Executive synopsis

Rational of the study

(i) To know, how GIS (Geographical Information System) can help us streamline logistics related business processes like . (ii) To find out the applications of Geographical Information System in Technical Communication. Inventory management. Vehicle Tracking and Dispatch. Route Analysis. Warehouse operations. Facilities and Depot Management. Routing and scheduling.

(iii)

How GIS helps in knowing the demography of the place.

Methods
By finding how various applications of Geographical Information System helps the organizations in increasing their efficiency in various processes. And by considering the application of various GIS softwares by various organization and viewing its impact in terms of saving in time and cost.

Data source
(A) SOURCES AND COLLECTION OF DATA o Sources of datao Primary Sources: The primary sources of data will comprise of highly structured visit to the various companys supply chain department. The primary data will also be gathered through interactions with the people in various organizations. o Secondary Sources: In order to have a numerous amount of relevant informations about the use of geographical information system by companys supply chain, the following sources will be used: - Newspapers -Magazines - Journals - Internet Websites

Findings
(i) Geographical Information System is one of the major tool which helps streamline logistics related business processes like Inventory Management. Vehicle Tracking And Dispatch. Route Analysis. Warehouse Operation. Facilities And Depot Management. Routing and Scheduling.

(ii)

Entire logistics operation in a company can be handled with great efficiency by implementing GIS based logistics system.

(iii)

GIS has helped the health care industry manage resources and personnel in of the same ways it has helped other consumer service enterprises.

Objective of the study

Main objective of the study is to describe the application of Geographical Information System in various business processes of supply chain to increase its overall efficiency, through

Breaking down the operation.

We can break the complex process down into five smaller areas:

Vehicle Tracking and Dispatch involves being able to keep track of the location and the inventory on board every vehicle in the field and having the latest information on its position and operating status.

Route Analysis is the operation, which aims at minimizing the cost of travel involved in transporting goods from one location to another whether in terms of trips required or time or distance or a combination of these.

Warehouse Operations become significant in cost reduction when the operation grows big and each warehouse becomes a very large operation in itself.

Facilities and Depot Management involves minimizing waste by considering the locational aspects, the available capacity, the inventory in question and the range or effective covered area of each facility.

Routing and Scheduling aims at minimizing all kinds of costs including mileage, overtime and maximizing all attendant benefits including customer satisfaction, adherence to schedules etc.

All of the given processes are expedited with more accuracy with the use of Geographical Information system. Apart from that it is also aimed to configure which are the sectors in which GIS is used and how it is used ,sectors which are taken into consideration here includes Healthcare Sector. Telecommunication sector. Banks Dairy Industry.

Research Methodology

Research Design
The study is Exploratory in nature. The study has got very specific objective which is to elaborate how Entire logistics operation in a company can be handled with great efficiency by implementing GIS based logistics system for its supply chain solutions. Research plan is to find out how GIS can help us streamline logistics related business processes like inventory management, fleet/truck management, warehousing applications and also in Healthcare sector and Technical Communication.

Tool Used:
(i) (ii) Case Study Analysis Secondary Data Analysis

Introduction to the project

The project concentrates on how GIS can help us streamline logistics related business processes like inventory management, fleet/truck management and warehousing applications. The routing of vehicles and the management of logistics operations in any company that services a fairly large geographical area can easily become quite a very complex task. The task can be simplified by the applying Geographic Information Systems, which automatically reduce the complexity by bringing out subtle geographic patterns and relationships that can form the basis of good decisions. Systems like Arc Logistics Route can take pain out of applications like Vehicle Tracking and Dispatch, Route Analysis, Warehouse Operations, Facilities and Depot Management, Routing and Scheduling. The ease of work has to be looked at though in the light that all of the data required for maximum accuracy may not be available. The system's potential would suggest that reasonably accurate decisions can still be arrived at with less that complete data sets and in time, India too would grow into a mature GIS market where data would not longer be a constraint. Geographic information system (GIS) technology can be used for scientific investigations, resource management, and development planning. For example, a GIS might allow emergency planners to easily calculate emergency response times in the event of a natural disaster, or a GIS might be used to find wetlands that need protection from pollution.

What is a GIS?
A GIS is a computer system capable of capturing, storing, analyzing, and displaying geographically referenced information; that is, data identified according to location. Practitioners also define a GIS as including the procedures, operating personnel, and spatial data that go into the system. The U.S. Geological Survey offers a frequently cited definition of GIS: A computer system capable of capturing, storing, analyzing, and displaying geographically referenced information; that is, data identified according to location.Practitioners also define a GIS as including the procedures, operating personnel, and spatial data that go into the system. GIS allows any data with a geographic component (city, ZIP Code, country, etc.) to be displayed on a map.

Sears and Roebuck

Sears Roebuck and Co., one of the largest retail chains in the United States recently put to use ESRI GIS software to take care of in-warehouse routing and direct delivery systems. The system not only functioned well but also received recognition for its efficiency and success at its work. Let us analyze the process of making a sale in company like Sears and Roebuck. The customer could come to one of the retail outlet or pick up a catalog from somewhere or order via one of the direct delivery channels like television, radio or the Internet. In the first case, assuming that the outlet has the stock, the customer will immediately receive the goods he asked for and that would be the end of the process. In the other cases, the transaction generates what is called a sale ticket. This ticket carries the transaction number, the ID number of the good(s) purchased and other details.

