The future of the logistics industry in the European Union : an outlook to 2032 supported by current and upcoming market trends

This work project develops an outlook for the future of the logistics industry in the EU until 2032 and provides strategic recommendations for logistics managers. An analysis of the transactional and contextual environment is conducted based on primary and secondary research to generate future scenarios. The stability of the geopolitical and economic landscape and the density of the technology network are identified as critical uncertainties. Based on that, future scenarios are developed. Strategic short- and long-term options are recommended for different scenarios. Finally, early indicators are developed, helping industry stakeholders to monitor the environment and anticipate which scenario unfolds

The adoption of open platform for container bookings in the maritime supply chain

Information systems and technologies (IST) have been playing increasingly crucial roles in supporting the smooth running of maritime supply chain operations. The degree of acceptance of IST within the maritime sector as a whole, however, remains fragmented and variable. Some IST products and platforms have entered the market and gained a broad market share, while others are still struggling. This study, based on twenty-five cases, aims to investigate the adoption of IST in a range of organizations in the maritime shipping supply chain. Open platform, a concept first introduced by Maersk Line and IBM in 2018 for inter-organizational information sharing for the maritime supply chain, is used as an exemplar for this study. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to conduct a chain-level analysis of IST adoption within the maritime transportation context. The results suggest that the adoption of inter-organizational information systems is largely affected by factors such as industry characteristics, the system’s information confidentiality, supply chain trade partners’ power, governmental power, and the ownership structure of the organization, among others. Furthermore, these factors have varying degrees of impact across the various organizational tiers in the maritime supply chain, e.g., information confidentiality mainly influences the adoption of forwarders. This study provides broad insights that will be of interest to both the researchers and practitioners in the maritime supply chain, in which the acceleration of digitalization is expecte

Navigating the digital landscape: situation and risk assessment of digital solutions in forwarding companies

This research emphasises the transformative power of digital solutions in Lithuanian forwarding companies, addressing the necessity for a systematic risk assessment to optimise processes and mitigate associated risks. The survey indicates an increasing adoption of digital solutions, with around two-thirds of companies already utilising them. A case study employing the AHP method identifies three key digital solutions: invoice automation, waybill digitisation and blockchain. A combined solution called a “document flow and management system”, showed significant potential for time and cost savings. Three risks – synchronising participants, employee resistance, and a lack of specialists – are identified as having the highest overall assessment and were selected for further analysis while implementing the prioritised digital solution. The expert evaluation identifies employee resistance as the most probable risk, posing potential significant losses in the initial post-implementation phase. Although issues with synchronising participants could yield similar losses, experts view this risk as less probable than employee resistance. After the AHP analysis, it was decided to evaluate the current information and document flow process, in other words, to optimise the process. The optimisation results show that freight forwarding companies could reduce document management time by up to 59%

The Effectiveness of Global Positioning System in Tracking Services for Sustainable Road Haulage Operations

In today's highly competitive marketplace, businesses must innovate new ways to streamline their business and optimize productivity. With the aid of modern transport technology applications, it can create better visibility within the operation, which will enable more control over the business and stay ahead of the competition. Based on this scenario, the measurement of the effectiveness of tracking services by using the Global Positioning System (GPS) in improving the logistics of transporting goods was developed. Two indicators involved in this study, which are delivery time and fuel consumption. In gathering the data, researchers were conducting observation, monitoring and also a structured interview in Company XYZ focusing on the transport department. The highlights of the analysis are to evaluate the improvement of the delivery time and fuel consumption after implementing the GPS. This analysis has been carried out by assessing the trucking planning and managerial issues encountered by Company XYZ that already implement the GPS as a tracking method since the year 2016. This study is one of the information platforms for the logistics and transportation industry to grow and propel the country into a high-income economy based on the 11th Malaysia Plan [1]

Visibility in multimodal maritime container transport chains - Logistics service providers' perspective

Nowadays, transparency and digitalization of actions in the whole supply chain are emphasized and firms are demanding visibility to better forecast, plan and control the flow of goods. The expectations towards fully real-time traceable cargo flow are high and logistics service providers are recommended to digitize their actions to stay in the highly competitive freight transport markets. When it comes to technology, it has been developed rapidly and can provide very sophisticated solutions to enhance visibility. Information flow is a key for visibility. Therefore, information and communication technology (ICT) is vital to enhance visibility. However, technology alone does not enable visibility. It requires collaboration with other involved actors in the transport chain. Multimodal maritime container transport chains are complex in a sense that they require deep collaboration in a form of IT-compatibility with vast number of players involved within the carriage of goods to enhance seamless and automatized exchange of information. It has been disclosed that the biggest logistics service providers have already been able to form such collaborative relationships with big shipping lines, for instance. Also, market leaders usually arrange the pre- and end-haulage of the transport with own assets and therefore information flow is advanced. However, freight transport industry is highly fragmented and majorly consists of small-sized firms. Margins in the freight transport markets are extremely low as customers do not see added value in freight transportation and therefore transportation is seen as an extra harmful cost for firms. Therefore, the idea of big IT-investments and integration of actions with other players is infeasible for some companies. In this study, visibility in multimodal maritime container transport chains is investigated in a wide sense by conducting semi-structured interviews among different-sized logistics service providers located in Finland. First, the current adoption of visibility is studied, the benefits of it are discussed and the barriers to adopt visibility are discussed. Furthermore, perceptions towards the importance of visibility as a service offering in the creation of competitive strategies are investigated

ICT in multimodal transport and technological trends: unleashing potential for the future

The role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in freight transport as key enabler is well recognised. However the uptake of recent ICT advances for multimodal freight transport provisions in the UK and Europe has been slow. The aim of our paper is to explore the potential reasons for such a slow adoption and assess how recent technological advances such as cloud computing and Internet of Things might have changed the landscape and thus help to overcome these barriers. Via an extensive review of 33 EU framework programme projects, we are able to consolidate and present current major efforts in ICT developments in the freight multimodal transport setting at European level. We further discuss barriers inhibiting quick take-up of ICT applications in multimodal transport. Resolutions were then explored by reviewing four key ICT development trends recently emerging and evaluating their potential impact in reducing such barriers for deployment. Our contribution is two-fold: it advances current knowledge by presenting an up-to-date overview of existing and emerging ICT applications in the field of multimodal transport and barriers to e-enabled multimodal transport. It also captures some of the best practices in industry and aims to provoke a debate among practitioners and academics via the analysis of how innovative use of recent technological developments could potentially lower the barriers to multimodal ICT adoption and lead to a more integrated freight transport network. Therefore it lays the foundation for further research

Assessing the potential of blockchain technology as an information-sharing platform in the major fruit export supply chains of South Africa

Logistic