The path toward managing the in and out the surge of the stock and endeavors and besides warehousing of raw materials of working technique in stock and moreover the finished items are traded from the place of creation to the point of usage and this system is known as logistics and supply chain management (Schorsch, Wallenburg and Wieland, 2017). The prime goal of the report is to create techniques for giving arrangements over the issues looked by ACFS that is one of the largest brand name andt privately owned container logistics operator in Australia.
Main problems with current logistics network in NSW
Logistics comprises displacement of goods and products from one place to another (from the place of manufacturing to the required destination). This entire mechanism is based on the needs of customers or consumers (Jabbour et al., 2017). The process consists of transportation of all types of goods like all the food items, beverages, household products and animals. Such tasks require two things; a feasible plan and its proper execution. In order to plan the entire process one must have control over the complete procedure and also the auto tracking of the journey. It becomes the duty of the company to transport the goods at their destination safely without any damage.
So in order to achieve this, they have to put an effort to train their staff and let them have the information of the entire process like transportation. Logistic management is not an easy task, and after analyzing the scenario it has been evaluated that ACFS faces a lot of difficulties in the process and many a factors are responsible for that. This factor contributes largely in the economy of the country. But currently the sector is facing many difficulties and is becoming more complex to operate. The below mentioned are the issues that will be faced by ACFS;
Transferring of such large amount of goods at such long distances requires huge efforts. And for doing so the business corporation will have to manage a large amount of data that will further create a lot of work (Junior and Mendes, 2017). Information needs to be transferred at the receiver end and the entire journey needs to be tracked. This large amount of data becomes complicated to manage and it will require a large amount of staff to get the work done on time. Not only the staff, is the main focus on the planning of the journey, which route should be taken and many other strategies. This step is the most difficult one as it requires a lot of planning, many experts which raises the expenses and is very time consuming.
Environmental factors- The transportation of goods is directly proportional to the environment conditions or we can say the climatic factor of the region. As everyone is aware of the adverse climatic conditions of Australian regions; mainly during winters. In winter, there is heavy snowfall in the region (Hashim and Shariff, 2016). All the means of transportation; by road, by air and railways tracks, it becomes difficult. The weather situations are contradictory which affects this business. The roads are covered with snow and the railway lines are entirely covered with snow. There are huge jams on the roads and the buses and planes get cancelled at the last moment in the extreme weather.
Thus the logistics of ACFS are hugely affected by weather conditions in the NSW region. The conditions during summer are also not very favorable. The main business is of transportation of food products. During summer the food items gets ruined which causes drastic loss to this industry (Janssen, ohnson and Schaltegger, 2015). Thus the environmental factors of the region further complicate the entire process.
Managing the employees- we have earlier mentioned in the article that the logistics depends entirely on its staff. It acts like a backbone for the growth of this industry. In spite of the large population and its increasing demand for logistics, there is still shortage of labor in Sydney. Labor hunting is very hard in this region. Safety and secured job is the basic requirement of an individual. But the stability rate in terms of job in this industry is very low, and hence the laborers are forced to change their occupation and causing a serious blow to the industry (Carter and Rogers, 2008). Also it is not an easy job and work efficiency is a major factor. Thus skilled laborers are required.
There is an increasing demand of experts in order to manage the complications of the business. After great difficulties if we manage to get the required number of labor, another problem which originate is how to manage them. The company has to check and keep pace with everyone and check whether they are on the same page or not. The working performance of the employees needs to get a strong check time to time which is the trickiest task.
Managing costumers- Managing the customers is a very complicated task for each and every business entity and same is for ACFS. When the population increases, demand for logistics also increases. The growth in costumers is not easy to manage and in order to add to this, the demands of costumers are touching the sky. Now they want every single update of their goods. As it is discussed above, the company had already a lot of data to handle, this complicates the management more. It is not easy to handle such large amount of costumers and give them every single update of their product. Now, they have to maintain co-ordination with the costumers and track the order, all at the same time which makes it much more difficult.
Increasing fuel prices and taxes- Here also the population factor strikes and so the government policies. Australia is a highly populated nation and with the increasing population government increases the taxes on everything. Thus there are continuous changes in the taxes and fuel prices. Transportation solely depends on the fuel prices (Fernie, 2008). Hence the industry is going through a tough phase in business. The main expenditure goes in the fuel prices and a large sum of money is spent on that. Also while crossing various state and national boundaries, they have to pay large amount of taxes altogether making the task much more difficult. It costs a large amount of money. ACFS is left with no other option and eventually they have to increase the service taxes. This affects the consumer base which eventually changes its company. The company has to pay taxes in order to run the business.
