Logistics Service Providers' Capabilities and Roles of Government Towards Cross Border Logistics Performance Between Thailand and Malaysia

This paper is a critical review of the literature, based on secondary data on the capability of logistics service providers (LSPs) and the role of government in enhancing cross-border logistics performance (CBLP) between Thailand and Malaysia. Methodology wise, the literature review involved 26 academic articles published in recognized international and domestic journals in Tier 1, as well as policy documents/statistics obtained from relevant government agencies from 2015 – 2021, using essential keywords. The review provides a clear picture of cross-border logistics (CBL) between Thailand and Malaysia with an in-depth explanation and analysis of the broader implications under the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory. It reveals that cross-border operations are currently facing an unstable environment, stiff competition, and complex operations. Therefore, LSPs are required to have the necessary capabilities to ensure effective operations. Government resources should also be developed to ease movement and activities in the international trade process, such as ensuring the effectiveness of information and communication technology, reducing the barrier of service delivery, and mitigating public complaints. Firms should become more capable in improving the tangible and intangible resources that help support their working process, especially in terms of qualified manpower. This paper presents practical experiences in developing organizational resources which can be adopted by LSPs and governments. This may lead to a better CBLP for the bilateral countries

Disruptions in Supply Chain Transportation: A literature review

Efficient and well-organised transportation is crucial to the success of any supply chain operation, but disruptions can occur in competitive and globalised environments, leading to potential damage and interruptions. A thorough literature review on supply chain transportation research is conducted to address these disruptions from a transportation perspective. The objective is to present recent research on various aspects of the transportation problems, address the gap considering disruptions and propose a framework that outlines the factors that may cause transportation disruptions, their relationships, the types of impacts they have, and how they depend on one another

Warehousing and Inventory Management in Dual Channel and Global Supply Chains

More firms are adopting the dual-channel supply chain business model where firms offer their products to customers using dual-channel sales (to offer the item to customers online and offline). The development periods of innovative products have been shortened, especially for high-tech companies, which leads to products with short life cycles. This means that companies need to put their new products on the market as soon as possible. The dual-channel supply chain is a perfect tool to increase the customer’s awareness of new products and to keep customers’ loyalty; firms can offer new products online to the customer faster compared to the traditional retail sales channel. The emergence of dual-channel firms was mainly driven by the expansion in internet use and the advances in information and manufacturing technologies. No existing research has examined inventory strategies, warehouse structure, operations, and capacity in a dual-channel context. Additionally, firms are in need to integrate their global suppliers base; where the lower parts costs compensate for the much higher procurement and cross-border costs; in their supply chain operations. The most common method used to integrate the global supplier base is the use of cross-dock, also known as Third Party Logistic (3PL). This study is motivated by real-world problem, no existing research has considered the optimization of cross-dock operations in terms of dock assignment, storage locations, inventory strategies, and lead time uncertainty in the context of a cross-docking system. In this dissertation, we first study the dual-channel warehouse in the dual-channel supply chain. One of the challenges in running the dual-channel warehouse is how to organize the warehouse and manage inventory to fulfill both online and offline (retailer) orders, where the orders from different channels have different features. A model for a dual-channel warehouse in a dual-channel supply chain is proposed, and a solution approach is developed in the case of deterministic and stochastic lead times. Ending up with numerical examples to highlight the model’s validity and its usefulness as a decision support tool. Second, we extend the first problem to include the global supplier and the cross-border time. The impact of global suppliers and the effect of the cross-border time on the dual-channel warehouse are studied. A cross-border dual-channel warehouse model in a dual-channel supply chain context is proposed. In addition to demand and lead time uncertainty, the cross-border time is included as stochastic parameter. Numerical results and managerial insights are also presented for this problem. Third, motivated by a real-world cross-dock problem, we perform a study at one of the big 3 automotive companies in the USA. The company faces the challenges of optimizing their operations and managing the items in the 3PL when introducing new products. Thus, we investigate a dock assignment problem that considers the dock capacity and storage space and a cross-dock layout. We propose an integrated model to combine the cross-dock assignment problem with cross-dock layout problem so that cross-dock operations can be coordinated effectively. In addition to lead time uncertainty, the cross-border time is included as stochastic parameter. Real case study and numerical results and managerial insights are also presented for this problem highlighting the cross-border effect. Solution methodologies, managerial insights, numerical analysis as well as conclusions and potential future study topics are also provided in this dissertation

