Introduction

Octopam is one of India’s largest fresh food produce Supply Chain companies. It is a farm to fork
company that helps eliminate the middlemen from the picture, thereby increasing margins and
revenues for the farmers, providing them consistent incomes, and supplying quality products to
the retailers (or other big businesses - like Waycool) at a lesser price. Its robust supply chain
ensures efficient daily operations, especially since the products they are dealing with are
perishable (fruits and vegetables). Fresh fruits and vegetables are sourced from farmers and
delivered to businesses directly within 12hrs. A picture of how its supply chain looks like is given
below. The company is currently in the growth stage and is scaling up rapidly. It opened up 40
new facilities and is looking to increase its customer base, tap new markets, and grow in the areas
in which it already has a foothold.

Supply Chain
The supply chain segment that involves the delivery of the goods from the Micro Distribution
Centre to the customer is called the Last Mile. A city is divided into several clusters, and each
cluster consists of a Master Micro Distribution center whose location is planned after a thorough
location planning is done based on load,
number of customers, road structures,
municipal taxes, rent, etc. Furthermore, the
vehicle used to deliver the goods from MDC
to the retailer is called the Last Mile
Logistics (LML) vehicle. And similarly, the
middle mile corresponds to CC-FC-MMDC,
the first mile corresponds to Farmer – CC.
Whatever is leftover at the end of the day is
transferred back to the MMDCs and from
there to the Fulfillment centers (located in a
remote area in the city’s outskirts), where
any ad hoc or last min sales with a reduced
price takes place.

A customer (Retailer in this case) is mapped to a locality - which is further mapped to a facility
(MDC). Each day, the sales executive is responsible for reaching the targets set, either finding
new customers or getting the existing ones to place an order. Each locality’s sales are taken care
of by a Business Development Executive (Sales Executive) responsible for taking orders and
convincing customers to place orders (The sales executive will be getting incentives based on the
orders placed in his territory). Furthermore, a certain number of localities are mapped to a cluster.

Flow from customer’s perspective - A customer places an order for some items (OrderedQty) on
Day 0, he gets a confirmation of what all items will be delivered based on the stock available.
Then all the items that can be delivered based on the availability are billed (BilledQty), and an
invoice is generated for the same. Delivery of this stock will be attempted, and based on the
quality and other factors, the customer returns some stock (ReturnQty) and receives some stock
(Actual Sales) for which payment will be made. For example, a customer orders 100kg (Ordered

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Quantity) of Onion, but due to stock-outs, the company can only provide them with 80Kg (Billed
Quantity), and the customer returns 40kg (Return Quantity) because of a quality issue and pays
for only 40Kg (Sale Quantity).

Problem Statement

Returns are a Gordian knot for the company, primarily since it deals with perishable goods.
Reasons being the supply chain costs incurred to transfer the goods for 100s of km, taking much
trouble by holding, guarding, and shipping the goods to the customer, and after it is returned,
arranging for reverse logistics to close the loop, all this is necessary from the customer’s point of
view but is leaking much cash for the company. There may be several genuine reasons for returns
by the customer, but some returns claims can also be unscrupulous. For example, fake/illicit
orders may be placed by the Sales executive (to reach targets or to earn more incentives), or the
customer may be placing twice the amount he needs and grades the goods at the POD (point of
delivery), accepting the best from the whole order. Ultimately, returns attack the company’s
margins directly and are detrimental to the supply chain. The company tried many solutions like
upselling, ad hoc sales, pushcart sales, etc., but could not sell the colossal quantity returned.

Deliverables
1. Give data-driven solutions to the company on reducing the returns by aggregating and
bringing to notice the pain points to the Senior Management.
2. Prepare a dynamic returns dashboard for people on the ground, which will help the cluster
managers (Operations) and territory managers (Sales) work together to reduce the returns
during runtime. The dashboard should be prepared so that it changes accordingly when
new records (new deliveries) are added to the raw data.
3. Provide Operational/Sales-related suggestions to the management, strictly using only the
data in the dataset to improve the supply chain or sales processes.

Expected deliverables need to be submitted in a Zip-folder containing an Excel and a PDF

(either a ppt or a docx converted into a PDF) Visualisations can be made using any software.

You will be judged based on:

• The feasibility, scalability, and practicality of solutions for returns reduction

• Functionality, visual appeal, and dynamism of the dashboard
• Clarity in thought, attention to detail while providing recommendations in process
improvement

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 Dataset
The current dataset that we have is pulled directly out of the dashboard pertaining to the last mile
of this company. It is SKU-level data that consists of detailed sales that were made on a given
day. The column level description is given below.

Column name Description

City Name of the city
ordertype Delivery by LML or pickup from the MDC
The unique code assigned to the LML for delivery.
Tripid
This code is assigned only when the order type is delivery.
DD date of delivery
CustomerId Unique Customer ID
Locality Name of the locality – each locality has a sales executive assigned to it
LocalityCluster A sales cluster formed based on the number of MDCs and customers
MDC Name of the MDC – the facility from which the customers receive the stock
SOID Sale order ID - unique for each order
Skuid Unique ID for SKU
Class Class of SKU – like Essentials/nonessentials or non-perishables
SKU SKU name
WeightType Weight type Pc/Kg
VegFruits Vegetables/Fruits
OrderedQty Quantity of SKU ordered by the retailer (requirement)
OrderedValue Value of SKU ordered by the retailer in Rs
BilledQty Quantity of SKU billed by Octopam based on the availability
BilledValue Value of SKU Billed by Octopam based on availability in Rs
SaleQty Quantity of SKU Sold and received by the customer – after returns
Selling Price Sale price per unit of SKU
Actual Sales Value Of SKU sold (and the amount received) in Rs = ∑ (Selling price*SaleQty)
ReturnQty Quantity of SKU returned by customer
ReturnValue Value of SKU returned by customer in Rs
The name of the Salesperson or the Manager who placed the order
Ordercreatedby
if the order created role is BDE or TSM
ordercreatedrole Order created by Customer/BDE/TBM
ReturnFlag Customer Returned or not
Conversion factor To convert from Pc to Kg (weight of 1pc in case the weight type is pc)
Reason Reason for returns