Struggling with Courier Costs? Seeking Advice on Tracking and Employee Involvement

I am working in a machine tool company as an Office Administrator. Nowadays, as you all know the market scenario, the company is asking us to do "COST CUTTING." We are in a service-related business, and our monthly courier bills are nearly 1.5K. There is no record maintained in any department to track the weight of the materials. For the last month, we have maintained a register in which we record the weight of each box or packet dispatched. However, when the courier bill arrives, it shows that the weight in our register never matches the courier's weight because they consider weight and dimensions, and charge accordingly.

Now, my question is, how can we track all these things? Secondly, some employees are not contributing to this task as they might not want to partake in this type of cost-cutting. Please share your views so that I can take this initiative with the help of your valuable suggestions.

If you are from a machine tools company, then a courier bill of Rs 1.5K per month is not a significant amount. Nevertheless, we should strive to save every rupee. To do this, you may keep a register with the Front Office Assistant (FOA) of your company. As and when a courier is received for dispatch, she may enter the details of the courier in this register.

Courier companies measure both the weight and volumetric weight and consider whichever is higher. Volumetric weight is calculated as:

(Length x Breadth x Height of the package) / 6000

The FOA can calculate both weights.

Cost-Cutting Measures

Lastly, regarding cost-cutting, during operations, your company would be incurring the following costs:

a) Inventory Carrying Cost of Raw Materials
b) Work in Progress (WIP) Inventory Costs
c) Inventory Carrying Cost of Finished Goods
d) Capital costs to run the operations
e) Capacity costs
f) Maintenance costs
g) Quality costs
h) Inspection costs
i) Ordering costs

What efforts is your company making to reduce these costs? Rather than reducing, has your company measured the costs scientifically? If not, I recommend you focus on measuring and then reducing the above costs. Rs 1.5K is too minuscule an amount to be overly concerned about.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar