Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Collaboration of logistics companies'

The purpose of this thesis is to describe logistics collaboration in supply chains. During the past two decades, a new trend towards integration and collaboration in supply chains has been recognised among researchers as well as among business practitioners. This philosophy is called supply chain management and has received enormous attention in logistics research. Collaboration based on supply chain management is expected to reduce total cost and improve service towards the supply chain’s end customers at the same time.

The argumentation in existing literature is however seldom underpinned by more rigorous empirical material and becomes therefore conceptual and superficial. Furthermore, it is incongruous about what actually is done when companies collaborate and what more specific effects are achieved. Therefore more research, especially survey based, is needed in order to verify existing literature. In this thesis the perspective of a focal company is taken in order to concretise the ideas from supply chain management and investigate what it means for an individual company.

Based on supply chain management literature, a questionnaire was constructed which focused on the content of the collaboration and its driving forces, barriers and effects. Furthermore, differences between triadic collaborations, i.e. collaborations where both the supplier and customer of the focal company are involved, and dyadic collaborations (collaboration with either a supplier or a customer) were investigated.

The questionnaire was mailed to 482 Swedish manufacturing companies which had a turnover of more than SEK 100 Million per annum and with more than 100 employees. This population was considered as a typical target group for the supply chain management literature. 177 usable answers were received which gives a response rate of 37.8%.

The results from this study are summarised in five propositions. It is proposed that the content of logistics collaboration in the Swedish manufacturing companies’ supply chains is rather operative in its character and does not reach the strategic level that is advocated by the literature. In particular, the degree of process approach in the collaborations is low. This area has a great potential for improvements.

The results also indicate that the intensity of the collaboration, i.e. frequency of information sharing, degree of joint operative planning of involved supply chain activities, and process approach, are positively related to the effects experienced of the collaboration. The relation between joint strategic planning and the operative collaboration issues is however weak and does not seem to influence the effects experienced as a consequence of the collaboration.

Furthermore, engagement from top management is recognised as an important driver for successful collaboration. Top management involvement means an increased internal focus on the collaboration and facilitates more intensive collaboration.

Finally, differences in attitude and behaviour are recognised depending on whom the collaboration partner is. The study shows that the traditional way of managing supply chain relations still dominates, where the focal company “demand what he wants” upstream much more than in the case for downstream relations. Such differences according to SCM literature should not exist and can be considered as a serious threat for SCM based collaboration.

With the changes in the business environment, there has been an increasing dependence on the skills of companies to deliver customer adapted products quickly and on time around the world. Therefore, instead of being caught in the high cost and unsatisfactory result of managing logistics operation by themselves, many companies have chosen to outsource some or all of their logistics and supply chain activities to specialist third party logistics companies (TPL). Hence, the TPL companies are managing and integrating their customers’ supply chains to increase the competitiveness and profitability.  It is argued, that knowledge is becoming the only resource capable of offering competitive advantage and continued growth and prosperity for supply chain partners. Therefore, the effective transfer and creation of knowledge has become a top priority in a supply chain. Since third party logistics companies have taken on the major responsibility of managing customers’ supply chains, effective knowledge management has become a top priority for them as well.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the knowledge transfer and creation processes within the third party logistics dyadic relationships in the context of supply chain integration.

The thesis has been carried out by using inductive and conductive research approaches and the qualitative study has been carried out by applying multiple case studies as a research strategy. The empirical material is gathered from four companies in two third party logistics relationships. Data was collected through several interviews conducted at the target companies and the findings have been analysed using the existing theory stated in the frame of reference.

The main conclusions from this study are that the buyer-seller context determines the way knowledge is transferred and created in the dyadic third party relationships, and the companies did not have any specific strategies or governance structures for managing knowledge although considered important. How the companies in the dyadic TPL relationships transfer and create knowledge changes with the evolvement of the relationship. Knowledge transfer must penetrate all companies and all organizational levels to increase a holistic and integrated understating of the whole supply chain to achieve value created. How TPL companies create and utilize knowledge internally vary due to company size and the practices used. In addition, the customer company using multiple TPL providers is able to transfer and create knowledge from all TPL relationships to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of its supply chain. Due to the buyer-seller characteristic, however, there are no or very little barriers for knowledge creation and transfer in a dyadic TPL relationship.

