3 Here are two examples of how operations try to reduce the negative effects of having to cope…

3 Here are two examples of how operations try to reduce the negative effects of having to cope withhigh levels of variety. Research each of them (there is plenty of information on the web) and answerthe following questions:(a) What are the common features of these two examples?(b) What other examples of standardisation in transport operations can you think of?
Example 1 – The Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association (search under dabbawallas) operatesa service to transport home-cooked food from workers’ homes to office locations in downtownMumbai. Workers from residential districts must ride commuter trains to work. They can be conservativediners, who may also be constrained by cultural taboos on food handling. Their workers, knownas dabbawallas, pick up the food in the morning in a regulation tin ‘tiffin’ box, deposit it at the officeat lunchtime, and return it to the home in the afternoon. The dabbawallas take advantage of publictransport to carry the tins, usually using otherwise underutilised capacity on commuter trains in themid-morning and afternoon. Different colours and markings are used to indicate to the (sometimesilliterate) dabbawallas the process route for each tin.
Example 2 – Ports have had to handle an infinite variety of ships and cargoes with widely differentcontents, sizes and weights, and protect them from weather and pilferage, while in transit or in storage.Then the transportation industries, in conjunction with the International Organization for Standardization(ISO), developed a standard shipping container design. Almost overnight the problems of security andweather protection were solved. Anyone wanting to ship goods in volume only had to seal them intoa container and they could be signed over to the shipping company. Ports could standardise handlingequipment and dispense with warehouses (containers could be stacked in the rain if required).