One way or another company face great loses. The costumer and the provider ratio depend on the taxes and the fuel prices. The only escape to the situation is any kind of help from the government if it provides any relaxations in the taxes or the fuel prices. But the Australian government is very ignorant of these situations. Hence it will be very much difficult for the business corporation to run the logistic operations with such government policies prevailing in that region (Gunasekaran and Kobu, 2007). Government need to take some serious and immediate measures.
Delays and cancellations- All these factors are jointly affecting the business of ACFS. Be it the changing weather or the government policies; none of the factor is proving to bring any benefit. Despite of all these prevailing factors the companies need to put a strong check on the rules and regulations. They have to provide best services to the consumers and should form a strong and reliable consumer base in order to work efficiently. No matter how hard the situation gets, they have to focus on good work (Hult, Ketchen and Arrfelt, 2007). The government is not serious about the industry which contributes largely to the economy. The logistics sector is facing because of all the geographical and demographic factors. This is a matter of huge concern and strong measures should be taken immediately.
Solution to the issues in logistics
Turning to technology is one of the biggest options that can also be considered as the solution to most of the issues faced by the logistics organizations. A large amount of data is needed to be handled and there is a lot of statistical work which is the major concern. This problem can be solved by turning to the latest technologies (Stadtler, 2008). No doubt that would be expensive. But if we look at the long run, it would be proven very beneficiary and would seem as a onetime investment. In this way they can put a check to the prevailing problem of data handling. As we have earlier discussed that it would require team of experts. But instead of that what they can prefer is hiring one expert at a time to solve the problem who must be skilled enough to handle the problem. Thus the huge sum of salary would be saved. That can be used to pay the laborers. With this strategy, the expert will help to eradicate the problem for the logistic company.
Now that the problem of data handling is solved, another issue is of environmental factors. The situation can be solved by upgrading the roads to facilitate the transport fluently. There should be a planning for routes, like which route should be taken that it has less hurdles and the distance is lesser. An expert should be hired to plan out this strategy. Once again turn can be taken towards technology. Using the satellites, routes can be planned (Wu, Liao, Tseng and Chiu, 2016), to design out a strategy for transportation.
When planning the rotes, major focus should be on shorter distances which would eventually help in saving the fuel prices require for transporting goods. We cannot change the weather conditions, it is not under human control but what we can do is to predict it. This will help the problem of last moment cancellations. An expert should be hired for this purpose that can navigate the ways and form a strategy which proves to be effective. All these measures can help in facilitating the extreme weather situations. There should be alternate ways always when roads are covered with snow, use airways.
Government policies cannot be changed or altered, and the same are required to be strictly followed but alternatives can also be looked (Zokaei and Hines, 2007).
Then one of the major concerns we are left with is fuel prices which affect the logistic sector. The fuel prices cannot be changed and which increase the difficulties of various phases within the business organization, but again there are alternatives for that to. The hired driving team should be skilled which will save the fuel economy (Ayers and Odegaard, 2017). And there is one more option that is to collaborate with the fuel companies themselves. Like ACFS can choose any major fuel company of that region, and can sponsor them and they will in return reduce the fuel prices. Even if that cannot be done due to some reason, there are another means of transportation; prefer them. Airways and waterways can be used instead of roads; hence, problem of fuel prices can be solved.
The government is there to serve people (Tu, 2018). As the logistics contribute largely to the economy, they must have some say in the government policies. The individuals should have authority of speaking and expressing and should also be allowed to keep their suggestions and issues in-front of the governing authorities. Another strategy here is of unity has strength. All the companies can join in it together. There will be more chances that their voice will be heard. If government provides any help, then one important issue gets solved.
Then lastly, is the HR department, for managing the employees. The HR department should hire a team of experienced and learned experts; they in turn will deal with the employees. A perfect environment must be created. The experts should try their level best to encourage the employees, motivate them to do better work. In turn, the employees will handle the costumers who are the backbone of the industry. But firstly a healthy and competitive work environment needs to be established. The employees must be praised for their work and some kind of reward should be announced for good work (Swink, Melnyk, Hartley and Cooper, 2017). This will encourage the employees to do better work. They will try their level best to achieve the set target. Hence the consumer will be pleased and the company will get a strong consumer base which is the main goal.
