The invention relates to product delivery and in particular to a method, system and storage medium for analyzing product delivery and determining the source of product delivery delay. In today""s business world, customer satisfaction is crucial to the success of any enterprise. A key source of customer dissatisfaction is errors in delivering products to the customer. Often a customer requires a product delivered on a requested date and often at a requested time. The ability to meet this requested delivery date is important in maintaining customer satisfaction. Products arriving at the customer prior to the requested delivery date can result in storage problems for the customer who lacks space to store the product. Products arriving at the customer after the requested delivery date can cause delays in the customer""s business. Accordingly, meeting the requested delivery date is crucial to maintaining customer satisfaction.
Sales over the Internet have also forced product providers to meet increasingly higher demands from consumers. Such high volume purchasing can overwhelm product suppliers. For example, in December 1999, Toys R Us notified shoppers of toysrus.com that holiday gifts would not be delivered to the customer until after Dec. 25, 1999. With on-line shopping services becoming increasingly available, customers can easily direct their business to competitors when requested delivery dates are not met. These demands on product providers to deliver products to customers on the requested delivery date have caused product suppliers to focus on improving product delivery.
One difficulty in improving product delivery is determining which products over a range of products are creating delivery errors. Reducing delivery errors, however, requires time and resources of the product supplier. Spending such resources across an entire product line may product little or no improvement. Thus, there is a need for a system of determining the source and magnitude of delivery errors so that resources can be directed to the products having the highest delivery error.
An exemplary embodiment of the invention is a method for analyzing product delivery to customers. The method includes generating a first level product classification corresponding to a number of products and determining delivery data for the first level product classification. The delivery data includes a span value indicative of delivery error for products in the first level product classification. The first level product classification is divided into at least two, second level product classifications. Each second level product classification corresponds to a subset of the first level product classification. Delivery data is determined for each of the second level product classifications. The delivery data includes a span value indicative of delivery error for products in the second level product classifications. Other embodiments of the invention include a system and storage medium for implementing the method.