The ticket is then processed. A good or the goods matching the description on the ticket must be 'tagged' with the address that it needs to be delivered to, usually as a bar coded address. This 'tagged' good will generally reside in the warehouse at this time. The good will then be picked up and put in to the truck that is going to do the round of a set of address among which the tagged address is one. Once loaded into the truck, this good will then be offloaded and handed over to the customer at the right address. The processes that we have not detailed in this simplistic description are the supply chain and its management, the inventory and its management, the routing for the warehouse forklifts (if the warehouse

is

big

enough

to

warrant

it)

and

the

routing

for

the

trucks.

In each case as is evident, geography is the key to cutting costs. Geography determines which truck will

go to or be able to service how many address. Geography determines the time taken by the distributor to get new stocks to the retail outlet. Geography determines how much stock can be transported to the truck

in one trip from the warehouse to the truck. The entire process of managing this process is called logistics management.

MAJOR APPLICATION OF GIS AT SEARS AND ROEBUCK Vehicle Tracking and Dispatch
As global positioning systems (GPS) become cheaper, their applications is becoming cost effective and widespread. The United States Postal Services has equipped its trucks with radio transmitters and GPSs. The radio transmitters send the location of the truck at specific intervals to the central control where ESRI GIS software interprets the signal and posts it on the town map as symbol. This enables the dispatcher to track the location of this truck and the rest of the fleet in real time. Once other systems like real time traffic monitoring systems become available, the dispatcher could also be able to leverage the real time traffic conditions to modify the route the truck could or should take to minimize delays. In a similar manner retail chain could use a real time or near real time system to monitor its fleet and ensure that vehicles follow their routes and maintain efficiency and schedules.

Route Analysis
In the United States, annual traffic density figures are available off the shelf for almost all areas and all streets in the United States. We, in India are moving gradually towards a similar market scenario. A route analysis system could utilize this kind of data to generate the most efficient routes that any vehicle should take based on the current inventory load it is carrying. The system could then generate a manifest that has not only the drop-off address but also driving direction and even a map that details that route which the system finds most suitable.

ESRI's Arc Logistics Route has such a routing and manifest generation toolkit which allows you to set a trade off between time saving which the system uses as a parameter to solve a traveling salesman problem involving all the drop-off locations. The system can also be joined to a inventory control system in ERP software like SAP R/3 which could help create geographically aware inventory 'packets' for delivery taking in to account the locations of the address and the capability of the truck that will service the specific route.

Warehouse operations
A large warehouse poses the same problems as the routing application that we detailed above. Instead of drop-off locations, now we are talking about shelves as rows of shelves on which certain kinds of goods are stored. Once the inventory control system decides that a certain truck will carry a certain set of goods, a forklift ill then pick up the requisite goods and transport these goods to the truck waiting in the loading bay. To minimize the waiting time on the part of the truck and the trip distance for the fork lift Sears uses a custom application that does just that. It solves the traveling salesman problem within the warehouse. The savings are substantial.

Facilities and Depot Management

This cab be approached from the present and the future points of view. The future view involves analyses for the location of new depots based on factors like source of incoming material and the target market to which the stocks will travel the related communications networks and the fleet required/available to service these requirements. From the present point of view, ArcLogistics Route and Arc/Info could form suitable tools to monitor the present inventory scenario along the supply chain. The software could demonstrate graphically what location has what stocks against what kind of demand allowing the manager to allocate new stocks to areas, which require the new stock. The system could also be programmed to take care of anticipated demand. If summer is approaching, for a soft drink company, getting larger stocks than usual to the consumption centers becomes a priority. If these stocks arrive too early then the holding costs would go up; on the other hand a delay could mean that the competition takes over the market. The system would then present comprehensive data in an easily understandable format for the manager to be able to take an informed decision.

Routing and scheduling

finally, the operational routing and scheduling could be handled by the software to cut costs and maximize benefits on an ongoing basis. The term benefits are employed instead of profits because maximizing benefits is a larger term and encompasses intangible benefits like customer goodwill and satisfaction. The routing and scheduling modules will take care of day to day operations, generation of routes and manifests for the various trucks based on their inventory loads and tracking and monitoring the delivery.

AVL (Automated Vehicle Locater) GIS + GPS = AVL Use of geographical information system by ICICI Bank
On the road with AVL (Automated Vehicle Locater)
Once a truck gets out on the road, anything can happen. To deal with the unexpected, Indian companies are deploying automated vehicle locator systems. Fully loaded cash vans, deployed to load cash in ATMs, always face the risk of being robbed. However, forward-thinking banks such as ICICI Bank are using technology to counter this problem. The bank uses automated vehicle locator systems (AVL) on its vans to track the movement of the vehicles, and, if a van faces a robbery attempt or is found in a location where there is no branch, the administrator can remotely immobilize it. The report status generated by an AVL system provides the vans speed and sends an SMS alert to the administrator if any of the vehicles doors are left open while on the move.

