Supply Chain Inefficiencies: Transportation - the Forgotten Factor

Paper in proceeding, 2011

In the pursuit of more efficient supply chains, different types of service providers are getting new and more significant roles. The quest of increased efficiency will, however, not be for the most efficient supply chain if some stakeholders are left out, which previous literature shows has commonly been the case of motor carriers. Previous literature has outlined the benefits of long-term relationships between carriers and other supply chain members, without addressing the carrier efficiency issues caused by other supply chain members. The focus of this paper is on motor carriers' transport operations with the purpose of examining their efficiency issues and analyzing the effects of supply chain management on their operations. The empirical base used for the analysis comes from exploratory interviews involving six transport operators in Sweden and Switzerland. The result of this work identifies various efficiency issues motor carriers face in their daily operations, both related to the physical as well as the administrative processes. In addition, it shows that other supply chain members frequently cause issues affecting the carriers’ operational efficiency. This highlights the importance of appropriate supply chain management process design, including the transport operators playing an important role in the supply chain.