CISCO Logistics Case Study/On-Site Visits Through Rethinking HTC Logistics 

• OPERATIONAL IMPROVEMENTS FOR CISCO LOGISTICS based on my experience from HTC Smartphones that was my attempt to implement an ERP client utility

• Operational improvements related to standing IT systems and leaving platforms unaffected before implementing the next generation of ERP software packages

• Logistics Quota Automation for very specialized tasks, yet motivating people in operations and logistics to excellence and compensating burdens

• System analysis and design in a changing world is important to decide amongst several best-of-breed packages and or instead custom software

• Unscientific methods in inexact world - since people are not exact and often vague - can lead to the hybrid approach by linking applications to an ERP, for example SAP offers connectors to Microsoft's Visual Basic to make it easier to link a Visual Basic application to SAP R/3

• I was following phases of a system development methodology: planning, analysis, design, implementation of a PROTOTYPE and total cutover, no support Ales Vymyslicky © June 2012, Newcastle upon Tyne, England

I. Automation of Cisco Logistics SSCD operational processes by VBA macrosII. Cut Through Microsoft Licensing

Automation with a focus on internal processes:1. Handling of Contact Customer Premium Exception Hold, 

Unmanned Hold, No Routing and Multiple Routing, Splitting Lines, Hypercare Restricted Hold in Cisco SVO Resolve Tool by a VBA macro

2. Contacting Planning Team and Escalation Team just by one click! (filling of templates)

3. Premium Dispatch (nearest depot macro)4. Entitlement Function (entitlement algorithm)www.infotech.com/research/ss/optimize-microsoft-licensing-agreements

Ales Vymyslicky © June 2012

How to get the most of our resource base?↓We have the following software installed at each workstation: IE and MS Office. We have standardized B2B processes. We use a tier client/server architecture.

↓We do not need an access to the server side to make an improvement

↓We should attempt to extend the current capability of the client side without database or server involvement.

↓We just need to make use of IE HTML DOM (Document Object Model), VBA compiler hosted by Excel or Outlook, resource base, competences, know-how

Ales Vymyslicky ©

SWOT Analysis for Client-side Excel AutomationLocation of Factor TYPE OF FACTOR

Favorable Unfavorable

Internal Strengths• tailored niche solution improving our efficiency; e.g. 5 emails per hour multiplied by 5 min per task by 24 hrs, saves 10 hours per day globally•Diversified geographical spread, so we can distribute the macro to APAC, NAM, LATAM, EMEAR teams• robust logic will be valid even if we changed a tool or design of a website• data are normalized in tables, relational databases

Weaknesses• to renew Excel licence. If we decide not to pay for Excel licence, then we can use OpenOffice (free software). Then, we can still employ VBA compiler hosted by MS Outlook. Finally, the weakness would turn into another competitive advantage.• I do not need Excel for my work since I can open AIT, AIM or Kuhne+Nagel reports in OpenOffice•Complicated to implement, a change of business logic may be required to achieve the total automation or just semi-automation

External Opportunities• we can enhance an overall logistic operational performance by altering a current process, developing macros• e.g. we can send out an application/macro globally or we can handle ‘contact customer’ hold ourselves by leaving it running overnight in a background or it can be available at any agent's disposal

Threats• change of a business process from outside-in perspective (market driven change) whereas I am developing something from inside-out perspective• a radical change of a structure of a web site• transition to a newer version of Cisco tool• someone works on the same problem as I, so it needs to be discussed and looked at from the top (redundancy)

 Ales Vymyslicky ©

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/mla/default.aspx?language=English&country=UK

Purchasing Outlook as a part of the whole MS Office Professional 2010 bundle:

£ 33,897.50

Through online vendors:£89.48 * quantity 50 = £4474 incl. VAT, incl. shippingThrough Microsoft store:£119.99 * quantity 50 = £5999 incl. VAT, excl. shipping

Purchasing Outlook 2007 as a standalone application:

1.) I suggest that those who do not need MS Excel or MS Office 2010 bundle for their work open AIT, AIM logistic reports or Kuhne+Nagel warehouse reports in OpenOffice (free software). So, there would be a business need for MS Outlook and Internet Explorer solely. Only a specialized group of employees needs full MS Office suite for their work, those involved in continuous innovation, reporting …

Through online vendors:£89.48 * quantity 50 = £4474 incl. VAT, incl. shippingThrough Microsoft store:£119.99 * quantity 50 = £5999 incl. VAT, excl. shipping

£ 33,897.50

In this hypothetical example, a company spent £ 33,897.50 – £ 4474 = £ 29423.5Multiplied by 3 global theatres,Gives : £ 90,000.00 per period.

2.) Any cross-application VBA macros can be hosted by MS Outlook or run on another workstation equipped by Excel/Access licence.

Outlook 2007 as a standalone:

 Ales Vymyslicky ©

Rethinking HTC Phones - A Black Box• HTC Customer Services Department, WDS, Xerox Company, also deals with B2C logistics, B2B third-party couriers and service providers 

(authorised repair centre for the United Kingdom formerly based in Milton Keynes) similarly to Cisco Logistics B2B; however, B2C bookings of couriers is fully automated through a CRM software module either WDS proprietary or SAP affiliated

• Agents acting for HTC customers authorise Return Material Authorisation, RMA requests, whenever a final HTC consumer sends an e-mail and requests RMA under warranty or a cracked LCD panel to be replaced. I remember it had to be done via e-mail communication. There were no standard web forms or normalized templates in 2011. First, asking for details (swapping hot potatoes, email communication was too tardy, passing several avoidable stages in more days). Second, creating an RMA ticket in a database. Last, confirming a serial number and IMEI number of a handset and booking a pick-up with a logistics company, i.e. UPS. Moreover, some HTC advisors just replied to too many RMA requests by a simple e-mail template advising customers to contact HTC once again by a mobile phone, or a spare phone belonging to someone else, because an original phone was broken arising to emergency situations. I was suspicious with a respect to a lack of ownership of cases and number of contacts.

