 2. 33 (6. 32) 5. 21 3. 96 4. 01 3. 02 2. 87 3. 00 (10. 45) 1. 72 2. 48 2. 34 2. 28 2. 04 1. 84 1. 36 6. 15 4. 72 6. 55 5. 94 5. 06 4. 62 (5. 56) 6. 59 5. 50 4. 71 4. 47 4. 29 4. 7 (8. 75) 4. 30 4. 25 2. 04 3. 86 4. 47 4. 35 0. 23 5. 60 5. 20 5. 47 5. 06 4. 10 4. 21 (5. 55) 3. 80 2. 89 2. 73 1. 90 2. 35 2. 96 (4. 87) 3. 89 4. 16 3. 99 3. 37 3. 42 3. 41 (2. 60) 6. 39 4. 10 4. 11 3. 59 2. 59 2. 66 (16. 08) 4. 75 3. 71 3. 51 3. 72 3. 33 3. 20 (7. 60) 4. 84 4. 16 3. 93 3. 59 3. 45 3. 38 (6. 92) Currently, fifteen private sector projects are operational at various major ports and four more projects are under implementation (Raja, 2006). One of them aims to build the deepest port in the world at an investment of $ 1bn (Financial Express, 2006c).This project is handled by a three-firm Chinese consortium with a Mumbai-based partner, Zoom Developers. Interestingly, firms like Ambuja Cement have been using barges for transport of clinkers from their factories to crushing and packaging plants all over the coast, thereby, reducing transport costs considerably. It can be seen that there is a fury of activity in enhancing the in frastructure capacities in the country. 4 Determinants of Logistics Growth in India The Indian logistics business is valued at US$ 14bn and has been growing at a CAGR of 7-8 per cent.As mentioned earlier, the logistics cost represents 13-14 per cent of the country’s GDP. The market is fragmented with thousands of players offering partial services in logistics; it is estimated that there are about 400 firms capable of providing some level of integrated service (Mahalaksmi, 2006). The economy is expected to grow around ten per cent over the next ten years and sectors like chemicals, petrochemicals (especially distribution), pharmaceuticals, metals and metal processing, FMCG, textile, retail and automobile are projected to grow the fastest.New business models are emerging as new firms, both domestic and foreign, enter the market. As a result of the ensuing competition, linkages with global supply chains and domestic market growth W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 12 IIMA INDIA Resea rch and Publications promise to change the face of logistics industry beyond recognition. In this section, we discuss how these are going to determine the growth of the sector. The scale of operations in manufacturing is changing and so are their markets and sourcing geographies.Growth in manufacturing in India has happened across clusters that are located in different parts of the country, e. g. , Ludhiana, NCR, Baddi and Dehradun in North, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Pune and Mumbai in West (along with Ankleshwar, Vapi, Aurangabad, and Kolhapur and most recently Kutch), and Coimbatore, Vishkahpatnam, Bangalore, Hosur, Chennai, Pudduchery and Sriperumbudur in the South. Assembly plants at these locations are being fed with raw materials and intermediate products from all over the country and abroad (as well as these locations).Moreover, distribution networks with emerging hubs in Indore and Nagpur (i. e. , Central India) supply all over the country and abroad. This is going to increase the n ature and extent of movement of goods and services across the country. This has been accompanied by the expansion of domestic production capacity (e. g. , ORPAT in Morbi has added capacity to produce 40,000 units of quartz clocks and time pieces at a single location) as well as a big MNC entry into the Indian manufacturing scene (e. g. NOKIA’s new factory at Sriperumbudur produces 1 million mobile phones per month). As the volume of production grows, so will the extent of movement of goods either to the ports for export or to the rest of the country. Some of the large players to enter (or expand significantly) the Indian market recently have been Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar Hypermart, Pantaloon and RPG in Retail; Nokia, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Sony, Blue Star in Consumer Electronics; Bajaj, Hero Honda, Maruti, Honda, Toyota, Audi,Volkswagen, Renault, Volvo in the Automotive sectors; Holcim in Cement; etc. It can be expected that their operations will drive the growth of logist ics industry. The liberalizing Indian economy is experiencing entry of large domestic and global firms in new businesses as well as enlargement of distribution network of many regional Indian firms. The announcement of large retail projects by Reliance and Bharti (in collaboration with Wal-Mart) will bring new technology, add additional warehouse capacity and will require fast and reliable movement of goods across the country.Reliance is thinking of establishing large warehouses in Thailand to take advantage of low cost sourcing from South-East Asia once the Free Trade Agreement with Thailand (as well as ASEAN) gets finalized. Similarly, regional food & grocery retail leaders like W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 13 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Subhiksha who are present very extensively in the South Indian market are now entering the rest of the country with more than 600 new retail stores in 2007. Their logistics strategy and needs are transforming very significantly with this nationwide expansion.New retail chains are entering the non-metro towns and non-State capitals. It may be mentioned that the growth of the courier industry post-liberalization has helped change the parameters of service evaluation in the industry from cost alone to cost, time, and reliability. This sector has also seen a number alliances between regional and local players especially in the small package (less than 500 grams) market thereby creating networks of small players who are not only cost effective but also more flexible than the large national players.This segment of the industry has taken advantage of the large manpower and is gradually moving away from â€Å"Angadiyas† or manual inter-city couriers to a more organized network that shares transport infrastructure (and even consolidates sub-packages from various small couriers in a single large courier bag to be transported by air cargo or road transport rather than these sub-packages being carried by several manual couriers on the train; the courier firms are gaining on service and are sharing fixed costs).The entry of large third party logistics (3PL) carriers like Federal Express and DHL and the expansion of domestic networks of Indian firms like Gati and Shreyas Shipping is also transforming the nature of services and the business practices across the sector. Table 4 gives an idea of the investment plans announced by the various firms for the coming financial year and gives a sense of their increasing activity. Another trend driving growth in this sector has been the consolidation amongst the logistics player.Mergers & Acquisitions amongst Indian and MNC logistics firms is starting to increase the reach of MNC 3PLs in the domestic Table 4: Investment Plans of Major 3PL Service Providers Firms DHL TNT Gati *Shreyas Shipping and Logistics Investment Details/ Plans (2007-08) (in US $ mn) 260 115 200 350 Source: Baxi (2006), Sanjai (2006a) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 14 IIMA INDIA Research an d Publications market while consolidating the business (e. g. , DHL acquired Blue Dart, TNT acquired Sppedage Express Cargo Service, Fedex bought over Pafex etc. ).Consolidation is expected to be beneficial to both the service providers as well as the consumers. Initially MNC 3PL firms were providing only custom clearance and freight forwarding facility to their international clients. With the logistics market growing we should see a shift in this trend. The complexity of managing the supply chain in the pre-consolidation era is illustrated through the following scenario at Nokia (Figure 3) . Logistics activity for Nokia’s India Hub was maintained by a large number of Figure 3: Typical Logistics Supply Chain of NokiaDHL, Panalpina Inbound logistics Nokia Hub in Sriperumbudur Gati, Blue Dart Domestic Outbound logistics UPS Warehouse in India Export Market International Outbound logistics DHL Source: Mishra et al. (2006 service providers. Coordination and handover was a problem at times. With DHL acquiring Blue Dart, it is now able to provide seamless end-to-end integrated supply chain solutions. Downstream distribution channels have also seen some consolidation.Manufacturing firms, particularly, in the FMCG sector have started to reduce the number of wholesalers (and at times, distributors) so as to increase the reach and consequently the returns to each wholesaler. This also induces them to invest in new productivity enhancing technology and effective managerial practices. Technology in the logistics chain is being upgraded bringing better visibility on customer off-takes (though an absence of cash registers and the accompanying regulatory discipline to avoid tax evasion stand in the way of automated data updation).Introduction of more efficient transport technology and mobile communication has the potential of changing the logistics practices in the industry. Increasing competition and the low penetration of IT also implies that the scope for change is immense and imminent. The agri-business sector’s supply chain, for example, has changed significantly with increasing investment in coldchains across the country. With this, fruits and vegetables are being transported long distances (often more than 1500 kms) and milk grid is able to pickup and deliver liquid W.P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 15 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications milk from and to remote areas more frequently. Here the role of cooperatives like AMUL has been exemplary both in increasing the size of the distribution network and also in reorganizing the supply network very efficiently along with enormous buildup of social capital – a pre-requisite for growth in emerging economies (Chandra and Tirupati, 2003). Low penetration of hand eld technologies for order processing and tracking, product tracking and material handling accessories, as well as IT for improved decision making can be seen as opportunities for growth. Mobile technologies also hold the potent ial for rapidly using information for real time decision making as well as for coordinating both the inbound and outbound logistics. Indian customers exhibit strong value and variety seeking behaviour hence developing capabilities in the process of product and service delivery will induce loyalty (i. e. , process loyalty).Government policies have been another driver of change in the logistics industry. The trend towards a higher road cargo traffic as compared to rail is going to require better logistics control and coordination. The golden quadrilateral road project and the east & west rail corridors are expected to change the reactiveness of Indian firms through shorter lead times as well as lower maintenance costs on the transport equipment. They also have the potential of reducing the procedural delays on highways by reducing the number of checks and related stoppages of vehicles.Its impact on perishable good will be most significant. Thirteen States and three UTs have already am ended the State laws allowing private sector participation in direct purchases of farm produce from farmers (Ahya, 2006) which is making procurement more efficient and is bringing better technology as well as products in the rural production and distribution network (e. g. , see ITC echoupal in the next section). Banks have developed venture capital funds for logistics players. Small Industries Development Bank of India or SIDBI, for instance, has invested $ 2. mn in the Mumbai based firm Direct Logistics (Baxi, 2006). The unbundling of the logistics supply chain (both the physical pickup, storage and movement of goods as well as allied services like invoicing, order management, freight forwarding, customs clearance, octroi tax management etc. ) will lead to business opportunities and add value to the customers. An interesting example is that of Reliance Connect Service Centres that have been established on Indian highways by Reliance industry along with petrol stations.The Connect Centres provide a place for truckers to relax (sometimes with overnight stay facilities), send information (including data) to parent firms on their location, completed transactions etc. , receive material/instructions from the firm, remit money to parent firm, W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 16 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications etc. It has become a one-stop shop for truckers and their companies to keep in touch. Similarly, once VAT is introduced, it will simplify the process of goods servicing and will lead to rationalizing of many operational decisions.The implication of the emergence of a strong service industry on logistics performance is not well understood. Perhaps, a new business segment will emerge that is technology driven and will help coordinate activities across business channels. For example, there is a need to integrate the flow of information, goods and services between a medical physician, a diagnostics center, hospitals & nursing homes, and retail medical outlets à ¢â‚¬â€œ all of which are un-coordinated independent entities at the moment.This could range from digital transmission of MRI scans from a diagnostics center to a computer to blood collection and delivery from physician’s various city centers to nursing homes/blood banks or directly to dispersed operation theatres. The role of a coordinating agency becomes, organizationally, valuable in such an environment. The need is to link physical logistics processes with communication technologies –building on the strengths of the IT and mobile communication industries. 5 The Renewal of the Sector: Some Innovative ExperiencesThere have been several instances of firms undertaking innovative re-design of their logistics systems or deployment of interesting business models to enhance the effectiveness of their networks in order to deliver value to their customers. Sometimes it was done to overcome an inherent disadvantage that may exist in the supply chain. In this section, we presen t a few such experiences both at the firm level and at the industry level, through brief caselets highlighting their innovative contribution. They also represent the renewal process that is transforming the logistics sector and the distribution strategy of firms.GATI3 Established at a time (in 1989) when firms in India hardly outsourced their logistics requirements, Gati has transformed itself from a cargo movement company to become one of the leading end-to-end logistics and supply chain solutions provider in India. Continuous innovation and high end technological investments to improve service 3 Source: www. gati. com, Sharma and Thakur (2006), Prowess (2006), Reddy (2007) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 17 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications quality, speed and efficiency can be ascribed as the reasons behind their success.It is staring to connect with mass retail market in several cities through 1500 Customer Convenient Centres. It is also the first Indian company to operate in th e far-east market with its own subsidiary in Hong Kong. On the service front, there have been several firsts in India by Gati – a money back guarantee on cargo services, cash-on-delivery and a tollfree number for convenience of customers. Gati operates one of the largest road networks linking 594 districts out of a total of 602 districts in India at a turnover of $104mn in 2005-2006. It covers 3. 2 lakh4-km every day with a fleet size of 2000 trucks.Its automated shipment tracking ability has brought it closer to the customers – for example, the SMS based tracking system has allowed the customers to continuously get an update on the status of their consignment. Another feature also enables customers to get email based conformation of any delivery. Gati has also transformed the warehouse management practices in India with its modern system, WMS – a web based warehouse management system that provides both functionality and flexibility to customers in managing thei r warehouse operations. WMS enables Gati and its customers to track inventory status in real time.Along with its transportation related capabilities, this has allowed Gati to manage the entire outbound logistics (i. e. , warehousing, transport and dealer/retailer replenishment) of Blue Star for his home air-conditioning division. Order processing times and shipping errors have decreased and customer service levels have improved, as a consequence. Currently, Gati operates with 10 warehouses and plans to setup another 25 over the next three years at an investment of $100mn. It is designing these new warehouses with mechatronic systems that could lead to a paradigm shift in warehouse management in India.It has implemented CRM and ERP systems, using IT to full advantage delivering value to the customers. AMUL5 The Kaira District Milk Cooperative Union or better known as AMUL was established in 1946 in Anand in the western State of Gujarat with an aim to remove the intermediaries in the milk procurement and distribution process and thereby increase return to milk farmers. The milk farmers were mostly marginalized members of the society and most of 4 5 1 lakh = 100,000 www. amul. org; Chandra and Tirupati (2003) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 18 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications hem barely poured a few litres of milk each day. They, however, depended on this for their livelihood and any money lost to the middleman or to uncertainty in the environment meant a threat to their existence. Thus was born AMUL (which means invaluable in Hindi)! The Story of AMUL is an extraordinary story of vision, effort and power of networks for the benefit of the poor. From being a net importer of milk in 1947 when India became independent, India has now emerged as the largest milk producer in the world. This remarkable story has been scripted by a network of cooperatives called AMUL.The AMUL network is coordinated by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (or GCMMF) which markets milk and milk products that are produced by 12 Milk Unions (each having several factories) one of which is AMUL at Anand. The Unions are spread in twelve districts of Gujarat. Each Union collects milk from farmers through cooperative Village Societies. (This structure is now replicated in almost all the States of India. ) In 2005-2006, GCMMF had a sales turnover of $860mn through milk and milk products (its Unions or plants produce 15 categories of milk products with several products in each category).The 12 Unions collect about 6. 3million litres of milk every day from 2. 5 million farmers through 11,962 Village Societies. (with an annual collection of 2. 