GIS to analyze changes in population demographics.

U.S. Census Bureau uses GIS to analyze changes in population demographics. The bureau offers a Webbased application (tiger.census.gov/ cgi-bin/mapsurfer) that makes it possible to display information such as family household size or income in many waysfor example, by county, by state, or by congressional district. You can adjust the map (zoom in/out, change colors, make different geographic features appear) to create a display that is more informative than a standard table, chart, or print map. Figure 2. A sample map created by Injury Maps: Virginia Motor Vehicle-Related

Death Rates by County, 19891998

Roles for Technical Communicators

Familiar with technology, design principles, and communication research, technical communicators are in a unique position to become more involved with GIS. Technical communicators should consider:

Using GIS technology to help plan communication efforts. When planning communication for a certain geographic area, Technical communicators could combine marketing data with geographic data in a GIS to assist in audience analysis. This capability may be especially useful in health or risk communication.

The predecessors to GIS are unique uses of maps. Historically, maps were used solely for displaying geographic boundaries and features. One famous exception is a map of London created by Dr. John Snow in 1854. He suspected that an outbreak of cholera was tied to the water system. To investigate, he plotted the London water system and locations where people died from cholera on a map. This map revealed a possible relationship between the water system and the disease an idea contrary to mainstream thinking at the time. The outbreak was eventually traced to a contaminated pump shown on Snows map. Another well-known example of a unique use of a map is Charles Joseph Minards Losses of French Army in Napoleons Russian Campaign. This 1869 map represents Napoleons army as a bar and plots its locations as it enters and exits Russia over time. The start of the campaign is represented as a wide bar along the Polish-Russian border. The bar narrows as it proceeds into Russia,and by the time it returns to Poland the bar has thinned to the width of a pen strokea dramatic representation of the armys losses. The first technological forerunner of modern GIS was the Canada Geographic Information System, created by the Canadian government to classify uses of land. This system, developed in the 1960s, brought about many technological advances that eventually led to todays GIS technologies. (For a detailed history of the development of GIS, see the readings listed at the end of this article.) The most widely used technology today is ESRIs ArcGIS system (www.esri.com). Similar systems are available, such as those by MapInfo (www.mapinfo.com).

Uses and Features

GIS uses as its base the concepts of information display and layering created by information design scholar Edward Tufte and raises them to a new level. Tufte often cites print maps as effective displays of information; GIS is a map on steroids. In his book The Visual Display of tool to explore research questions, find new relationships between data, and find new patterns in data Routing: using GIS to delineate efficient route options (for example, shipping companies plotting delivery routes) Recently developed Web-based GIS applications make the technology even more powerful. These applications offer several benefits: Inexpensive distribution of electronic maps and mapping data, whether over the Internet or a corporate intranet Interactivity, which permits users to adjust the appearance of maps to meet their needs Electronic map formats, which allow users to use the electronic maps generated in other documents or formats

Examples GIS is literally everywhere. It is used in industries from shipping to retail to health care. Local, state, and federal governments use GIS for purposes ranging from emergency response planning to analysis of census data. Its uses are almost endlessif you have data with a geographic component, you can use GIS. Following are two examples of publicly available Web-based GIS applications offered by the federal government. Export Statistics Express, U.S. International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. This Web-based GIS application (ese.export.gov) maps export statistics and trends in many visually interesting ways. Users can adjust the display of the map and zoom in to precise coordinates.

Injury Maps, Centers for Disease Controls Injury Center. This interactive application www.cdc.gov/ncipc/maps/default.htm) provides different ways of mapping injury mortality rates. Users can create national or state maps with the type of injury death (for example, homicide, drowning) and choose features to display on the map. The displaycolors, zoom level and morecan be adjusted as needed. Users can also print or download any map as a graphic file. Created for the public health field, this application helps users understand geographic patterns in fatal injuries.

The tremendous potential of GIS to benefit the health care industry is just now beginning to be realized. Both public and private sectors are developing innovative ways to harness the data integration and spatial visualization power of GIS. The types of companies and organizations adopting GIS span the health care spectrum--from public health departments and public health policy and research organizations to hospitals, medical centers, and health insurance organizations. ESRI has over 5,000 health care clients worldwide who are using the resource integration capabilities of GIS to create analytical and descriptive solutions. GIS plays a critical role in determining where and when to intervene, improving the quality of care, increasing accessibility of service, finding more cost-effective delivery modes, and preserving patient confidentiality while satisfying the needs of the research community for data accessibility.