• Argument: BBC Watchdog was engaged - furious consumers in August 2011.• Contradiction: The Police can seize a phone for 3 months – no one cares about emergency ---> WDS services are better than Police services;

maximum SLA, Service Level Agreement, was 4 weeks but it could be extended up to 3 months, sometimes following track & trace procedures due to lost consignments

• However, it was faster and more convenient for HTC advisors, well not for a customer sometimes. However, customers had to contact HTC twice with the same issue. The customer was told: “It cannot be done via email. Please call us.” Was WDS polite more than the Government? I can still remember false promises. Do not give any false promise to anyone/customer that you would phone back!

• Later, there was a dedicated E-mail Team established in WDS. The point is that people are different and some customers simply do not like calling to a company and they prefer sending e-mails.  Thus, a communication preference is also an important psychological factor. It could be a matter of a personal preference (final consumers) but B2B situation can be improved by issuing internal communication procedures. We need to educate customers, partners, clients or account managers about advantages of using normalised communication procedures, templates, web forms, to communicate electronically, use IVR technology, et cetera, TURNING EMERGENCY TO CONTINGENCY (spare phone):

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_voice_response                                  www.tmcnet.com/channels/ivr-system

• My final point is duality of services. Customers are served only if HTC is served. Artificial Intelligence will go to serve customers itself before customers ever contact services: pop-up windows on HTC web sites due to recognized activities, holographic videos offering help under warranty before reaching customer services spontaneously

• Like a black box in a plane – a flight recorder - the same holds for super-smartphones - customer services know ahead of time because there will be better indicators (gyroscopic, piezoelectric, moisture, GPS tracking for mitigating personal or business risks, remote lock of a stolen phone through the HTC online web portal) inside smartphones Ales Vymyslicky ©

Refurbishment Cycle – Cisco Logistics

There are many repetitive processes around this cycle, such as: 1.) Handling of Contact Customer Premium Exception Hold – quite frequent task globally – my macro is ready now, further Unmanned Hold, No Routing and Multiple Routing, Splitting Lines, Hypercare Restricted Hold; 2.) Premium Dispatch (nearest depot macro); 3.) Entitlement Function can be formulated based on Entitlement Keys in a contract (entitlement algorithm); 4.) Planning and Escalation Teams macros

The solution for Cisco Logistics• develop a computer program in VBA in Excel that we spent £90k for, with some UI and public constants, that will be controlling the following queues programmatically and constantly in a loop :

• Prm Gen: Premium Exception• Premium Dispatch• Std, Standard Theater• The VBA Program will have to get a IE HTML DOM Tree-structure.• The Document Object Model (DOM), the HTML DOM defines a standard way for accessing and manipulating HTML documents. Objects in the DOM tree may be addressed and manipulated by using methods on the objects.

• There are many other improvement opportunities there (process automation, e-mail creation, filling of templates, automation of reporting)

• You need my know-how since external developer needs to be trained in Cisco processes and would be expensive.

Ales Vymyslicky ©

How I see it from the bottom side

• e.g., there will be 10 Contact Customer holds in a queue, a macro will read them to a memory, verify a communication preference, send an SVO Status request in one batch. (SVO = Service Order)

• We can drop out the subroutine II (see the next slide) if we want to change a business logic just in this case (thus to send an email for all ‘Contact Customer’ holds).

• We will receive an e-mail confirmation as a reference that a job has been done by a macro.

• All these emails will be sent out automatically. Holds can be released by a macro too.

Ales Vymyslicky ©

Time - t

1. Unassigned holds (h0, h1 , h2 , h3 , ... hn)2. Attributes from Cisco Case Kwery (communication preference, contact e-mail)3. Assigned holds (IIIh0, IIIh1 , IIIh2 , IIIh3 , ... IIIhn)4. Attributes from Cisco SVO Status (e.g. RMA, ETA, Ship-To, Part ID, F.E. ETA, F.E. name)

I - Reading Cisco SVO Resolve unassigned queue and waiting for the 2nd and 3rd cycle, then accepting holds

III - Reading SR from email and Case Kwery attributesIV – Reading holds in the assigned queue and send emails

II – query to Cisco SVO Status and waiting for email

V - Releasing the assigned holds from Cisco SVO Resolve

Ih0 

Ih1 

Ih2 

Ih3 ...Ihn

t1 t1+τ tn tn+τ

Human factor at t1, t1+τ/3is OK

IIh0

IIh1 

IIh2 

IIh3 ...IIhn

IIIh0

IIIh1 

IIIh2 

IIIh3 ...IIIhn

Vh0

Vh1 

Vh2 

Vh3 ...Vhn

Subroutines:

A procedure will repeat itself for each subroutine…

RAM memory: {RMA}un,{RMA}asgn – dimension the variables as dynamic public variable arrays

Functional dependancy

We can handle some holds by VBA macro 24/7, especially, Contact Customer, Unmanned Hold, No Routing, Multiple Routing if certain conditions are met (such as communication preference = email, requested delivery time was set, FE ETA >= part ETA, no special instructions).

• We may have long-term goals but

• this could be a possible way in how we can make immediate measurable improvements.

Thank you!

 Ales Vymyslicky ©