28 bn litres in 20052006). Each village society may have 100 to 1000 member farmers who pour milk twice a day. Twice daily, about 500 trucks collect milk from these Village Societies and bring them to either of the five chilling centers or the processing plants (or Unions). The Unions process the liquid milk – produ ce milk of various types for consumption, convert some to powder as inventory and use both powder and liquid milk for producing milk products.These products are distributed to consumers through a channel comprising 4000 stockists (or distributors) and 5,00,000 retailers. It is not difficult to imagine the complexity of coordinating such a network of perishable products with an explicit social objective, in addition to a commercial one. The network realized the need for a unique model to deliver value to customers and through that serve the key objective of setting up of the cooperative – making a producer out of a poor consumer and helping her get better returns. W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 19 IIMA INDIA Research and PublicationsBriefly, we will illustrate the unique mechanisms used by this network to coordinate the complex supply chain through the intervention of a number of third party service providers (distributors, retailers, logistics service providers and IT support groups). The network practices frequent delivery and works with low inventory levels in the chain, supported by extensive information network and IT kiosks at the milk pickup locations that provide a variety of services. Payment to farmers for RM procurement is instantaneous (well, almost! ) – during the same or in the next pouring shift by the Village Society staff.Milk is carried in cans by trucks (twice daily) or in chilling trucks, once in a day, to the plants. The routes of the trucks are well established and the arrival timetables at each Society well known and rarely is there any delay. This helps provide visibility to every member of the chain and improves the return on investment in the channel. The network operates with a zero stock out through improved availability of products and quick delivery. Disciplined planning to reduce variability at each stage helps in maintaining timeliness in the channel.GCMMF coordinates the production plan between the twelve Unions and ensures matching of geographic markets with supplies. TQM and Hoshin Kanri are the key tools used to plan and implement daily production and change programmes – these have facilitated a six-sigma performance throughout the network and has led to a doubling of sales revenue in the last ten years. Most interestingly, AMUL has the largest market share in every product category that it competes in – its competitors are both large MNCs and large & small Indian firms.AMUL illustrates how good managerial practices can help bridge the gap between profits for the supplier and low cost, highy quality products for consumers – all through exceptional coordination of logistics operations across an extensive network. AMUL operates with one umbrella brand for products from all its member Unions – a testimony to strong quality and cost coordination across all Unions and Village Societies. In addition, its has been singularly responsible for pulling out several million o f its members from poverty, ill health and illiteracy through its business model (called Anand Pattern) and social programmes.For details on this case study see Chandra and Tirupati (2003). W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 20 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications The DABBAWALLAHs of MUMBAI6 The â€Å"dabbawallah’s† or the ‘lunch box delivery people’ of Mumbai pickup and deliver lunch boxes from homes or restaurants and deliver it to the customer’s office – all within a specified time frame – and then deliver the empty box back to the place of pickup. It is an example of how processes can play an important role in coordinating logistics of an important service industry in India.The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Charity Trust of Mumbai was established in 1891 to provide pick-up and delivery of lunch for Britishers working in Mumbai. Since then it has become the leading lunch delivery cooperative in the city. It picks-up and delivers 200,000 lunch boxes in a standard container every day and returns the same to the place of pickup. The firm has an annual turnover of about $12 mn and employs 5000 people for pickup and delivery – almost all of them are uneducated. However, there are less than 10 boxes mis-delivered or un-picked in a month!We discuss, briefly, the processes that help make this logistics network errorproof and deliver such an astonishing performance. The operations of the group has attracted global attention and won them many awards. They represent a growing group of service providers that exist as an element of the logistics network, provide niche service and generate value in return for the customer. The Trust which is organized as a cooperative is operationally organized in hierarchical teams – pick-up teams, consolidation teams, delivery teams (and then the reverse logistics for empty boxes with reversing of the functions for the teams).Typically, each dabba or the lunch box passes through more t han four pair of hands and may be transported up to 60 km each way. Pickup is done between 7. 30am-9. 00am, delivery between 12. 00 and 1. 00pm and return between 2. 00-5. 00pm. These represent tight time-windows where a team of 20-25 members (and supervised by a team leader who also fills in as a pickup person in case of any absence) pick-up lunch boxes from homes – about 30 per pick-ups person. The boxes are carried in a specialized fixture on a bicycle to the nearest train station where the boxes are consolidated by destination.A consolidation team performs this task and carries the boxes (which may have been picked by members of different teams but need to travel to the same destination geography) into the train. Often tiffin or lunch boxes are un-loaded at intermediate train stations – re-consolidated with boxes coming from other locations (i. e, cross-docked) and carried on a third train to its 6 Lecture of Mr Megde, President of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppl iers Charity Trust at IIM Ahmedabad, 2003; Chandra (2004) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 21 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications estination station. At the destination station, the lunch boxes coming from various origins/cross-docking destinations, are once again segregated by the building where the delivery is made. Finally, a delivery team picks up their boxes, i. e. , boxes that they will deliver to specific owners in specific buildings, carry them on their bicycles and deliver them in the office of the owner of the box. Later in the afternoon, the same person picksup the empty box and pursues the reverse logistics and the box is ultimately delivered at its point of origin – either a home or a restaurant.With this as the complexity, what may be plausible reasons for such low errors? Contextually, the group members see their role as very important – they are responsible for delivering food to their customers – socially, it enhances their commitment to their tas k and establishes a critical customer-service provider link. Operationally, the handoff is done successfully through simplification or breaking down of tasks, codification and repetition. The designed process is simple and easy to understand for each operator.More important, each operator has a limited yet definite role. This role is one of pickup, consolidation & transfer and delivery (and the similarly for reverse logistics). Each pickup operator does not pickup more than 25-30 boxes as that is the number of addresses etc. that he can remember accurately which helps in avoiding mistakes. The lunch box is enclosed in a standard container which carries a unique code for the destination station, the building where the box is to be delivered and the floor number in that building where the office of the customer is located.Each operator recognizes a limited set of codes that are relevant to him (and does not have to learn the entire coding scheme). And finally, repetition of the task ( i. e. , same pickup location, same place for cross docking, same delivery location etc. ) helps in making the task foolproof. Of course, what helps is the linear geography of Mumbai, the punctuality of trains, relatively stable demand and strong inter-dependence between operators. It is an example of how manual logistics systems can be organized to effectively deliver value to the customer.ITC e-choupal7 The e-choupal project was launched by ITC (a large diversified company with strong FMCG presence) in 2000 in the central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh (MP) to reorganize the distribution of soyabean in rural markets. Today e-choupal reaches out to Source: www. echoupal. com, Talk by the eChoupal CEO S Sivakumar at IIMA, 2003, Mitra (2004), MBS CS (2006) W. P. No. 2007-03-07 7 Page No. 22 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications more than 3. 5 million farmers in 31,000 villages through 5,200 internet enabled kiosks and now covers a variety of agri-business products.The e-choupal was a u nique venture which aimed to eliminate the middlemen from the agricultural commodity supply chain and reduce information asymmetry for the farmers. It is an extremely profitable rural distribution system with its unique design features. The e-choupal was started with an objective to re-organize the soybean trade which was operating in an inefficient manner. Farmers used to sell their produce through government mandated markets called â€Å"mandis. † Mandi trading was conducted by commission agents who bought and sold the produce.As the produce was sold through auction by these traders, farmers would find out the market price only upon arrival at a mandi. If the buyers had purchased enough for the day at this mandi then either the auction prices fell dramatically or the farmers had to wait for the next day’s auction. While all this may have been happening at one mandi, the farmers were unaware of the auction status at other mandis where there could have been shortages. The decision regarding the quality of the produce was also dependent on the trader.Similarly, distortions in price and quality effected agro-business trading firms like ITC who were, by government law, required to purchase from the mandi and through these traders and not directly from farmers. Under the e-choupal model, kiosks were setup in villages providing farmers information in local language on agricultural inputs, best practices in farming, market price realized at various mandi auctions, weather details etc. Nevertheless, it enabled ITC to purchase products directly from farmers (through a change in the law), enhancing quality of products and significant cost reduction (e. . , it saved $5. 40 per tonne on soyabean). The e-choupal now has just two service providers in its procurement chain – the sanchalak, a person between the kiosks and the farmers who inspects the produce and based on his assessment of the quality, the price of the commodity is decided (he gets 0. 5 p er cent commission on the volume sold) and samyojak, a person who manages the ITC warehouses (he gets 1 per cent commission on transactions). Samyojaks also handle much of the logistics at the procurement hub like storage management and transportation from the hub to processing factories.ITC was able to overcome the hurdles posed by infrastructure inadequacy in villages. It uses solar energy to power the batteries of the computer kiosks and has shifted from W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 23 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications dialup connection to satellite based technology (VSAT). Farmers are now able to make informed decisions as they understand the market better leading to higher productivity. Various seed and fertilizer companies are now able to reach wider market with lesser transaction cost.The e-choupal has provided a market for more than 64 companies (to name a few, Monsanto and Nagarjuna Fertilizers). This innovative direct procurement channel is a win-win mechanism for all the involved parties. ITC is now building a rural retail infrastructure on the foundation of the e-choupal network thereby changing the rural distribution landscape. Transforming the Auto-Component Replacement Supply Chain With changing government policies and consumer preferences, the distribution supply chain of Indian companies has been effected significantly. This poses new challenges for various channel partners.We illustrate this transformation process through the lens of the auto component replacement market supply chain and discuss its implications. We surveyed 21 manufacturers and 22 channel members (distributors, wholesalers and retailers) spread equally in Northern and Western clusters of auto component Industry in India for this purpose. The auto component industry produced parts worth $6. 7 billion (2004-05) with 57 per cent of the demand coming from the replacement market (ACMA, 2005). Low entry barriers have led to a large number of players in the replacement market.T here are about 400 firms in the organized sector and more than 5000 in the unorganized sector. Another feature of this sub-sector is the long duration of ownership of vehicles in India which leads to high requirement of parts. It is also found, anecdotally, that willingness to pay for parts decreases with the length of ownership. This has led to an intense segmentation of the parts market by price. Pre–1991, this industry was still in a nascent stage. It was characterized by few manufacturers and low demand. Consequently, the distribution network was flat (Figure 4a).Availability of spare parts was a key issue with long delivery lead-times and manufacturers sought large order sizes. This also led to the growth of un-branded parts or parts branded by regional producers (often supplied by small firms) in the replacement market. The product was sold chiefly on personal relationship with the buyer; quality, brand and price were not the selling propositions. Maruti Udyog Limited h ad created a W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 24 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications network of suppliers of quality parts for its vehicles.Hero Honda had done the same for its motorcycles. Post-1991, the liberalization of the automotive industry led to an entry of many foreign auto players. Because of the impending automobile industry boom and high margins for distributors, the demand for spare auto-parts was expected to grow. The distribution channel was modified with the entry of two more channel members, i. e. , wholesalers and semi-wholesalers (Figure 4b). The latter were smaller versions of the former and locally oriented. The period 1994-2007 saw a major transformation of the distribution structure (Figure 4c).OEMs started to operate in the replacement market through a parallel supply chain selling parts through their service stations. Additionally, the entry of large number of channel members caused semi-wholesalers to move out of the supply chain – they either moved up the chain to become wholesalers or moved down to become retailers. To strengthen the coordination of this extended supply chain and to buffer against the differential tax structure across states, companies started to operate with Carry and Forwarding Agents (C&FA). Transportation related activities are carried out by all the members of the supply chain.Manufacturers use services of 3PL for transferring their stock to C&FA and distributor locations. But thereafter, the transportation activity is solely managed by channel members themselves. An analysis of the available IT infrastructure and its usage pattern for all the channel members in our sample survey indicates that there is a high deviation in the usage of IT in the replacement market supply chain. Eighty seven per cent of the sampled firms use an ERP package – most of which is customized and developed locally. The main impediment in the use of a branded packages is the high cost of purchase and mplementation. These pac kages are used to generate sales report, order from suppliers, account for the financial transactions and track the level of inventory at plant and C&FA. Manufacturers order the stock from suppliers mostly through emails. In order to track inventory in the channel, firms also made IT investments both at C&FA and within the firm. Linking the C&FA to the company website enabled firms to check stock status at the C&FA and reduce the order processing and customer response times. Larger firms are also providing a similar setup to their distributors.Since the C&FA is mostly owned W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 25 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications and managed by the firms, manufacturers are also able to check the inventory status, dispatching status and customer records. Distributors have invested primarily in computers for keeping track of the inventory and updating accounting details. On the other hand, rest of the channel partners (wholesalers and retailers) don’t even own comp uters. Parts are ordered primarily on the phone. Interestingly, most distributors were found to be following periodic review olicy while the rest of the channel members were following continuous review policy because of their low sales volume. Post 2007, with the implementation of a uniform tax structure across all states, there will be some changes in the way firms operate. The C&FA will, perhaps, become redundant as most manufacturers will prefer to deal directly with distributors. The concept of an exclusive distributor is expected to vanish. It is expected that with the increase in variety of components, distributors might become wholesalers and will stock multiple brands for the same product.Two parallel distribution channels are expected to be in operation – the OEM chain and the non-OEM chain (Figure 4d). OEM network will primarily handle the passenger car replacement parts and the non-OEM distribution network will sell parts for Light Commercial Vehicles, Heavy Commer cial Vehicles, 2-wheelers and 3-wheelers as the car customer is becoming more brand conscious even while replacing parts which comes along with superior service. Further, we perceive that the more advanced automobiles, Free Trade Agreement with other Asian countries and VAT are going to change the way the replacement market operates.There will be a rationalization of this market in terms of number of firms competing thereby leading to an improvement in quality, delivery time and availability of parts. The size of the firms is expected to increase with an emergence of large national players (in addition to OEMs). This may reduce the number of producers exclusively focusing on the local markets. W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 26 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Figure 4a Manufacturer Figure 4b Manufacturer Distributors Distributors Retailers Institutional Buyers SemiWholesalers Wholesalers Institutional Buyers RetailersGovernment Agencies & Transport Companies Garage-station Govern ment Agencies & Transport Companies Garage-station Vehicle owners Vehicle owners Figure 4c Manufacturer Figure 4d Manufacturer Institutional buyers C&FA OEMs Institutional buyers OEMs Wholesalers Distributors Authorized Service Stations Authorized Service Stations SemiWholesalers Retailers Wholesalers Vehicle Owners Vehicle Owners Retailers Government Agencies & Transport Companies Garage-station Government Agencies & Transport Companies Garage-station Vehicle owners Vehicle owners W. P. No. 2007-03-07 Page No. 27 IIMA INDIA Research and Publications Challenges Ahead Several challenges remain before the Indian logistics sector and its future success will depend on the ability of the industry to overcome these hurdles. Some of these impediments are at the firm level while others are at the policy level. At the policy level, the issues of infrastructure and integration of the nation’s logistics network remain the two most critical areas that require attention. The growth of inf rastructure, since 1991, has been quite extensive (covering a wide geographical area) as well as strategic – linking the key industrial, consumption and transshipment centers.However, some imminent weaknesses need be addressed. Movement beyond the golden quadrilateral is required to bring goods from upcountry production sources to main shipment centers. The rate of growth of expressway has to increase. Poor road conditions increase the vehicle turnover, pushing the operating cost a

