FedEx Process Strategy

FedExis the leading global provider of supply chain management services to corporate customers It maintains a fleet of more than 665 aircraft and more than 41,000 motor vehicles and trailers. To complement the express delivery business, FedEx Ground provides small-package ground delivery in North America, and less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier FedEx Freight hauls larger shipments. FedEx Office stores offer a variety of document-related and other business services and serve as retail hubs for other FedEx units. Hoover, n. d. ) I will discuss the process strategies I think FedEx is using in its business operations as well as the location of the company’s headquarters and the benefits to being located there. In reviewing the four types of process strategies; it seems that FedEx uses a combination of all four strategies. Firstly, in looking at the Process Focus, since FedEx provides a variety of different services, their facilities seems to definitely be organized around the different services that FedEx provides.
The FedEx office stores are not setup to receive bulk or large freight mail like a FedEx hub. The offices stores are setup like a retail store since the majority of the business would come from providing document related and other business services. Each offices store is also setup as a retail hub for other FedEx units. FedEx Freight haul hubs are setup and designed to ship and receive larger shipments and would have a warehouse look rather than retail store look. The product flow would vary in amounts each day as well as during different times during the day.
Looking at the Repetitive Focus strategy, FedEx hubs would definitely have an assembly line type machine involve which would typically scan items being shipped and received and then send them to different areas of the hubs to be shipped out to different locations. In the Product Focus, FedEx would have high volumes of items being shipped and received, but low variety of the types of items being shipped. I say low variety because I would classify what FedEx receives and ships as letter mail, box mail, large freight items etc.

The letters, boxes and freight items may have a variety of sizes, but I am looking at the basic classification. Working for FedEx would not require a lot of skilled labor, being that one only needs to learn what part of the operation they are doing, which they then would be doing repetitively. With the different types of items being shipped through FedEx and the different countries these items may have to be shipped to or from, some Mass Customization has to be employed.
Some items require special shipping precautions, some customer request certain shipping options, and some countries have different shipping standards. Shipping must be customized for the customer, the items being shipped and the country of origin and destination. In making his dream a reality, Frederick W. Smith; the founder of FedEx; selected Memphis as his hub: it was centrally located and despite inclement weather its modern airport rarely closed. (ASK, n. d. Due to the nature of this type of business, any city with a major airport that’s opened 24 hours a day would be sufficient. As stated above, because of Memphis’s central location in the U. S. I would tend to agree to locate my headquarters in Memphis as well. I have discussed the types of process strategies I think FedEx uses in its business operations. I have identified the location of its headquarters, and the reason why this location was chosen as well as the location’s benefit.