Introduction

The aim of the research is to understand collaboration between marketing and logistics, increasing knowledge about perceived barriers in organizations, in order to addressing functional silos in organizations by inter-functional collaboration as a solution. The author questions the advantages of inter-functional collaboration in the scope of organizational performance. The significance of this research is that collaboration is one of the remaining cost cutting advantages that are impeccable for organizations in the following decade.

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to understand collaboration between marketing and logistics department, focusing on the instruments that facilitate improved collaboration.

Method

The question of how collaboration in organizations takes place, the author used an inductive, qualitative approach to come up with a theoretical framework to improve collaboration. The author reflected on the history of both marketing and logistics functions in organizations and discussed the common responsibilities of the two. Then, the framework was set to study organizational performance in theory, and to aggregate and review possible methods - so called instruments - to improve collaboration within organizations. To accomplish this, the author listed the key instruments for collaboration purpose and defines the important instruments to perform the implementation of collaboration in organizations. Empirical information acquired with interview sessions with the CEO of Nivea Seoul ltd. Contributed to the validity of the concepts and extended the knowledge about instruments.

Conclusion

The outcome of theoretical research is that collaboration between marketing and logistics, 'logistics leverage' - positive result by planning, coordination and integration responsibility, and marketing intelligence seem to have positive relationship on organization performance. This implication increases the relevance of the study, the author argues that performance gains might also be observed with the key instruments for inter-functional collaboration facilitation, almost 20 were selected and placed in three categories The instruments under the categories can be used for future research or managers to understand collaboration better and could also provide a basis for empirical research in the future.

This study involved the use of a quantitative, cross-sectional design to test the tenet of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) that connects a logistics organization’s ability to adapt to dwindling natural resources and economic sustainability. Through an examination of the correlation of alternative fuel use and the financial measurement of cost as percent of sales in U.S.-based, publicly traded third party logistics (3PL) companies using 2013 financial data, a statistically significant, strong, negative correlation was affirmed, indicating a correlation between alternative fuel use and improved financial performance. The statistical correlation of implementing alternative fuels and financial performance serves to remove the assumed financial barrier to implementing alternative fuels for logistics practitioners in the context of the impending apocalypse of a global $10.2 trillion transportation system that is fueled by oil that will eventually run out. As a field of study, sustainability in logistics has few theoretical frameworks and there is a clear need for quantitative research to evaluate those that do exist. This study addressed the need for research by adding directly to the body of logistics sustainability knowledge, establishing a template for future research, and reaffirming the need for the standardization of non-financial reporting.

The purpose of this Bachelor Thesis is to study performance measurement within two lo-gistics companies and how they balance financial and non-financial performance measures.

The study takes a qualitative approach to find out how, and also why the two selected logis-tics companies handle performance measurement the way they do. Current discussions on the topic of performance measurement involve whether smaller companies can benefit from measuring non-financial aspects of its business and develop measurement systems such as the Balance Scorecard, or whether this is a waste of a small companies’ scarce resources and is something that can best be utilized by larger companies with more resources. Some au-thors argue concerning performance measurements that size influence the firm’s controlling systems, as larger firms tend to rely more on formal administrative control while small and medium sized companies could therefore be seen as having a more informal administrative control. According to the initial survey done in this study company size seemed to be re-lated to the extent which companies were involved in performance measurement.

The two logistics companies participating in the main study are Hemglass and Kronans Droghandel. KD work deliberately with performance measurements based on long-term thinking in connection to their strategy while Hemglass doesn't work with these issues to the same extent. In accordance to our findings in this study Kaplan & Norton (1996) state that the major expected benefits and reasons for using both financial and non-financial measures materialize when the relationships between the two are understood. These rela-tionships can be hard to establish, some links are more obvious than others, but if this can be managed the performance measurement efforts will be more fruitful.