Canterbury Tale(the Man of Law’s Tale)

THE CANTERBURY TALES (The Man of Law's Tale) The Man of Law's Tale (also called  The Lawyer's Tale) is the fifth of the  Canterbury Tales  by  Geoffrey Chaucer, written around 1387.   Summary The Man of Law, also known as The Sergeant at Law, tells a  Romance  tale of a Christian princess named Custance (the modern form would be Constance) who is betrothed to the  Syrian  Sultan on condition that he convert to  Christianity. The Sultan's mother connives to prevent this and has Constance set adrift on the sea.Her adventures and trials continue after she is shipwrecked on theNorthumberland  coast. Northumberland is a pagan country where the King, Alla (based on Chaucer's understanding of the historical  ? lla of Deira[1]) eventually converted to Christianity. Alla's evil mother intercepts and falsifies a letter between the couple, which results in Constance's being banished. Constance is forced to go to sea again and is found by a Senator of Rome. The Senator ta kes Constance (and her child) back to Italy to serve as a household servant.King Alla, still heartbroken over the loss of Constance, goes to Rome on a pilgrimage, and fortunately finds Constance. In the end the couple return to Northumberland. Alla dies a year later, and the baby boy becomes the King. ————————————————- ————————————————- Sources The tale is based on a story within the  Chronicles  of  Nicholas Trivet  but the major theme in the tale, of an exiled princess uncorrupted by her suffering, was common in the literature of the time. 2]  Her tale is also told in  John Gower's  Confessio Amantis, and both are similar to the verse  Romance  Emare, and the cycle is generally known as the â€Å"Constance† cycle. [2]  The oldest know n variant of this particular type is  Vitae duorum Offarum. [3]  More distantly related forms of the persecuted heroine include  Le Bone Florence of Rome, and  Griselda. [4] An incident where Constance is framed for murder by a bloody dagger appears to be a direct borrowing from  Crescentia. [5] ————————————————- ————————————————- Analysis Saints' lives genreThe tale is meant as a morally uplifting story and is similar to  hagiography, or stories of the saints' lives, which were common popular literature of the time. Custance, as her name suggests, is constant to her  Christian  religion despite the attacks and testing it receives from the  pagans  and  heathens  she meets on her travels. Rhetoric The Man of Law tells his story in a pompou s over-blown style as if he is defending Custance in a court of law. He also uses manyrhetorical figures, taken straight from the manuals of rhetoric of the day, to emphasize Custance's noble character—as well as the teller's lawyerly skills—and state her case.John Gower Although Chaucer receives some praise and also criticism from his own character with favourable mentions of  The Book of the Duchessand  The Legend of Good Women; in the Man of Law's prologue he seems to spare most of his opprobrium for  John Gower. [original research? ]  Two of the tales which he dislikes,  Canace  and  Apollonius of Tyre, involve  incest, as did the some versions of the story. Chaucer based this tale on the  Nicholas Trivet  story from his  Chronicle. Gower though had recorded all these stories. Chaucer is, perhaps, with friendly banter, trying to goad his friend and fellow writer into a storytelling challenge.But certeinly no word ne writeth he Of thilke wikke [wicked] ensample of Canacee, That loved hir owene brother synfully — Of swiche cursed stories I sey fy! — Or ellis of Tyro Appollonius, How that the cursed kyng Antiochus Birafte his doghter of hir maydenhede, That is so horrible a tale for to rede, Whan he hir threw upon the pavement. Sequence with other tales The various manuscripts of the tales differ on the structure of the tales with some containing the Man of Law's epilogue and others not. In the  epilogue, the host invites the  Parson  but he is interrupted before he can begin and a different speaker tells the next tale.TheSummoner, the  Squire  and the  Shipman  are listed as interrupters in the different manuscripts but it is the Shipman whose character best matches the rude remarks although the mention of his â€Å"joly body† sounds closer to something the  wife of Bath  may say. What it probably shows is that Chaucer had not fixed his overall plan. There are also hints, with his cla im he will talk in prose despite rhyming throughout, that the Man of Law originally told the  Tale of Melibee  before he was assigned Custance's tale late in the composition of the tales.

