FedEx: The Supply Chain Management Solutions Provider

In the late 1990s, California headquartered Fujitsu PC (FPC), a subsidiary of Fujitsu Corporation of Japan, was encountering several problems relating to inventory mismanagement and non-adherence to time schedules for delivering its notebook computers. In spite of having sufficient inventory, FPC took ten days to deliver a notebook computer to the customers in the US, whereas its competitors were delivering it in lesser time.

FPC's assembling facility was located in Portland, US. The company received components from Japan, which were shipped to the US by Nippon Express . Once the components reached US, they were brought by air to the Portland facility by Circle Air Freight (CAF)...

For the fiscal year 2002-03, FedEx reported revenues of $22.5 billion and a net income of $830 million. The company keeps on adding new and innovative services to its supply chain management services portfolio. One of the recent additions is the 'consolidated returns' service under the returns management services category. Launched in June 2003, the 'consolidated returns' service primarily targeted at web-retailers and catalogers, to enable them to manage their returns better. In order to use this service, the retailers/catalogers are required to pay a subscription fee every month...