Using GIS for Public Health

In 1854, an English physician, John Snow, provided the classic example of how mapping can be used in epidemiological research. He identified the water source responsible for an outbreak of cholera in London by mapping the GIS has continued for epidemiological sources of diseases locations of those afflicted. to be used in public health studies. By tracking the and

the movements of contagions, agencies can respond more effectively to outbreaks of disease by identifying at-risk populations and targeting intervention. Public health uses of GIS include tracking child immunizations, conducting health policy research, and establishing service areas and districts. GIS provides a way to move data from the project level so that it can be used by the entire organization. Clinical and administrative information can be disseminated in a visual and geographic manner that is readily understood using ESRI Internet Map Server (IMS) technology. This health data can be easily accessed using an Intranet or the Internet

The Business of Health Care Geographics

While health care professionals in the public health sector were early adopters of GIS and continue to find new and innovative uses for this technology, the use of GIS in the private health sector has grown substantially in the last decade. Private sector use now encompasses applications in marketing and

business management as well as those concerned with patient care. These applications take into consideration the unique constraints under which the health care industry must operate. Health care providers can no longer afford to indulge in the "build it and they will come" fallacy. Health care is a repeat business. Though many hospitals and medical centers have operated under Reilly's law of retail gravity--more square footage equals a larger trade area to draw from--they have begun to realize that to be competitive they need to be located conveniently to their customer base. Site analysis operates a little differently for hospitals and medical centers. Unlike other types of businesses, hospital locations continue to be dictated by Certificate of Need (CON) programs in many states. This eliminates relocation as a method for improving the market from which hospitals draw patients and leaves health care providers with two methods of encouraging growth. Both require effective site analysis. Providers can find new markets by increasing the range of services they offer based on an analysis of patient needs, both present and future, in their market area. This allows growth without requiring relocation. Another stationary strategy

involves identifying and cultivating a hospital's most profitable services. This strategy includes studying competitors to learn about the services they offer and populations they serve and to gauge how profitable they are.

Using GIS for demographic analysis to estimate the demand for various types of services can benefit individual physicians. Physician specialties are more effectively marketed by locating offices near pools of potential patients. This type of analysis can be extended for use by managed health care providers.

A Wealth of Tools
Managing patient care environments within hospitals and medical centers has become an increasingly complex task. Caregivers require critical information that is readily available in a visually streamlined format. Loma Linda University Medical Center, one of the world's premier medical research centers, uses a GIS-based system called the Patient Location and Care Environment System (PLACES) to let caregivers see the physical bed location of each patient and to retrieve demographic and clinical information. PLACE uses an Arc View GIS application to view computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) floor drawings that show room and bed locations for each floor and are tied to daily census information. When the system is complete, physicians will be able to log on to an Intranet to retrieve the location and other relevant information on their patients. Patient admission will also be improved because admitting personnel will be able to quickly identify available beds.

The use of mapping to improve health care services doesn't stop at the building level. BodyViewer, an ArcView GIS extension developed by GeoHealth Incorporated, allows users in the health care industry to analyze, visualize, and map more than 14,000 of the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes that are used throughout the health care industry to index every known ailment, treatment, and procedure. BodyViewer logically aggregates these ICD-9 codes and displays them graphically as organs and organ systems. The user can build a map showing where these aggregated ICD-9 codes occur geographically. Business management and marketing practices for private sector health care companies have been enhanced through the use of various GIS software packages from ESRI. ArcView Business Analyst provides the data and ease of use that make product line planning more effective by geographically linking operational data to patient and provider location data. Areas that are underserved can be

pinpointed. Marketing strategies and promotions can be more effectively targeted to the populations that would benefit from them through the use of ArcView Business Analyst. Health care organizations can use GIS to improve management practices. Many health organizations employ sales personnel. Business MAP PRO provides a fast and easy way to balance sales territories, track prospects, and perform limited market analysis. Using ArcView GIS, medical supplies and equipment can be visually located and inventoried. Linking the physical location and condition of equipment or supplies in a large facility or distributed medical campus is a powerful new management tool. GIS can enhance customer service for a health care provider. Using, dynamic maps that show the location of services are readily available over the Web. Arc Logistics Route improves how health services are delivered at home by scheduling and optimizing routes between patients.

Tomorrow's Health Care

GIS has helped the health care industry manage resources and personnel in of the same ways it has helped other consumer service enterprises. Use of GIS for business function--marketing, sales, and facility and materials management will continue to grow. However, in the increasingly information-intensive environment of tomorrow's health care, the role of GIS will have greater importance due to its abilities to integrate a wide range of data sources, from legacy systems to image data, and to make complex data more quickly and easily understood.

Effect of GIS on Indian Dairy Industry

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
India has quadrupled its milk output in forty years, becoming the worlds largest milk-producing nation, with a gross output of 84.6 million tons in 2001. It has achieved this on the strength of a producer owned and professionally-managed cooperative system, despite the fact that a majority of dairy farmers are illiterate or semi-literate and run small, marginal operations; for many dairy farmers, selling milk is their sole source of income. More than ten million dairy farmers belong to 96,000 local dairy cooperatives, which sell their product to one of 170 milk producers cooperative unions which, in turn, are supported by fifteen state cooperative milk marketing federations.Despite this achievement, Indias dairy industry is relatively inefficient and unproductive, with yields per cow less than one-fifth those of foreign producers who will soon have access to Indias domestic market under WTO rules. Moreover, much of Indias milk products are of relatively poor quality, a consequence of poor animal health, a polluted and unclean environment, and manual handling delays. The resulting poor quality prohibits Indian milk from being exported. Pertinent to addressing this challenge is a small, entrepreneurial business, Shree Kamdhenu Electronics Private Ltd. (SKEPL), founded in 1996 with less than US$11,000 to develop IT-based tools that could increase the efficiency and productivity of the Indian dairy industry at a grassroots level. SKEPL provides integrated solutions through GIS, marketed under the brand name of AKASHGANGA, that automate the milk collection process at local dairy cooperatives. The AKASHGANGA system not only minimizes handling and increases efficiency, but also increases transparency, and creates a basis for improving the quality of the milk produced.