Sop communication engineering

The heart of human excellence often begins to beat when you discover a pursuit that absorbs you, challenges you and gives you a sense of meaning, joy and passion. I have found that one thing that helps me to live peacefully on this glorious planet is â€Å"successful engagement in meaningful work† keeping in my mind where my hands are. An intrepid dream by the Wright brothers to give the humankind wings to fly, an intrepid dream by few thoughtful men to let the human race take the first step on the moon.I think hat it is the gift to dream, the ability to ponder beyond facts and the intelligence to make thoughts into reality that sets us apart from the rest in the tree of evolution. From the wheel to pacemaker, history is replete with events where a simple, yet brilliant idea has changed the way future generations live for decades, and even countries. I believe in seeing dreams and giving my best to realize those dreams that will be a step forward in the betterment of the human race.Dreams are what made the world, what it is today. In an era of competition and excellence, engineering has taken strides which our forefathers never even dreamt of. To be an excellent instrument for the development of our world we must be educated, cultured, refined and thoughtful. Knowledge is what elevates man to a disciplined being. To be an erudite is not only about possessing education but also having skill to implement it in a practical world.An aspiration to become a pioneer in the field of Electronics prevailed right from my childhood. The desire of gaining in-depth knowledge and my enthusiasm and curiosity to understand the mechanics of electronic devices and about communication systems led me to hose Electronics and Communication engineering as my undergraduate study. During my undergraduate studies, lectures delivered by eminent people who are leaders in their field exposed me to the needs and aspirations of the industry. Id my summer in-plant training in Airports A uthority of India, where I was engaged in learning various functional aspects of security and communication equipments such as X-ray baggage Inspection System (SIBS) and CATV camera used for surveillance purpose. During my third year of undergraduate study had the opportunity to visit Doorman's Achaean, which is the Indian's largest public broadcaster. Had a great experience working with the technicians in this platform where I had a thorough knowledge about the working mechanism in Production control room, Master control room, earth station and transmission process.To implement practically what had learnt in my three years of undergraduate study, I did my final year project which is about â€Å"Implementation Of tamper proof ATM and weapon identification system. † Looting money, ATM robbery/ burglars damaging the money vending machines have become common. So, n order to save the lives of common people I had used a vibration sensor and inductive proximity sensor which will al ert the cops using a RFC transceiver.Hence, this is an added protection to ATM itself. In addition to the above projects, I am currently pursuing a course on â€Å"CAN (Switching and Routing)† that validates the ability to install, configure, operate and troubleshoot medium-size routed and switched networks. I believe this course is supportive for any communication engineer to know more in depth about NETWORKING and also hope that this course will be beneficial for me to attain an internship experience in your laboratory.To further my knowledge in the field of Communication Systems, I wish to pursue my higher studies and excel in a graduate school that stands for high quality teaching and infrastructure which could help me realize my goal of becoming a lead engineer in the field of communication systems. Nanning Technological University (ANTI) is likely to provide me just that through its Communication Engineering program. The course listings under this program with subjects such as Digital communication systems, Optical fiber communications,Computer networks, Antennas and propagation for wireless systems and all other courses provides me a great platform to further my ideas. This knowledge shall help me in design an effective, efficient and safe system, play a significant role in long-term planning and help me to become a successful communication engineer. I strongly believe .NET is the place that provides the path towards my destination. NUT has one of the topmost ranked graduate programs in Communication Engineering in terms of experienced faculty and state-of-the-art infrastructure and research facilities.