Key Factors to Increasing Free Cash Flow for Manufacturers Utilizing Lean Production: An AHP-DEMATEL Approach

This paper aims to apply AHP and DEMATEL to analyze the key factors and interrelationships of lean production to increase free cash flow for manufacturers. The AHP hierarchy was determined through literature and interviews with leading management experts. The assessment criteria were categorized into five major criteria and 15 sub-criteria, including production, sales, human resources, R&D, and finance. According to the AHP results, the first eight key factors were identified as the key factors to increasing cash flow for manufacturers who utilized lean production. DEMATEL was used to identify the interactions among the eight key factors and further identify the four more important ones. The four key factors are strategic planning, strategic deployment, leadership, and goal orientation. This paper proposes management implications and improvement suggestions for the four key factors and their interactions

The effect of lean and agile practices on supply chain operational performance in Malaysia manufacturing industry

This study investigates the influence of lean and agile practices on supply chain operational performance in Malaysia manufacturing industry. The lack of IT flexibility, little information sharing, poor delivery performance, and low product quality affect responsiveness, reliability, agility, and cost of supply chain operational performance Malaysia manufacturing industry. This study has utilized the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory to strengthen the framework of this study. The research objectives in this study are to investigate the effect of lean practices and analyzed the effect of agile practices on supply chain operational performance in Malaysia manufacturing industry. To achieve the research objectives, a quantitative research approach is necessitated. The population of this study is 3626 manufacturing companies in Malaysia. The minimum sample size is 107, suggested by a G-power statistical analysis software. Besides, the cluster random sampling technique is used in sample selection. Furthermore, a total of 550 online questionnaires was distributed by email to the manufacturing industry in Malaysia and received a return of 112 responses from respondents representing a 20.36% response rate. Besides, Smart-PLS 3.0 was chosen as the software used for data analysis. Based on research findings, all of the eight hypotheses were supported. The theoretical and practical implication was presented before, the limitations and recommendations were discussed. In conclusion, lean and agile practices play a significant role in improving supply chain operational performance in the Malaysia manufacturing industry

The logistics service providers’ capabilities, the government administration, resources and competitive advantage to the performance of the operational cross-border logistics between Thailand and Malaysia

The economic growth of countries with shared borders primarily relies on effective cross-border logistics operations as accelerated by the relevant parties. Therefore, it is pertinent to investigate the performance of the operational cross-border logistics (POCL) between Thailand and Malaysia, where operational limitations could be resolved. This covers the relationships between government administration (GA), logistics service providers’ capabilities (LSPC), resources (R), competitive advantage (CA) and POCL. There is also a need to ascertain whether GA, LSPC and CA mediate these relationships grounded upon the Global Value Chains (GVCs), Resources-Based View (RBV) and Competitive Advantage (CA) theories. Data was collected from 181 logistics enterprise employees in both countries. All the constructs were processed quantitatively using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The Smart PLS V3 and SPSS V21 were used for data analysis. The findings indicate that R has a positive effect on LSPC, CA and GA, whilst POCL is influenced by GA, LSPC and CA. LSPC has a significant effect on CA, whilst GA has a no significant effect on CA. In addition, GA, CA and LSPC act as significant mediators in the relationship between R and POCL. These results provide straightforward recommendations for enhancing POCL which highlight the important roles of LSPC in service and innovation capabilities, and GA in trust and reliability for cross-border operations. In terms of resources, the focus is on how resources can be properly managed to achieve more effective operations for cross-border logistics. The findings have theoretical implications on the GVCs, RBV and CA integrated in the model, given the approaches to minimize complexities with maximum value for the operations, and recommend unique strategies for providing high quality services with competitive prices. The study supports the context of cross-border logistics which is applicable for achieving high POCL in the current circumstance

Supply Chain Disruption Costs Study in International Containerised Maritime Transportation