BUSINESS MODEL
SKEPLs business model is centered on providing technology-based products and services to help milk cooperatives become more efficient and productive. The company provides complete IT-enabled solutions that automate the milk collection process at local milk cooperatives. Its high-end system, selling for about US$3,300 (Rs 151,800)1, incorporates an electronic weighing system, a milk analyzer to test milk quality, a personal computer, and accounting and management software. Compared to earlier manual procedures, the AKASHGANGA system is faster, more accurate, and more transparent. That means milk can be sent on to the cooperative union for processing more quickly, reducing spoilage; farmers can see for themselves the weight and quality of their milk via a display and printed receipt, increasing their trust in the cooperative process. In addition, farmers are paid immediately, rather than sometimes days later as under manual procedures; and local cooperatives need fewer employees and have better records and reports for planning purposes. SKEPL places an emphasis on delivering quality products and services as well as responsive and efficient after-sales service. In just a few short years of operation, the AKASHGANGA brand has become quite popular in the Indian dairy industry, especially in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra, where the bulk of the companys 600 installed systems are located. The company and its founders have received wide recognition for their efforts. Moreover, the company has been consistently profitable, and has recently raised additional investment to enable it to expand more rapidly. With only a small proportion of Indias 96,000 local milk cooperatives using automated collection systems today, SKEPLs vast potential market is scarcely tapped.

ICT application in a dairy industry: The e-experience of Amul Overview

Gujarat Co-Operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. is an Apex Co-Operative Organization[1]. It is respected for its credentials even after 56 years after its inception. The Co-Operative movement started with two villages and 247 litres of milk in 1946. It has become a rupees one billion-business now. The success of Amul explains the reasons for this remarkable growth. Following the strategic advice from the freedom fighters like Sardar Vallabhai and Morarji Desai, the Co-Operative movement started with the slogan Remove middlemen in Gujarat by the village masses. The collective farmers succeeded in making the British government accept the concept of Co-Operative societies. The Kaira District CoOperative Milk Producers union Ltd., Anand was born on Dec 14, 1946.

Fig. 1: The Anand Pattern

The first lesson in milk marketing was learnt when an assured outlet for milk in Bombay stimulated increased milk collection in the villages of Kaira District. More and more farmers joined hands in all the villages to successfully negotiate the increased demand for the milk. The Bombay milk scheme did not accept all the milk that is procured by the Co-operative society. Setting up of a dairy processing unit was a way to solve the problem. There was a need felt for the Dairy plant to process and utilize the milk supplied by the society and as a result the dairy was setup in 1995.

The Anand pattern of Dairy Co-Operative includes the Dairy Co-Operative societies at village level and a processing unit called Union at district level, as shown in Fig.1. Inspired by this pattern, similar milk unions were started in other districts too. To market the products of the milk unions, GCMMF was formed in 1973. GCMMF is the sole marketer for all the range of Amul products. Originally they were only milk powder and butter. Later it is expanded drastically to cover products such as ice creams, pizza, ghee, cheese, chocolates, shrikhand, paneer and so on. These made Amul the leading food brand in India.

Two leading figures of the Indian dairy industry Tribhuvandas Patel and Dr. V. Kurein made CoOperative movement to succeed. The only reason for the success of GCMMF as Dr. V. Kurein stated: Determination, Dedication, Discipline are forming the driving forces of the Amul The GCMMF consists of 12 affiliated member Dairies / District milk unions and it has its own manufacturing unit called Mother Dairy at Gandhinagar with the largest network in food industry supported by marketing and distribution of liquid milk and a variety of products under the brands Amul and Sagar. It is also the sole selling agent for the National Dairy Development Boards (NDDB) edible oil DHARA. GCMMF also coordinates with the manufacturing dairy units for production planning and milk procurement and handles the distribution of milk from surplus union to the deficit areas.

According to Mr. B M Vyas, Managing Director GCMMF: Were in between the two extremes the customer and the farmer. Both expect the maximum intake. In one way, the customer wants to have the best product available at the lower price. On the other, farmer expects the maximum amount for his milk. To sustain in the business we have to make sure that we give them what they want. As all these require a tight integration in the supply and value chain activities, GCMMF is able to excel it by educating the farmer and providing him the necessary guidance on one end and on the other end approaching the consumer with the best product and understanding the Indian consumer better. The information technology and total quality management came together to help the GCMMF to gain control on the procurement, processing and distribution functions.