Travers and Newton-Francis articles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Travers and Newton-Francis articles - Essay Example The present paper illustrates the comparative study of the Travers and Newton-Francis articles. The Travers (2008) wrote a comparative article â€Å"Understanding Comparison in Criminal Justice Research† to elaborate the phenomenon, how comparative research is conducted in the criminal justice. In contrast, Newton (2009) wrote the article on â€Å"Criminal Justice Research and Practice: Diverse Voices from the Field† which was a review of the book of Miller’s collection edited by Susan L. Miller (2007). This article guides the students of sociology or criminal justice about their subject goal. The article size of Travers (2008) has an extended length and followed the methodology of sections and sub sections to explaining each idea in detail. The first section â€Å"Positivist and Interpretive Understandings of Comparison† of Travers’ article (2008) described philosophies of Positivism and interpretive methods for comprehending the comparison techniques, explanations, addressing and the challenges faced by interpretivists in criminal justice research. In the second section â€Å"Using Qualitative Methods to Explain Statistical Variation† Travers (2008) explained the method of using qualitative technique toward describing the quantitative facts in the criminal courts. This section also covered the problems and their solutions possibilities regarding such method. Section three â€Å"Taking Interpretivism Further: An Australian Case Study† demonstrated other interpretive practices of comparison using example of an Australian ethnographic case study and the examination methodology used by professionals. Final section â€Å"Conclusion: Toward a Different Understanding of Comparison† Travers (2008) concluded overall results which was drew from this article. On the contrary, the article size of Newton (2009) is precise, does not follow methodology of sub sections but explained the three parts of essay as carried in the

Company Mercedes- benz Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Company Mercedes- benz - Essay Example This paper looks at the internal and external corporate strategy by Mercedes Benz and their entry strategies into new markets across the world. The paper also looks at the structure of the business and its affects the entry strategies of the business in new markets. The characteristic company in the automobile industry, Mercedes-Benz owned by Daimler AG, manufactures Mercedes Benz automobiles. The company has a good capital base and engages in manufacture of a range of automobiles. The most notable are the luxurious cars manufactured and sold in luxurious packages. The cars have given the company a competitive edge in the market for a long time and have amounted to large percentages of the company revenues (Mifflin, Hill & Jones 481). The new electronic and self-propelled automobiles are the latest brand in the high quality automobiles from the company. The engagement of the company in innovative automobile tuning and development is also a great branch of their development. AMG, a br anch of Mercedes-Benz propels the innovation activities in the company through the production of high quality and innovative engines that make the company a good brand worldwide. The company has entered into the businesses because they want to gain a competitive edge over the other people in the market (Mifflin, Hill & Jones 480). The revenue streams from the businesses also propel the people to enter the market. Mercedes-Benz has a proper entry strategy into the global market, bearing in mind the competitive nature of the market. The company mainly uses the need-based entry strategy where they develop brands that fulfill the needs of the market. In established and confiscated markets, the company uses product differentiation in order to penetrate the markets. With the number of automobile companies increasing, the company manufactures automobiles with unique features, which do not exist in the market. This helps the company to beat off competition from the other companies as they e asily convince the customers with the new models of automobiles (Mifflin, Hill & Jones 494). In penetration of the global market, Mercedes-Benz uses the specific model method in penetration. Different parts of the world use different models of vehicles and are willing to pay for the models. The company manufactures models that fit such markets hence the markets can pay the prices of the automobiles readily. The regional diversification of the models from the company helps the company to penetrate the automobile market easily and efficiently increase their sales in the regions. The market entry and penetration strategies cater for the strengths and policies of the company, which call for innovation and creativity as the base for the growth of the company. The main weakness of the company is the premium pricing policy. However, the regional, operational, and categorical production of the automobiles help to further the sales of the brands. The financial analysis below is proof of the performance of the company. source: Mifflin, Hill & Jones (501) The company structure of Mercedes-Benz supports the market strategy of the company very well. Mercedes-Benz has diversified companies producing automobiles in different area. The subdivisions in the company mainly base on the area that the model deals in. a different section

How does income affect health Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

How does income affect health - Essay Example This paper discusses how level of income affects health from the narrow perspective of considering its effect to an individual to the broader perspective of considering income inequality as a major determinant of standard of public health. The World Health Organization or WHO (2010) considered income and social status as the number one determinant of health, conveying that higher income and social status are linked to better health where the greater the gap between the richest and poorest people, the greater the differences in health. People with higher income have the ability to maintain health and wellness as they can afford to buy even the expensive foods (but rich in nutrients), vitamins, and supplements; they can engaged in various recreational activities and sports requiring membership fees, personal equipments, and rental fees of equipments; they can afford to pay private medical or health insurance to cover their medical expenses. Moreover, people with good income can afford education and in school they learn more about health and wellness, thus health awareness is broadened through knowledge. With educational qualification, finding work is easy, thus increasing one’s source of income and consequently i ncreasing access to health beneficial activities and programs. Many researchers and analysts support the idea that there is a strong direct correlation between level of income and health. According to Levison (2007), â€Å"How much money you make helps to determine how healthy you will be†¦ Having higher income levels provides us with access to fitness centers, better choices for our eating patterns, and better medical care.† Christensen (2010) also supported the idea that money can save lives, as she mentioned that a child living in a developing country may die due to unavailability of antibiotic or incapability to buy medicines, which for many developed

Bullying and Zero Tolerance Policies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Bullying and Zero Tolerance Policies - Essay Example From this table we can see that parents are not particularly satisfied with the solutions they have experienced and they would like to try out the zero tolerance policy. Also, we can see that there have been many instances where their children have been targeted to bullying activities and have been the victims. Parents are more willing to try out zero tolerance, and believe that it would work more effectively and efficiently. We can see that a higher percentage of parents think that their children are the victims instead of them being the bullies. Thus, from this we can easily say that parents have a biased opinion towards their own children. Parents think that of zero tolerance policy was to be introduced their child would engage less in such behavior but it is not fro sure that this is what would happen. The bullies could retaliate to this policy which would result in higher bullying activities. One major limitation is that the sample size is not large enough to make generalizations. Students hold very differing views than parents. The children admit that they have engaged in bullying behavior more often than they have been a victim. The children agree that a zero tolerance policy would work and they would engage in bullying behavior less if it were to be followed. ... The bullies could retaliate to this policy which would result in higher bullying activities. One major limitation is that the sample size is not large enough to make generalizations. The Student's Perspective The students were asked the same questions as the adults. Questions Percentage say 'YES' Percentage say 'NO' Have you ever been the victim of bullying Have you engaged in bullying behavior Were the bullying incidents in which you were involved resolved to your satisfaction Do you feel that a zero tolerance policy towards bullying would help to prevent future episodes of bullying Would you be less likely to engage in bullying behaviors if there was a zero tolerance policy Would the potential negative consequences of a zero tolerance policy which does not take into consideration any special circumstances outweigh the potential benefits of such a policy 35 19 51 38 57 53 65 81 13 62 43 47 DiscussionStudents hold very differing views than parents. The children admit that they have engaged in bullying behavior more often than they have been a victim. The children agree that a zero tolerance policy would work and they would engage in bullying behavior less if it were to be followed. This may be because the zero tolerance policy is something that they fear because if the child is caught bullying he is scared that he would be expelled from school and his/her parents might find out. Limitations As we have seen zero tolerance being introduced for other problems such as school shooting and drugs, children who are determined will continue to carry out wrong behavior. In this way this policy may not work as students may not take it

Urban planning elements Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Urban planning elements - Essay Example Zoning can be defined as the way in which land gets utilized in urban centers. The local governments try to use zoning in controlling buildings in the city. The market square comes as the heart of the city of Pittsburgh as almost all businesses converge there. The local government instigated a project aiming at reinstating the market square to the status it was at in the past. As a cultural centre, some of the old, dilapidated buildings in the square could not be demolished so that the cultural aspect can be maintained. The local government gave direction on what to be constructed and where to be constructed. The project of revitalizing the square involved a lot of interested groups in the downtown district. The local government collaborated with several private and public organizations to make the project sustainable to different groups. The square provides many exciting activities to the populace who subsist and visit the city of Pittsburgh. This expansion of the square, seeks to create a modern urban centre environment in the city. Urbanization was one of the key issues which were considered. The effects of urbanization made the market square look out dated and, therefore, the local authority decided to undertake this move of urbanizing the city through modernization of the square. The centre of the square was to be decongested to make the place accessible and spacious. The short term goals were reducing the parking space in the square and improving the lighting in the square. Cleaning and improving law enforcement were also among the short term goals.