Involvement of NSW government
The government of NSW has got may complains from the logistics department during all these years. Hence it has given some serious attention to this sector, several reforms have made during these recent years. Many operations and policies have been launched to solve all these prevailing problems. Old policies were not efficient in today’s time. Thus many policies are renewed in the context of present times which has proved beneficiary for the logistics sector. The government is working towards further reforms and changes in the policies of this sector. Renewing the policies takes time and this is under process. Some time back, a new draft policy was released which was appreciated by the logistic and transport company. NSW government is also planning to launch a trial for the high productivity trial.
The population of Sydney is growing at a fast pace and in order to cope with that increasing demand, new airways and water ports are being arranged for further transportation. There has been plan of setting up a second airport in Sydney to meet these large demands. In order to make logistics and transport more efficient, there is a plan of working on assets and infrastructure by the NSW government (Sari, 2017). Obviously the government cannot change the climatic conditions, but it is fulfilling its duty by providing some kind of compensation to those who have suffered due to adverse climatic conditions. Many organizations have been formed for the welfare of this sector. One such example in front of us is ALC i.e. Australian logistics council which is a midway between the logistics companies and the government.
Slow and steady, changes are happening and we wish for more such reforms in future. It will help the growth of these companies as well as the economy of the country.
Conclusion
In the wake of summing up the above-displayed report it has been reasoned that ACFS is one of the biggest exclusive compartment coordination’s administrator in Australia and the business element is confronting issues. The investigation reasoned that the above report is produced for prescribing a few procedures for solving the issues faced by the business corporation.
References
Ayers, J.B. and Odegaard, M.A. (2017) Retail supply chain management. CRC Press.
Beske-Janssen, P., Johnson, M. P., and Schaltegger, S. (2015) 20 years of performance measurement in sustainable supply chain management–what has been achieved?. Supply chain management: An international Journal, 20(6), 664-680.
Carter, C. R., and Rogers, D. S. (2008) A framework of sustainable supply chain management: moving toward new theory. International journal of physical distribution and logistics management, 38(5), 360-387.
Fernie, J. (2008) Retail logistics. In Handbook of Logistics and Supply-chain Management (pp. 379-391). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Gunasekaran, A., and Kobu, B. (2007) Performance measures and metrics in logistics and supply chain management: a review of recent literature (1995–2004) for research and applications. International journal of production research, 45(12), 2819-2840.
Hashim, H.I.C. and Shariff, S.M.M. (2016) Halal supply chain management training: Issues and challenges. Procedia Economics and Finance, 37, pp.33-38.
Hult, G. T. M., Ketchen, D. J., and Arrfelt, M. (2007) Strategic supply chain management: Improving performance through a culture of competitiveness and knowledge development. Strategic management journal, 28(10), 1035-1052.
Jabbour, C.J.C., Sobreiro, V.A., de Sousa Jabbour, A.B.L., de Souza Campos, L.M., Mariano, E.B. and Renwick, D.W.S. (2017) An analysis of the literature on humanitarian logistics and supply chain management: paving the way for future studies. Annals of Operations Research, pp.1-19.
Junior, M.J.A.P. and Mendes, J.V. (2017) Operational Practices of Lean Manufacturing: Potentiating Environmental Improvements. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management.10(4),pp. 550-580.
Sari, K. (2017) A novel multi-criteria decision framework for evaluating green supply chain management practices. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 105, pp.338-347.
Schorsch, T., Wallenburg, C.M. and Wieland, A. (2017) The human factor in SCM: introducing a meta-theory of behavioral supply chain management. International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, 47(4), pp.238-262.
Stadtler, H. (2008) Supply chain management—an overview. In Supply chain management and advanced planning (pp. 9-36). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Swink, M., Melnyk, S.A., Hartley, J.L. and Cooper, M.B. (2017) Managing operations across the supply chain. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Tu, M. (2018) An exploratory study of Internet of Things (IoT) adoption intention in logistics and supply chain management: A mixed research approach. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 29(1), pp.131-151.
Wu, K. J., Liao, C. J., Tseng, M., and Chiu, K. K. S. (2016) Multi-attribute approach to sustainable supply chain management under uncertainty. Industrial Management and Data Systems, 116(4), 777-800.
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