Information Technology is our thrust area from our inception that is because we are marketing the perishable goods. There is every chance that we may collapse in between if we dont understand the market realities and the village farmers. There should be a 24x7 hrs information flow in between us and the remaining nodes of our supply chain, according to Mr. Rathod, Divisional Manager. The need for coordinating a highly distributed system was clearly understood. Close coordination has been the main feature of the value chain, shown in Fig.4. They were well prepared for the systems revolution. GCMMF is one amongst the first few Indian companies to start a web site and opting for the Domain .coop will prove the

Improvement
Fact that they are well ahead of the time. The IT related initiatives that GCMMF undertook include an ERP initiative to integrate the market related activities. WEB initiatives made the consumer well aware of Amul. Online Stores and Portal activities like emailing, greetings gave the consumer a better picture of Amul. AMCUS, the Automatic Milk Collection Unit Systems are empowering the farmers by employing IT at village co-operative societies. IT increases the transparency levels in the system and builds the trust among the farmers. Making the system automatic could remove the man in the loop. The use of IT platforms reduces the potential for discretionary decisions.

Overview of the ICT Platform

Milk production is important to India, as milk is one of the main sources of proteins and calcium for a largely vegetarian population. Dairying provides a livelihood for millions of Indian farmers and additional income for a large number of rural families as well as means for women to participate in the economic activity in rural areas. India became the largest producer of milk in 1999 primarily due to the efforts of the co-operative movement initiated by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). The following Fig 6 represents the milk production in India.

The movement, which started at Amul Dairy in Gujarat, is now replicated in 70,000 villages in about 200 districts of India. Following the repeal of the Quantitative Restrictions on food products by the Government of India under the WTO agreement, the Indian industry faces a challenge, the co-operative diary sector has to further improve the production, collection, processing and marketing of milk and milk products. The National Dairy Development Board has drawn up a program to double milk collection in the next six years. This sharp increase requires an extensive educational program that should reach millions of farmers and dairy workers. This case shows how the education can be delivered via rural Internet Kiosks created for the dairy sector. The dairy sector already uses computers in 4000 rural locations for processing milk buying/selling transactions in a transparent manner and exposes 500,000 people daily to the benefits of IT. The project has been developed through extensive collaboration with the co-operative dairy unions of Gujarat.

The Co-Operative Society: Operations

The village milk co-operative is a society of primary producers formed under the guidance of a supervisor or milk supply officer of the Co-operative Dairy Union (District level Co-operative owning the processing plant). A milk producer becomes a member by buying a share from the co-operative after agreeing to sell milk only to it. Members elect a managing committee headed by a chairperson responsible for staff in charge of day-to-day operations. Each society has a milk collection center where farmers take their milk in the morning and evening. There are 1million farmers organized into village milk producers co-operative societies and procurement of milk is 13 million litres per day.

Fig-7

The GCMMF Amul has taken the initiative of installing the AMCUS Automatic Milk Collection Unit Systems at village societies to enhance the transparency of transaction between the farmer and the CoOperative Society. These systems not only ensured the transparency but also gave Co-Operative societies a unique advantage by reducing the processing time to 10 percent of what it used to be prior to this. GCMMF indeed got the entire supplier information through the systems integration. The information related to members, fat content, volume of the milk procured and the amount payable to the member are accessible to the Co-Operative Society in the form of a database. There are 10755 village cooperatives in Gujarat that are now able to collect 6.1 million litres of milk from 2 million members. Thanks to the use of IT, both transparency and trust have been enhanced. The total producer members clustered by the village societies is shown in Fig

The success of AMCUS prompted the GCMMF to aggressively go on using Information Technology to capture the end-to-end data. GCMMF planned to cover all aspects of he value chain. These plans supports integration of the value chain activities estined towards the Better Management Practices. These efforts of GCMMF riggered the changes in the Villages; farmers kept themselves open for the changes. One of the Co-Operative unions Banas dairy started with educating the rural about the cattle, cleanliness and so on because of the systems that are already in place at AMCUS. The Dairy Information and Services Kiosk (DISK) is another initiative that is started with the help of IIM (A) by GCMMFL. There are many more in the pipeline of GCMMFL IT Initiatives. Various things like Enterprise wide Integrated Application Systems (EIAS) to integrate the Distribution side of the Supply chain, DISK to upgrade the application at the Milk Collection Centers and to connect them to the Internet to access a specialized dairy portal with content delivered in the local language have already started giving the fruits to the rural poor, which has persuaded the rural folks to actively participate in IT Revolution of the dairy industry.

Idea Initiation
The initial success of GCMMF gave confidence to experiment with newer initiatives. The idea initiation is coupled with lot of other initiatives that GCMMF has taken to reorganize themselves in the market. Various activities like total quality management do have their role of getting IT to the rural front. The TQM drive in GCMMF triggered lot of innovative plans to improve the entitlements of various stakeholders. Every one started thinking for the collective well being of the organization. The workshops, counseling meets, awareness programs and Hoshin Kanri meetings turned out to get the quality feedback from the participants. The stress on making things better from day to day has been forced by the Kaizen model of incremental improvement.

