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Improving Problem Freight Disposition Time

Annually, over 1MM cartons shipped from vendors are stopped and quarantined on the inbound receiving dock of Target’s replenishment network of 30 regional distribution centers.

Target’s current process to resolve these issues takes, on average, 13 days, which results in safety risks due to dock congestion, incremental DC handling costs, and delayed receipt, and subsequent replenishment to stores.

This project aims to determine process improvements, a sustainable working model for both Target and its vendors, and a software recommendation that will reduce the time to resolve inbound freight issues and the vendor-contributed defect rates.

View team project summary

Student Team:

Jennifer Garb – Master of Business Administration

Celia Osman – EGL (BSE & MSE in Industrial & Operations Engineering)

Parsa Shoa – EGL (BSE in Computer Science & MSE in Industrial & Operations Engineering)

Project Sponsors:

Nicolas Caretta – Sr. Director Product Management

Heath Holtz – Sr. VP of Field Operations

Arthur Valdez – EVP & Chief Supply Chain Logistics Officer

Faculty Advisors:

Luis Garcia-Guzman – College of Engineering, University of Michigan

Owen Wu – Kelley School of Business, Indiana University