Module 5 - Case MITIGATION AND RISK REDUCTION Essay

Module 5 - Case MITIGATION AND RISK REDUCTION - Essay Example 385). Therefore, the effect of the ear on terrorism is vital in the analysis of the re-evaluation of the definition of security in the United States and reiterating the significance of a connection between threats and the institutionalization of the reactions to the perceived threats. Illegal cross-border activities are still considerable threats to the United States where on the Southwest border, the Tucson section is the main point of entry for the people who smuggle marijuana along with illegal aliens. In the last couple of years, arrests on United States territory have not necessarily reflected the approximations provided by the border patrol thus implying the threats are increasing. Information sharing and communication among the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies has increased considerably in the recent years but there are still gaps that need to be filled as far as implementing agreements between the agencies is concerned. The agencies have come up with forums that allow them to share and exchange information. Nonetheless, in the Tucson section, the agencies have not had enough coordination to make sure that the federal law enforcers maintained access to information concerning the threats and radio communications that are secure and compati ble so enhance their daily operations (Stana, 2010, p. 23). Coordination and collaboration in this areas could improve the safety of the officers and create effective law enforcement responses to the illegal activities that are increasing in this area. Coordination between agencies has been enough to allow sharing of intelligence evaluations between the different agencies as far border security threats to the lands under federal jurisdictions are concerned. These agencies need to collaborate and come up with mutual budget requests, strategies and combined operations that deal directly with these threats. Various efforts between agencies towards the implementation of provisions in the existing

Journal Entry Essay Example for Free

Journal Entry Essay In the twentieth century, the journal of my Irish ancestor, Detective Robert Shorts, was found during an Estate sale. He immigrated from Ireland in the early 1850’s as a teenager and spent the later part of his life as Detroit’s Detective and, later, Police Chief. The following are his words. October 24, 1872, Detroit. It was a dark time. The city had been safe since the 1830’s, so safe that women could walk about without their husbands or go to work without an escort. Now. Well, now things were dark. I found myself standing alongside the latest victim, pretty, well-dressed, not a prostitute. A lady of means, murdered in broad daylight. I wondered what the world was coming to. Back in Ireland, this never would have happened to her. Things were different there. The main difference being that in Ireland, you knew where the bad neighborhoods were, and unless you were there for reasons unmentionable, you avoided them like the plague—for that’s what it would get you, and that would be the best of things. Things had changed so much if you didn’t know the new buildings in town you could get easily lost and wind up in a bad spot. Which is probably what happened to the lady, I considered. I saw nothing that would have placed her in this dark alley that used to be a small, slightly urban park. My hand rested on my pistol as the city’s finest surrounded me to take pictures of the scene and lay the tape that would seal this woman’s fate in history as one of the first victims of organized crime. December 26, 1880, Detroit. I was named Police Chief today, called in to work to have the torch handed down to me as the last Police Chief had been murdered by vindictive members of the mob. As of yet, we have apprehended no one in the cursed plague of murders that have been a result of their organized crime since I began as Detective on the force in the early 1870’s. As the holiday passed me without celebration, I began to wonder why I ever came to this country. I came alone, without parents to support me, and with only my wits to get me to this country of freedom and inspiration. America. Land of the free, brave, and dangerous. I don’t know what most immigrants were thinking or where we got such ideas. But, in trading crime for commerce, it is true that I make more in wages in one month today than I ever made in more than two years of factory work back in Ireland. Yet, in looking out my window, I considered what there was to feel inspired about when more than six slaughterhouses surrounded the precinct. I had to endure the rancid smell of rotting meat day in and day out while I worked my cases. The mayor has promised change in the area of expansion, and a business district, which would place the markets and businesses on a different block, but that ideal seems a long way off. The papers said today that the city has seen extensive growth, moving the population from two thousand to more than one hundred sixteen thousand in the past fifty years (Schneider, 3). That’s more than one hundred thousand people who have moved within the city lines in the past fifty years. It’s no wonder the city is floundering in crime and un-planned expansion. From what I’ve seen, this dramatic increase has done more for the volume of crime and murder than it has for the success or development of the city, but there is hope of a revitalization from the industrial revolution sweeping the nation, even reaching a dark place like Detroit.