To get the rural masses with in the TQM boundaries a program such as Internal Consultant Development was implemented. At the grass roots level, it is essential to ensure that the implementation is flawless. GCMMF employed the same approach that was used to make the distribution chain effective. This approach helped in developing the required internal competencies to transform the village society into a technology user community. DISK model has built upon the existing application by expanding the database of the milk societies to include a complete history of milk cattle owned by the member farmers. The details such as the breed and a history of diseases, inoculation, and artificial insemination are maintained in the system. The data history on milk production by individual farmer is also available in the database at the collection centers. This model is designed by IIM-A. The test of an organization is not its genius but its capacity to make common people achieve uncommon performances as per Mr Chaudhary of GCMMF. This is idea behind the AMCUS, DISK as well as the other programs were being the initiated by GCMMF successfully and making the maximum what they are intended to be.

Project Conceptualization
The GCMMF business involves daily collection of milk at 25 supply centers at Gujarat; the production of butter, cheese, ice cream, baby food and milk powder; the marketing of these products through 50 sales offices through out India; and distribution through a network of 4000 stockists who, in turn, supply of 500,000 retail outlets. Notwithstanding the traditional nature of its business, the management decided to adopt Information technology integration as a strategic thrust in 1995. The objective was to create new efficiencies in all aspects of the business, to enhance competitiveness, and to extend the market reach.

The Way things were

GCMMF being an apex organization with 12 unions with their own manufacturing units consists of 2.1 million milk producing members who supply milk twice a day to the respective cooperative societies in the village. The collection of milk in a sample village co-operative society Navali is shown in Fig. 9 and the total revenue from milk collection is shown in Fig.

Things are changed

The time that is being taken to collect the milk in a society ranges from 5 to 6 hrs averaging at about 5 minutes per member after installing AMCUS. There is a comparative reduction of more than 75% of time thats spent on each deal. Each farmer is getting paid for his milk deposited in societys counter in another counter immediately on a real time basis. Now villagers were able to send their emails from AMCUS to anywhere in the world and DISK is expected to arrive at the village cooperatives this year enabling the villagers to learn from the net and connecting with enterprise systems of GCMMF[2]. The DISK project conceptualized by IIMA will have the interconnectivity to a dairy portal at a district levels, that serves the information for village cooperative society members. The application software provide to cooperatives will include: Data analysis and decision support to help rural milk collection society in improving its performance. Data analysis to improve productivity the yield from cattle. Farmers with facilities to place orders for goods and service offered by different agencies in the dairying sector and collaborates on subjects of interest. The services to be offered at this center are: Information service related to dairying Access to multimedia database on innovations captured by SRISHTI (NGO working IIMA) from all the villages over Gujarat. Communication facilities such as email, fax, net phone Banking centers for payment for the farmers by using the milk cards which are already in place The e-governance and e-procurement Effective medium of communication to the Gujarat rural The basic requirements of DISK are already met by the village cooperatives. There might be an upgrade required for the software and hardware in place and an Internet connection would be required. For the portal at the unions, a small server and a leased line would be needed. The union portal can be implemented at a central location at one of the NDDB servers. Projects such as decision support systems and

data mining packages are in pipeline of GCMMF action plan. The new E-enabled value chain of GCMMF is shown in Fig

Fig-10

Participation of Beneficiaries
Its evident from the history that the cooperative movement was born in order to remove the middlemen and give the farmer the maximum possible benefits for his produce. The sample village cooperative society Navali does show an increase in number of the members as given in the Fig

Fig-11

Moreover the villagers are happy to have the technology that can help them in meeting their objectives. All the villagers now are acquainted with the systems. The economic scenario of farmers of Gujarat are no longer the same. Now, people are comfortable with the cooperative activities. Mr. Patel, a villager says, It is good to see the latest technologies helping the poor. This is the place where it should be used. The consistent changes from day one of cooperative movement to this day are only helping the farmers. This holds true because the systems that are in place were changing whenever required but their focus remained to be the same Serving the farmer. The over all percentage of landless farmers, those are part of

Milk Societies is shown

Fig-12

Project Goals
Success of any project is decided by the objectives and vision it has envisaged at the inception phase. The rural IT empowerment project started by GCMMF had the following objectives: to build transparency among the farmers towards cooperative society training the rural people towards the quality supply of milk getting the whole activity chain of GCMMF under uninterrupted information flow network to reduce the pilferage to remove the complexity associated with the village cooperative society milk collection process empowering the rural masses towards self-development activities to build the competencies in the area of it to build the transparency and trust amongst the rural people towards the cooperative system to face the global competition by effective decision-making.

Project Implementation
Milk is collected at the co-operative milk collection centers located within 5-10 km of the villages supplying the milk. The number of farmers selling milk to these centers varies from 100 to 1000. The daily milk collection varies from 1000 to 10,000 litres. Each farmers is given plastic identity card. At the counter he drops the card into a box that reads it electronically and transmits the identification number to the PC. The milk is emptied into a steel can kept over the weighing scale. Instantly the weight of the milk is displayed to the farmer and communicated to a PC. The can is connected by tube to a big can, which transports milk to the dairy. One operator is required to fill the can. Another operator sitting next to the can takes a 5-ml, sample of milk and holds it up to a tube of an Electronic Milk-tester (a fat testing machine, which is a local adaptation of an expensive and sophisticated tester made by M/S. ASN Foss Electric, Denmark). The fat content is displayed to the farmer and communicated to the PC, which calculates the amount to be paid to the farmer based on the fat content of the milk. The total value of the milk is printed on a pay slip and given to the farmer who collects the payment from the adjoining window. The payment is automatically rounded to the nearest rupee and the balance due to the farmer is stored so it can be added to the farmers payout for the next day. In many centers the above transaction takes only 20 seconds. The system costs around $2000 and is currently being supplied by at least two private companies. There are 70,000 village societies in India, of which 2500 have been computerized.The farmers benefit as payment is now based on a quick and accurate measurement of fat content and weight and is not subject to the individual methods. Traditional methods require hours to calculate the fat content, as the measurement process (the conventional Gerber method requires laboratory equipment and corrosive chemicals)

is cumbersome, and payment to farmers is made every ten days due to the time required by the collection centers to calculate the amount due. The IT system enables prompt, accurate, and immediate payment. The queues at the centers are short despite the number of people selling their milk being quite large. As 2500
centers receive milk from 400,000 farmers daily, the ten-minute savings comes to 180,000 man-days per month.

Project Evaluation Systems

Without effective evaluation, a project implementation is never finished. It might be inline or inbuilt with the system or external to the system. The project evaluation system compares the actual implementation details with those projected showing us the rate of return from the project. This can help in many ways for creating further course of action, proper controlling measures design, and replicability assessment. In this project there is no evaluation system in place. One of the ways in which the project authorities are evaluating the project is through a feedback. As the village cooperatives do have their own meetings and discussions regularly, the feedback mechanism is strongly enforced into the functioning of the village cooperatives. The increase in number of Village Societies moving towards automation is shown in Fig 13. The Kaizen approach, followed by GCMMF as a part of TQM measures is been used by the village cooperatives in order to tackle the quality measurement issues and solve them.

Fig-13 Most of the village co-operatives have installed quality management systems and one of the co-operative was nominated ISO certificate. The former Prime Minister of India Mr. Lalbahadur Shastri, was examined the systems that the villagers are using. He also insisted on the replication of the systems that are in place at Anand. The satisfaction level of villages is shown in Fig 14, the curve is rising because of the quality management practices.

Fig-14

The benefits of the AMCUS system

The rural people are getting benefited much by the IT initiatives, started by GCMMF. The benefits of various projects such as DISK are yet to be realized. The following are the demonstrated benefits of the ICT platform. time reduction reduction of pilferage reduced human errors on the spot payments for farmers wastage is reduced transparency of operation operational integration

The benefits experienced by the farmers are quantified in the Table 1.

Conclusion
We have seen how the entire logistics operation in a company can be handled with great efficiency by implementing GIS based logistics system like ArcLogistics Route and Arc/Info Networks There are of course constraints in the Indian scenario. Data is difficult to get and if the data is inaccurate, it can significantly compromise the overall efficacy of the system. But it has been felt that we are gradually moving towards a widespread use of GIS in India and with that data availability would also move up. In the near future advanced comprehensive logistics may not be a theoretical discussion as it is now but a reality for all of us to benefit from. GIS not only helps in enhancing the supply chain of various companies but it is also applicable in different processes of Healthcare sector and is also used for scientific purposes. The Amuls IT operations are based on the principles of collaboration, co-operation and co-evolution as opposed to the conflict, conformation and competition approach followed by brand marketers. Amul remained as the trendsetter in the whole operations. Even though Automated Milk Collection Centers and Dairy Information System Kiosk projects are part of streamlining its supply chain, Amuls projects delivered a lot of benefits to the rural community. Unlike the others in the industry Amul facilitated the rural mass for in becoming an empowered community. Agricultural Universities and Government Agencies are also getting into the projects of GCMMFL. Amul itself has seen increased revenues. It also experienced effective control over the operations through the Information Technology Projects. The experience of conceptualizing and implementing an ICT platform for a dairy industry is a challenging task. It is a distributed data architecture. The critical factors that contributed to the success of this project is worth look into:

 Understanding the baseline operations comprehensively is the starting point for designing a customer oriented ICT platform. The understanding of ground conditions helped Amul to design the system considering customer needs[3]. Here again, the implementation was carried out in a limited way and the system was expanded after validation. The reputation of the agency was a major factor that increased the acceptance of the new technology. The new system endowed substantial benefits to the customer. The waiting time for payment was completely eliminated. In any ICT platform if the benefits far out weigh the costs, the rate of diffusion will be high. Working closely with the supplier, helped in the hardware/software customization, thereby facilitating the user acceptance. This also lead to user led innovation through a pilot exercise before the actual implementation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Data: Visit to Coca-Cola, and discussion with Mr.Sankalp Srivastava, Unit Logistics Manager, Coca-Cola, Dasna. Mr.B.N.Sarkar, Astt.Manager, Coca-Cola, Dasna.

Secondary Data:
Gis.com Networkmagazineindia.com GISdevelopment.net Mappls_com.htm