How Collaborative Logistics Management Increases Supply Chain Efficiency
2009 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year))
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
Globalization, rapid technological change, shorter product life cycles, changing customer
preferences, and hyper competition are just some characteristics of today’s business
environment. As a result, organizations have become aware of the fact that working alone is
almost impossible. Therefore, they began to understand that building relationships are keys to
a successful business. In fact, as the business processes become more specialized,
organizations prefer to focus on their core competencies and outsourcing becomes a relevant
strategy. Consequently parts of the value adding processes are displaced outside the four walls
of the firm which in turn, need a closer partnership (collaboration) between the partners.
In today’s world logistics which includes transportation, inventory, order processing,
purchasing, warehousing, materials handling, packaging, and much more, must continuously
be developed to meet those described challenges. In fact, an effective logistics system is a
must in order to meet and satisfy the customer demand. These developments require a
considerable effort and significant capital. Accordingly, outsourcing the logistics activities
become common and many companies leave these tasks to those who have available
resources and are competent to perform them. However, as mentioned, outsourcing without
cooperation is inefficient.
The objective of this research project is to introduce and describe collaborative logistics
management and investigate its consequence on the supply chain. This purpose necessitates a
framework to support the collaboration between the entities in the chain especially in terms of
logistics activities. Besides, the potential benefits (in terms of cost and services) in logistics
collaboration are supported by a lot of literatures. Despite the identified needs and potential
benefits, there are still barriers through which is not started or not successful enough.
Therefore, while those barriers must be identified, possible enablers should be designed and
implemented to attain desired benefits. This has been done through both a theoretical review
and also a case study.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
University of Borås/School of Engineering , 2009.
Series
Magisteruppsats
Keywords [en]
supply chain, logistics, collaboration, complexity, innovation
National Category
Engineering and Technology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-19557Local ID: 2320/5405OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hb-19557DiVA, id: diva2:1311491
2019-04-302019-04-302025-09-24