Effects of ESOL Teaching on Social Integration

Effects of ESOL Teaching on Social Integration The effects of ESOL teaching on learners in relation to social integration, identity and social cohesion Introduction This paper will investigate the affect that current ESOL teaching practice can have in terms of impacting on a variety of diverse groups of learners. It is important to consider that ESOL provision is taught across a number of disciplines and exists in various capacities within colleges, community settings, in the workplace and even prison and detention centres. The types of learners undertaking ESL courses represent a rich mix of backgrounds and come with a number of incentives to learn English. For the benefit of focusing on an area that is potentially vast in its research, this dissertation will concentrate predominantly on the UK systems and the teaching of diverse communities that represent different ethnicity, cultural background and citizenship. Breaking the Language Barriers published by the DfES in 2000 documents the findings of a report into ESOL provision in the UK and identifies a number of issues that needed addressing. The report categorizes ESOL students into four types of learner: Settled communities Refugees and asylum seekers Migrant workers Partners and spouses of students. (DfES, 2000) From these categories they determined that a great many ESOL students particularly refugees and asylum seekers experienced a range of problems including; financial, legal, social, physical and mental issues and clarified that they were marginalized, often excluded and living in poverty, subject to frequent discrimination and racism. (Sourced from: http://www.niace.org.uk/Projects/esol-enquiry/documents/ESOL-Committee-Issues.doc, Date accessed, 21/11/08 What the report also highlighted was the variable levels of teaching ability, which has been attributed to the shortage of adequately trained teachers, the lack of use of the learners’ first language as a learning resource and the lack of support for students with special learning needs. (Sourced from: http://www.niace.org.uk/Projects/esol-enquiry/documents/ESOL-Committee-Issues.doc, Date accessed, 21/11/08 The way in which the link between social cohesion and teaching can be made is perhaps best summarised by the work of Dagenais et al in Intersections of Social Cohesion, Education, and Identity in Teachers, Discourses, and Practices. There paper examines the debate surrounding government policy on promoting social cohesion. It exemplifies programmes in Canada where local and national schools and teachers work with professional agencies to develop policy directives that are geared around building social cohesion practices within a bilingual and multicultural framework. Dagenais et al took this developmental work a stage further by undertaking teacher-researcher collaboration to determine how teachers utilize both their own cultural backgrounds as well as their student’s backgrounds in order to achieve an inclusive classroom setting. Teachers were seen to adopt learning techniques which were innovative in their ability to incite inclusion. Consequently the research project conclu ded that teachers have the ability to help inform policymakers, researchers and other learning practitioners about the link between ‘identity, language and education implicated in social cohesion projects’ (Dagenais et al, 2008) The link between social cohesion and teaching is not a modern concept. Historically it has played a significant role from the mid nineteenth century to the present day. Jewish settlers arrived in Victorian London and were assisted by voluntary organisations and a small series of published self-help texts. The next wave of refugees came about from those fleeing persecution in the Spanish Civil War and to escape Nazi Europe. It was during this time between the 1930’s and the 1950’s that the Berlitz guide and the linguaphone emerged. Over the next couple of decades following the post-war immigration to the UK the government began to respond as to local education authorities and the birth of the official ESOL teacher came about during the 1960’s. (Sourced from: http://www.niace.org.uk/publications/C/CriticalHistory.asp, Date accessed, 22/11/08) Ten years later and the Russell Report was published. The Russell Report of 1973 was to ‘prove a milestone in adult le arning in the UK’. With Russell emphasising the special needs of adults and the necessity to provide for them by developing a variety of courses at different levels. (Sourced from: http://www.niace.org.uk/Publications/R/Russell.asp, Date accessed, 22/11/08). This was an important decade again in terms of refugees entering the UK from Latin America, Uganda, Cambodia and Vietnam. The 1980’s witnessed the abolition of the Industrial Language Training and adult and community education was experiencing one of its most vulnerable periods. But at the same time other community languages were being recognized. During the 1990’s there was a significant move towards recognizing ESOL which was positioned within the newly established Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit within the central government education department. (Sourced from: http://www.niace.org.uk/publications/C/CriticalHistory.asp, Date accessed, 22/11/08) Today this exists as The Skills for Life Strategy Unit which is based in the Department for Innovation, Universitiesand Skills and has been operational under its new identity sinceNovember 2000. The Unit works in tangent with other partner organisations including the Prison Service, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the Learning and Skills Development Agency in addition to voluntary and civil service. Its main objective is to take forward the Government’s Skills for Life agenda. In short it encourages continual improvement with literacy, languageand numeracy skills both at a national and local level. The Skills for Life Strategy Unit is categorized thus: Access and Inclusion ESOL Policy Learner Achievement Learner Engagement and Communications Level 2 and Level 2 PSAs Migration Strategy Quality and Teacher Education Workplace Engagement and Public Sector (Sourced from: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/readwriteplus/who_we_are, Date accessed, 22/11/08) It is from the perspective of the twentieth century that this paper will scrutinize the historical relationship between ESOL provision and the wider community including its modern day responsibility to contribute to the framework of social cohesion and inclusivity. Chapter one will concentrate on the existing evidence to suggest that there is a definite need to enhance current learning experiences for those people in society who may be at risk of exclusion or requiring greater understanding of their social, political and cultural background where the teaching of the English language is concerned. Recent research and investigative projects working with minority groups and diverse learners will be explored for consideration in the broader argument to suggest legitimizing these theories. Chapter two will then examine what is currently being achieved in relation to forward thinking and strategic change taking into consideration the moves by government and learning bodies to begin the process of applying new curriculum and teaching developments that respond to the needs of a wider community of learners. Chapter One: Identifying problems and issues amongst learners and tutors The purpose of this chapter will be to outline an indication of the types of problems that exist for a variety of people in terms of how they are taught ESOL, to identify the characteristics and needs of the learners by way of case studies and examples. Consequently the teaching methods, ESOL curriculum and identified issues in these areas will be analysed. The perceptions of English Language teaching vary greatly between different societies in accordance with their demographic, political situation and the sanctioned education systems of the country. For example in the United States second language tuition is considered the medium through which non-English speaking children are fast-tracked into English in the shortest amount of time, with little scope for quality of provision. (Julios, 2008) To give another example, Pacific communities born into New Zealand life are currently facing a crisis with ESL provision in that while English is important to them economically and socially they are being denied their ancestral culture by losing their language and until further research has been carried out in this field it is feared the long-term issues of the teaching of English to Pacific ESL learners will remain problematic. (Sourced from: http://www.clesol.org.nz/2008/CLESOL08SaturdayAbstracts.pdf, Date accessed, 21/11/08) It is not just basic fundamental issues relating to culture or quality of teaching practice, other complications arise when learners have other specific learning needs which can further limit their academic success on an ESL course. For example individuals may experience low levels of literacy, no formal educational background or unfamiliarity with the standardized Roman-script. Recent studies in the UK reveal that within a cross- section of ESOL classes. ‘59 per cent of learners have had 11 or more years of Education, with 23 per cent having more than 15 years in education. Males were more likely than females to have no qualifications 37 per cent compared with 32 per cent of females’. (DfES, 2005) Some of these individuals may be survivors of torture and trauma as well as being older in years and require more time and attention in the classroom. The educational researcher McPherson determined that ‘classes formed on the basis of a range of characteristics which indicate a slow pace of learning, will often result in such a disparate group that their different language and literacy needs will not be effectively met.’ (Hinkel, 2005) Refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers as well as established settled communities want to learn English. Amongst these individuals there exists a huge diversity as well as some obvious common themes like those already touched upon. All of which bring with them a set of needs and different expectations as to what students require from a course of ESL teaching. Their backgrounds and life histories are often complicated. A number of ESOL Pathfinder projects were commissioned in 2002 across ten locations in England with the intention of contributing to the Government’s Public Services Agreement Target to ‘improve the literacy, language and numeracy levels of 2.25 million adults between the launch of Skills for Life in 2001 and 2010’ (DfES, 2005) The ESOL initiatives were evaluated later that same year and stressed the diversity of learning characteristics within this sector, with interesting figures emerging about the slightly increased numbers of women than men undertaking the courses. This suggests that there may be a number of challenges for women trying to support their children at home. Gender in itself is another significant point of interest in this study as many women can be believed to have lived in England for a number of years and have never learnt the language or only speak elements of it, these women are often most recognized in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities where they have very different cultural responsibilities and therefore less opportunities to attend beneficial ESL courses. (Heath and Cheung 2006) In particular women who are asylum seekers or refugees can experience tremendous isolation and feel restricted with access to health services, not being able to speak the language as well as being potenti ally more vulnerable to abuse or violence from a cultural perspective. The ESOL evaluation revealed that almost half of all learners were less than thirty years of age emanating from a broad sphere of ethnic origin. This ethnic breakdown included White and other students totaling 16 per cent, African, 15 per cent, Pakistani, 13 per cent and Other Asian 13 per cent. The Learner Survey revealed over fifty-four different first languages spoken by learners. Half were married or living with a partner and one in six were living away from their partner who resided outside of the UK. (DfES, 2005) The 2008 NIACE report ESOL: the context and issues also corroborates this evidence and adds that students of English are learning for a variety of purposes which include securing or progressing into long-term employment, supporting their children, being able to access services, being able to integrate more into their surrounding community and aspiring to embrace the British culture and British political systems. (Sourced from: http://www.niace.org.uk/lifelonglearninginquiry/docs/Jane-Ward-migration-evidence.pdf, date accessed, 21/11/08 Most recent studies reflect the need to improve on the way in which ESOL is delivered and encouraged for the benefit of the inclusion of a variety of needs and abilities. It is clear however that this issue has been apparent for a number of years which makes the prospect of re-developing curriculum provision and teaching methods in this complex area of teaching particularly difficult. ESOL has inherently adopted a style which serves a purpose, designed for the masses often to be delivered and completed within a limited timeframe. In 1989 a study of 13 Adult Education ESOL centres across the UK were investigated focusing on bilingual migrant learners. This early analysis captured the attitudes and motivations of these learners and emphasized their desire to maintain their mother tongue and heritage whilst being taught the language and customs of their new host country. (Lal Khanna, et al, 1998) One of the most interesting and informative research projects to date in this area is reflected in the Adult Learners’ Lives (All) working with people who are learning within adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL groups to understand and appreciate their concept of the learning experience in relation to their wider lives; covering the regions of Blackburn, Lancaster and Liverpool. As part of this initiative a recent commissioned piece of research was carried out amongst ESOL students who were enrolled on an evening class at Blackburn College. The findings of this report share some of the most important data in existence relating to primary first hand interviews with students. The outcomes reveal both positive and negative opinions relating to ESOL provision, which essentially can be interpreted in both a positive and negative light. The participants believed that more than anything their work experience had provided them with the best opportunity to encourage their learning of the English language an was much less restricted that the classroom. For many this was their only chance to utilize the language outside of the classroom. The learners were critical about the amount of provision available and found it affected their learning capabilities. One participant in particular, Mahmood found that working all day and then studying English in the evening prevented him from finding a vocational course in a different practical subject that could increase his chances of gaining better employment. In terms of issues relating to their background and culture, many familiar examples of diversity were apparent across the group as were their complex needs and considerations. Frederick carried the scars of war in his country and suffered considerably both physically and psychologically. Despite this his motivation levels were extremely high. Iqbal came to England in order to be with his new wife. The transition from his old life and professional career had left him very dissatisfied. Proving earlier references to gender and cultural relationship issues Ammara was studying at degree level and had been instructed by her husband to discontinue with it. This had repercussions on here work life which she had to compromise with and learn English accordingly. Below are some of the edited extracts detailing the participant’s interviews taken from this report. Frederick’s story: ‘Frederick came to England for the reasons above and more. He arrived in England with nothing. He didn’t have permission to work, couldn’t speak the language and had no friends or networks. His first step of integration in to the country was his attendance on an ESOL course at Blackburn College. Despite his desperate situation he was anxious to start again and enrolled almost immediately upon his arrival in Blackburn. Although he was aware of the importance of learning English he found the classes very difficult at first: â€Å"It was my first time, the first time it was so difficult.† In spite of his worries he continued the classes and vastly improved his English during his first year here. Also significant was the beneficial effect ESOL classes had on his social life. He made many new friends, who helped ease the loneliness of living in a new country, and gave him an extra chance to practice his English.’ Ammara’s story: ‘Ammara sees a close relationship between education and work. She clearly perceives education and training as a stepping-stone into work. She has shown that she is quite adept at completing courses and using the obtained qualifications to find work. Her biggest problem is language related. She had quite a good decent overall level of English when she arrived in England particularly with regards to reading and writing. Due to the high level of education she obtained in Pakistan she was able to complete the courses she took here easily because she had a good level of literacy skills in English. The language issues she is facing these days arise from her limited oral grasp of English and this appears to be most noticeable to her in her working life. With regards to work and language, Ammara feels she can manage but feels she regularly encounters difficulties. She has numerous concerns about language. She feels very unconfident about her use of grammar and structure when she is speaking. She believes that despite having a good knowledge of English, her speaking ‘imperfections’ lead to a barrier to her professional development. She also thinks that what she describes as a limited vocabulary is a barrier to communication and explanation. This has various implications for Ammara in the workplace. Because she lacks confidence she believes that her language prevents her from using her initiative at work, and so she ‘keeps quiet’. â€Å"sometimes I know somebody is wrong and even if the person is senior, I can explain but I just kept quiet because I feel like everyone is picking on me.† She also thinks that people’s perceptions of her professionally will change just because of her language proble ms.’ Mahmood’s story: ‘While he was waiting for the Home Office to grant him permission to work, Mahmood was unemployed for six months. He used this time to start English classes and familiarise himself with his new country and surroundings. Upon receiving his ‘leave to remain’ and permission to work from the Home Office he got a job at a sewing factory in Blackburn, where he still works. His role is to sew medical paraphernalia such as bandages and neck braces. He says that initially he found this job quite easy, as he was able to use the skills and experience gained from his sewing job in Afghanistan. He does however worry about his future. He says there is little chance of promotion in this job and therefore he is keen to look for different work. He has started to think about a change. When asked about his future ambitions with regards to work, Mahmood says he would like to do a building job. He thinks that this will be difficult for him to achieve because he doesn’t feel he has enough experience. He doesn’t feel that the experience he gained from his sealing job in Afghanistan will be of use to him here, as he believes that methods of building vary from the two countries. Mahmood is aware that he will have to do a course to help him achieve his aims, but has little knowledge about the courses available to him and thinks that it will be difficult to do a part time course, work full time and continue with his English classes. Mahmood believes that his job in England has had a positive impact on his language. He gets indirect language support from his work peers: â€Å"and if I’ve got any problem with any word, pronunciation they will help me.† He is able to use informal English at work in a mostly friendly atmosphere. He is also positive about the support he has gained from his boss with regards to his language. He says that right from the start of his employment his boss encouraged him to attend English classes. If overtime clashes with his twice weekly evening English class then his boss is always flexible, he will say, â€Å"OK you don’t have to work you go to college.† Mahmood is extremely aware of his language needs and is very motivated to improve. He told me that he uses friends at work to practice language covered in class, and his level of motivation can be seen in his 100% attendance in English class and the huge improvements he has made over the last two years. (Sirling, 2005) Accessed from: http://www.literacy.lancs.ac.uk/workpapers/wp08-esol-blackburn.pdf What is visibly obvious here are the feelings, aspirations and characteristics of a group of learners who may well require much of the special attention to teaching that this paper is attempting to argue. Although an already fairly advanced English language speaker, Ammara could like so many others at that level benefit from tutoring in just a few specific areas of English acquisition and at a time of the day when she does not have to juggle her family and several other jobs. And we see with Frederick that despite finding it hard to study and adjust to the cultural and social restraints of a new country he has actually achieved a sense of community and belonging by way of attending ESOL classes. It is clear that it must not be assumed that all migrant peoples, asylum seekers and diverse ethnicities should be labeled marginalized and socially excluded as there are many who do not experience this type of isolation. Nonetheless it is dependant on the type of teacher, classroom environment and delivery techniques which need to be made consistent in their quality and accessibility. Returning to Jane Ward’s ESOL into Context paper, she is very specific about the issues relating to the shortage of specialist ESOL teachers which impacts on the overall quality of provision across the UK with long waiting lists and minimized teaching time occurring in a number of venues offering ESOL tuition in urban areas. Rurally too where many migrant workers are being placed on entry to the country there is an inadequacy where teaching experience and expertise to deal with theses communities exists. Ward also stresses that in rural areas ‘learners accessing vocational programmes too often encounter subject tutors who have little awareness or training in language learning.’ (Sourced from: http://www.niace.org.uk/lifelonglearninginquiry/docs/Jane-Ward-migration-evidence.pdf, date accessed, 21/11/08 Chapter Two: Solutions and future provision Just as the former chapter dealt with the identification of the problems and consequences of inadequacies with ESOL teaching in respect of achieving a holistic and inclusive approach, this chapter will seek to establish potential solutions and recommendations for taking forward initiatives for future change within the current ESOL sector. This will be achieved by way of exploring current government objectives and responses to recent research which has exposed the levels of insufficient delivery within the sector. In 2003 the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy published a comprehensive review of recent research projects carried out in the field of Adult ESOL. In particular that which ‘focuses on learners who need English for the UK workplace, for study in further and higher education and for living in the community. The review mainly concentrates on research that has taken place in the last 15 years and it has attempted to include all of the research that has been carried out within the UK. As most of this has been fairly small scale or not directly concerned with pedagogy, research that has been carried out in the USA, Australia, Canada and Europe is also included and its relevance to the UK context is discussed.’ (Sourced from: http://www.nrdc.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=424ArticleID=353, Date, accessed, 22/11/08) The recommendations that emerged from this review have been summarised below: It is recommended that a large scale study of actual practice in different settings is carried out. Alongside this larger study there should be a number of smaller ethnographic studies of good practice in ESOL classes, covering: learners with little prior experience of the written language; bilingual literacy provision; workplace courses; and language support on mainstream courses. The aim of these studies is to provide accounts that can be disseminated to other practitioners. There should be ongoing research into the relationships between teaching and learning in formal contexts. This could be based around a programme of practitioner research, with support from established researchers. This research should explore: specific classroom tasks to address issues of accuracy and fluency in the spoken language an investigation of different media of learning, including written materials and new technology learners discursive experiences and practices outside the classroom, and how classroom practices can take account of them learners expectations and learning strategies. And that primarily there is a need to track learners in terms of their learning ability and experience (both in and out of the classroom) as well as gleaning specific information relating to them as individuals, the key aims being to determine: learners who arrive in the UK with professional qualifications and experience, but low levels of English learners whose first language is an English based Creole or dialect learners with trauma. (Sourced from: http://www.nrdc.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=424ArticleID=353, Date, accessed, 22/11/08) This is a refreshing indication that learning practitioners are now heavily involved in a dialogue that recognises both the necessity to investigate further into the practices of ESOL and its students nationally. This also compliments the Government’s new commitment within its ‘Community Cohesion and Migration, 2007-08’ report which makes recommendations as well as recognising localised ‘Further Education Colleges, as the centres of ESOL training in the front-line for new arrivals, in particular as they are often the first official agency encountered.’ The report goes on to clarify that teaching staff working within ESOL should be providing ‘support and help to new arrivals and referral to other agencies’. The Government continues in its conviction for change by allocating funding to this area of support. (House of Commons Report, 2007) This is however not sufficient action for many academics working in the field. As Linda Morrice demonstrates in her paper Lifelong learning and the social integration of refugees in the UK: the significance of social capital. Morrice challenges the UK Government on its recent measures to account for the inclusion and integration of refugees in the face of an increasing migrant population. She refers to the learning issues of refugees and argues that current education systems and opportunities do not adequately address the issues that they face and declares rather that ‘for refugees to become integrated and useful members of society requires a shift away from the present focus on formal, individualised education provision to a greater recognition of informal and social learning opportunities’. (Morrice, 2007) Alongside this â€Å"Discourses on social cohesion widely acknowledge that public education systems provide critical contexts for constructing social cohesion among their diverse communities† (Dagenais et al, 2008 p 85). What this seems to show is that ESOL provision to date may be serving the political ends of British society by covert mechanism of social control. In her paper Action Research: Exploring Learner Diversity Pam McPherson carried out a class-room project in an Australian adult migrant English language class. It succeeded in profiling as well as discovering the learning needs of disparate learners. She trialed a number of teaching exercises and different learning techniques from course design, resources and even the room layout. In terms of responding to students with limited formal education and low levels of literacy, she suggested the following actions should be taken and integrated into ESOL courses: Assessment and referral schemes that can identify special needs at entry into the programme Bilingual assistance for course information, goal clarification, language and learning. Low intensity courses A teaching methodology that has explicit goals, the development of language learning strategies and spoken and written language for community access Teachers trained to identify special needs and develop appropriate strategies to meet them. Recognition within the certificates in spoken and written English in order to achieve language goals related to settlement needs and the need for further education and training. (Hinkel,2005) McPherson also recognises a specific type of approach for asylum seekers and those who have experienced trauma and the tortures of War. That their physical, Social and psychological needs require specialist attention. Assuming that many of these individuals are likely to feel overwhelmed, out of control as well as possessing memory loss and poor concentration it is likely that they will have difficulty with the amount of control and concentration that is associated with language learning. (Hinkle, 2005) Perhaps a solution might be to make ESOL classes more flexible and the level of participation and communication compliant with the needs of the students. Many of McPherson’s findings inspired the government in Australia to make significant changes to their systems of resettlement and language instruction. What then have the g