By Kerry Markey | Donor and Operations Manager
As 2011 draws to a close, we'd like to thank you because YOU have made a tremendous impact on the lives of the most vulnerable children in India. We are grateful for the collaboration and the confidence you have placed in us that allows us to continue to deliver healthy nutritious meals and provide access to education to over 1.3 million children DAILY.
During this past year we have expanded our reach to make a real impact in the fight against hunger to another 160,000 children giving them HOPE: Health, Opportunities, Progress and Education. We opened a new kitchen facility in Nathdwara, Rajasthan with a capacity to serve 50,000 children daily. We are constantly innovating to improve the efficiency of operations. To save on fuel costs and to manage with less number of distribution vehicles, we developed and piloted a route simulation software this year that has optimization opportunity of up to 15%. We have installed GPS devices in vehicles to allow us to track vehicles in real time and help us with routing, rerouting and load balancing. We are using handheld machines to electronically capture data of attendance, indent of food for the next day and feedback from all schools. We rolled out comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in April 2011 to standardize processes across units. These initiatives for process optimization will help us reach our next milestone of feeding 5 million children by 2020.
The road to freedom from hunger is long. But like all epic journeys, it has to begin with steps taken in the right direction. Our work is still work in progress. We face extraordinary challenges but we also have an extraordinary opportunity to shape the future of these children. During the Holiday Season more than ever, our thoughts turn gratefully to each one of you who make our work possible. We look forward to our work together in 2012 and can't wait to share our ideas and our successes with you.
We thank you and wish you and your family peace, love and happiness this holiday season and a joyous 2012.
Warm Regards,
The Akshaya Patra Team
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