The global economy relies highly on international trade, and the international maritime transport system acts as the lifeblood carrying and transporting materials and goods globally, realizing the economy globalization in an effective and efficient way. However, globalization increases the interdependence and complexity of global supply chains and drives it to be more vulnerable to disruptions. Meanwhile, the international marine transport system is a complex and intertwined system exposed to high risks and decreased safety due to its very accessibility and operational flexibility. Thereby, global supply chains integrated with international maritime transportation systems are inherently vulnerable to various disruptions. Studies of supply chain disruptions particularly quantifying transport related disruption costs are becoming increasingly important. However, research on maritime transport related supply chain disruptions, in particular, quantifying its disruption costs is under-represented in the transport literature, due largely to the features of supply chain disruptions, but also because of the complexity of maritime related supply chains. Current research in transportation has tended to concentrate on shippers’ transport mode choice and port selection. In the context of a global market, however, the behaviour of maritime containerised shippers has to be viewed as a complex decision and an integral element of the supply chain management strategy. Those shippers’ transportation choice decisions should be emphasized and studied to reveal their behaviour changes between normal operations and disruption circumstance. This research adds to the paucity work on investigating the maritime transport related supply chain disruptions and quantifying its disruption costs based on shippers’ maritime transportation choice behaviour. It presents the results of a microanalysis of freight transport choice decisions in an international containerised maritime transport chain context. The Latent Class Model (LCM) is applied to identify the key service attributes and its preference heterogeneity in maritime transportation and to estimate the marginal values for the quality of maritime transport service with and without a disruption, simultaneously, quantifying the disruption costs through comparing each attribute’s marginal value difference between normal and disruption operations. The Seemingly Unrelated Regression model (SURE) is utilized to explore the sources influencing shippers’ preference heterogeneities. In doing so, we are able to gain an understanding as to where and how much should be invested in order to facilitate recovery in the case of a disruption based on the view of the maritime participants’ perspectives. The research results confirm freight rate, transit time, reliability, damage rate, and frequency as the key service attributes influencing shippers’ transport choice. They also reveal shippers’ VOT increase by more than four-times, VOR nearly double, and VOD increase about twenty percent if a disruption takes place, and identify shippers’ transport decisions vary with its product, shipment, company and supply chain characteristics no matter with or without a disruption. This research quantifies the costs of supply chain disruption in containerised maritime transport context for the first time, and its results provide useful industrial implications for maritime transport chain related parties

Supply Chain Disruption Costs Study in International Containerised Maritime Transportation

The global economy relies highly on international trade, and the international maritime transport system acts as the lifeblood carrying and transporting materials and goods globally, realizing the economy globalization in an effective and efficient way. However, globalization increases the interdependence and complexity of global supply chains and drives it to be more vulnerable to disruptions. Meanwhile, the international marine transport system is a complex and intertwined system exposed to high risks and decreased safety due to its very accessibility and operational flexibility. Thereby, global supply chains integrated with international maritime transportation systems are inherently vulnerable to various disruptions. Studies of supply chain disruptions particularly quantifying transport related disruption costs are becoming increasingly important. However, research on maritime transport related supply chain disruptions, in particular, quantifying its disruption costs is under-represented in the transport literature, due largely to the features of supply chain disruptions, but also because of the complexity of maritime related supply chains. Current research in transportation has tended to concentrate on shippers’ transport mode choice and port selection. In the context of a global market, however, the behaviour of maritime containerised shippers has to be viewed as a complex decision and an integral element of the supply chain management strategy. Those shippers’ transportation choice decisions should be emphasized and studied to reveal their behaviour changes between normal operations and disruption circumstance. This research adds to the paucity work on investigating the maritime transport related supply chain disruptions and quantifying its disruption costs based on shippers’ maritime transportation choice behaviour. It presents the results of a microanalysis of freight transport choice decisions in an international containerised maritime transport chain context. The Latent Class Model (LCM) is applied to identify the key service attributes and its preference heterogeneity in maritime transportation and to estimate the marginal values for the quality of maritime transport service with and without a disruption, simultaneously, quantifying the disruption costs through comparing each attribute’s marginal value difference between normal and disruption operations. The Seemingly Unrelated Regression model (SURE) is utilized to explore the sources influencing shippers’ preference heterogeneities. In doing so, we are able to gain an understanding as to where and how much should be invested in order to facilitate recovery in the case of a disruption based on the view of the maritime participants’ perspectives. The research results confirm freight rate, transit time, reliability, damage rate, and frequency as the key service attributes influencing shippers’ transport choice. They also reveal shippers’ VOT increase by more than four-times, VOR nearly double, and VOD increase about twenty percent if a disruption takes place, and identify shippers’ transport decisions vary with its product, shipment, company and supply chain characteristics no matter with or without a disruption. This research quantifies the costs of supply chain disruption in containerised maritime transport context for the first time, and its results provide useful industrial implications for maritime transport chain related parties

Optimising Supply Chain Performance via Information Sharing and Coordinated Management

Supply chain management has attracted much attention in the last decade. There has been a noticeable shift from a traditional individual organisation-based management to an integrated management across the supply chain network since the end of the last century. The shift contributes to better decision making in the supply chain context, as it is necessary for a company to cooperate with other supply chain members by utilising relevant information such as inventory, demand and resource capacity. In other words, information sharing and coordinated management are essential mechanisms to improve supply chain performance. Supply chains may differ significantly in terms of industry sectors, geographic locations, and firm sizes. This study was based on case studies from small and medium sized manufacturing supply chains in People Republic of China. The study was motivated by the following facts. Firstly, small and medium enterprises have made a big contribution to China’s economic growth. Several studies revealed that most of the Chinese manufacturing enterprises became aware of the importance of supply chain management, but compared to western firms, the supply chain management level of Chinese firms had been lagging behind. Research on supply chain management and performance optimisation in Chinese small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) was very scarce. Secondly, there had been plenty of studies in the literature that focused on two or three level supply chains whilst considering a number of uncertain factors (e.g. customer demand) or a single supply chain performance indicator (e.g. cost). However, the research on multiple stage supply chain systems with multiple uncertainties and multiple objectives based on real industrial cases had been spared and deserved more attention. One reason was due to the lack of reliable industrial data that required an enormous effort to collect the primary data and there was a serious concern about data confidentiality from the industry aspect. This study employed two SME manufacturing companies as case studies. The first one was in the Aluminium industry and another was in the Chemical industry. The aim was to better understand the characteristics of the supply chains in Chinese SMEs through performing in-depth case studies, and built models and tools to evaluate different strategies for improving their supply chain performance. The main contributions of this study included the following aspects. Firstly, this study generalised a supply chain model including a domestic supply chain part and an international supply chain part based on deep case studies with the emphasis on identifying key characteristics in the case supply chains, such as uncertainties, constraints and cost elements in association with flows and activities in the domestic supply chain and the international supply chain. Secondly, two important SCM issues, i.e. the integrated raw material procurement and finished goods production planning, and the international sales planning, were identified. Thirdly, mathematical models were formulated to represent the supply chain model taking into account multiple uncertainties. Fourthly, several operational strategies utilising the concepts of just-in-time, safety-stock/capacity, Kanban, and vendor managed inventory, were evaluated and compared with the case company's original strategy in various scenarios through simulation methods, which enabled quantification of the impact of information sharing on supply chain performance. Fifthly, a single objective genetic algorithm was developed to optimise the integrated raw material ordering and finished goods production decisions under (s, S) policy (a dynamic inventory control policy), which enabled the impact of coordinated management on supply chain performance to be quantified. Finally, a multiple objectives genetic algorithm considering both total supply chain cost and customer service level was developed to optimise the integrated raw material ordering and finished goods production with the international sales plan decisions under (s, S) policy in various scenarios. This also enabled the quantification of the impact of coordinated management on supply chain performances

Suppliers selection in resilient supply chain by using fuzzy DEMATEL approach (case study in SAPCO supply chain)

Today, one of the approaches to supply chain management is the resilience approach that survives organizations in the current turbulent environment. Managers of the supply chain have found that today competition inter supply chains has been replaced with inter companies. Therefore they are looking for a Competitive Advantage by own supply chain more than past. The resilience supply chain is an essential Competitive Advantage in the present risk-complete environment. One of the resilient of the supply chains is resilient supplier selection. It has features such as flexibility, the counter of risk, and responsiveness to complete delivery orders taken. Accordingly, this study used fuzzy DEMATEL based on Analytical Network Process to determine effective criteria for resilient supplier selection. Experts of SAPCO Company participated in the format of two groups in this study. One group was formed by 15 experts that screened the criteria model, and another group was formed by seven experts that determined the relationship between criteria and classification suppliers. The study shows that supplier risk is an essential factor and after it is flexibility and responsiveness suppliers. As much weighting relate to technological dimension and inter criteria relate to Technology capable. Finally, according to the results of this study, a suggestion is offered to managers of SAPCO Company