Secure and efficient container transport – A supply chain from China to Sweden

Paper in proceeding, 2011

In the last decade awareness of terror attacks has increased all over the world. The terror attack of September 11th also put focus on security in the supply chains and a number of security initiatives were implemented for trade to and from the United States. Moreover, international organisations such as the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and the International Organisation of Standardisation (ISO) have strengthened the security issues in their agreements. It has become more important to increase security, not only against terrorism but also against smuggling and theft. Besides, the demand for transport is growing and it has put pressure on the transport providers. The challenge is therefore to increase security without disturbing the efficiency, or at least to create more secure supply chains without increasing the transport costs. The purpose of this study is to map one supply chain of containerised goods between China and Sweden, to identify possible problem areas regarding security and to analyse the impact the same would have on trade efficiency. The studied supply chain with a focus on security and efficiency consists of containerised flat painted glass for wardrobe doors from a manufacturer in China to a buyer in Sweden. The data is collected from all relevant actors in the supply chain; common to almost all of them is that they joined security initiatives because of market requirements and/or authority demands. The findings show that companies experience the effects of the implementation of security initiatives differently; for some of them it represents only an additional cost as well as longer lead-time, while some see this as a competitive advantage. However, there is a need for standardisation of security initiatives since there are too many different initiatives on the market today.