Discuss about the Supply Chain Management in Qube Holdings Ltd.
In order to meet the demands and needs of the customers, the business organizations aims to put importance upon their strategic planning, development as per that and finally the implementation of that. These steps are basically known as the supply chain management or logistics management with which the organizations try to provide their service or products to the customers appropriately.
In this report, Qube Holding Ltd is regarded is that the logistics management along with the issues and recommendations for them can be discussed elaborately. Suitable theories and models adequately support the discussion.
Qube Holdings Ltd is regarded as one of the largest business organization of New South Wales (NSW), which indulges in warehousing, rail transport, logistics and stevedoring. It serves its facilities at almost thirty ports in Australia, where the rail services are distributed among Adelaide to Melbourne (Krishnapriya and Baral 2014). Therefore, this organization needs to have a well-structured logistics system so that they can provide their services to maximum number of Australian people. In this way, they also aim to increase their sustainability in the transport industry of Australia (Kushwaha 2012).
This organization, however, faces various types of challenges in their supply chain management for which they have to come across certain sustainability threats:
In order to stop the adverse climate change of the world, this logistics organization of Australia aims to put special emphasis upon building green logistics. They often face difficulty in maintaining the pollution rate and their amount of their defused gases that cause air pollution. On the other hand, seasonal changes like the heavy snowfall in winter and the hot and dry weather in summer creates difficulty to overcome the huge distances of two different Australian cities (Touboulic and Walker 2015). Natural disaster like cyclones, bushfires, floods etc often disrupted the regular lifestyle of Australian people. Therefore, it also creates obstacles for the transport systems of Qube Holdings Ltd and affects the equipments and infrastructures of the motorcars of this organization.
One of the main challenges in the urban areas, faced by this organization is the congested traffic of Australia, especially at its headquarter in Sydney along with Melbourne. Due to this severe congestion in the roads, the motorcars of this organization are trucked and in this way, they fail to provide their customers on time service delivery (Ibrahim and Hamid 2014). On the other hand, high toll tax after every 115 kilometers cause a high range of financial expense of this organization every day (Simon et al. 2015). Moreover in Australia, local roads are rectified by the local government so that they can maintain the rapid increasing flow of vehicles. This makes the motorcars and free vehicles of this organization to take sudden changes to their decided routes, which sometimes takes more than the expected time.
This logistics company of Australia often face distance related obstacle at the time of offering services to different cities, which is very much time consuming. For example, the distance between Melbourne to Sydney is 890 kilometers, which takes almost 11 hours (Blecker, Kersten and Ri 2015). On the other hand, the adverse road conditions along with the problems of animals cause severe damage to the vehicles of this organization and cause fatal accidents of the drivers.
The safety act in Australia has become very strict with the passing time. After the employment of Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), all logistics organizations including Qube Holdings Ltd have to consider the safety of their employees more than their business profits. It causes hike of business costs of this business organization (Kushwaha 2012). For example, the employees of its warehouses need to be provided with suitable eyewear, steel covered boots, and hand covers etc so that they can ensure their safety at the time of working. On the other hand, the employment of Quarantine Act 1908 causes strict checking of the transported goods in order to erase the bad impact upon environment (Krishnapriya and Baral 2014). As a result, the transported goods of Qube Holdings Ltd such as animal materials, food items etc go through strict checking by the government. Sometimes it decreases the quality of the products. As the federal and local governments have to provide their shares in the improvement of health and education of different territories of Australia, this organization often finds difficulty in ensuring financial help from them.
In the regional areas of Australia, the population grows in a very slow speed, while the population in the urban regions has high density. As a result, in rural regions of Australia, a number of highly efficient supply chain procedures are required. In rural regions, the supply chain management remains ineffective. On the other hand, the aging population of Australia intends to work in different business organization so that they can earn a lump sum amount with which they can spend their rest of lives. As a result, these people cannot show much efficiency to learn new things quickly (Krishnapriya and Baral 2014). For this reason, Qube Holdings Ltd faces difficulty in employing new technology to make their transport system easier.
The motor vehicles of Qube Holdings Ltd often face difficulty in meeting the extra costs after employing a completely new technology to improve the transport system of this organization. On the other hand, the big organization as Qube Holdings Ltd use same ERP systems but it is also found that some small organizations use different software. In such cases, this organization faces difficulty in dealing with a comparatively smaller organization. Moreover, this organization largely depends upon technology insofar as the dealings are concerned (Krishnapriya and Baral 2014). As a result, if the technology fails, the whole system of this organization automatically declines. Due to the severe distance between the cities of Australia, this organization often finds accessibility difficulty at the time of dealing in remote areas. In the smaller franchises of this organization, the employees often find difficulty to adapt any new system for which they resist against these procedures. As a result, Qube Holdings Ltd faces problems in employing new technologies. In addition, even if the employees try to adapt the new technology in their organization, they take sufficient time to get accustomed to the system (Touboulic and Walker 2015). As a result, their service quality to different ports and railways get affected.
In order to make the supply chain management efficient and to minimize the issues, Qube Holdings Ltd can employ the Agency theory. As per this theory, both the principle and the agents of an organization work for self-interest (Fayezi, O’Loughlin and Zutshi 2012). As per this view, if the agents also work for gaining their self-interest, there is a possibility for them to value their own objectives and desires more than the objectives of the principle. Therefore, in order to overcome this situation, the agents are supposed to work to fulfill the objectives of the principle.
Figure 1: Agent theory of supply chain management
(Source: Simon et al. 2015)
In order to minimize the amount of loss of the organization, the agents and the the principle are supposed to work together. In this way, they can achieve the organizational objectives more easily and effectively (Krishnapriya and Baral 2014). There are two different types of statements with which Qube Holdings Ltd can successfully implement the supply chain management in their organization. As per the first statement, if the interests of the agents and the principle of the organization become common, the organization can overcome the issues more easily and can achieve their desired outcome. In the case of Qube Holdings Ltd, it can also employ this strategy so that they can the principle, the management of this organization can have complete cooperation from the agents, i.e, the employees at the time of employing any new technology. On the other hand, he second statement includes the knowledge of the principle about the effects of the activities of the agents. It indicates at the reduction of risk factors at the organization. By applying this statement in the organization, Qube Holdings Ltd can successfully reduce the risk management factors in their organization by detecting the effects of the activities of their employees.
However, there are certain negative aspects of this theory because it is based upon the possibility of the self-interest of the agents of an organization. There can be some agents who can aim to maximize the wealth of the principle (Krishnapriya and Baral 2014). On the other hand, the agents are supposed to have the responsibilities for their actions only because they work under some other people. Therefore, this theory rejects the freedom of the agents.
In the case of Qube Holdings Ltd, the principle is supposed to be the management of this organization, while the agents are supposed to be the employees of this organization. Therefore, it can employ a sustainable supply chain management with the help of the cooperative employer-employee relationship.
In order to build green logistics and minimize the environmental risks, this organization should employ eco-friendly technologies to make their transport system effective. They can reinvestigate their production procedure so that they can minimize the amount of defused gases. On the other hand, to combat the challenges of seasonal changes, Qube Holdings Ltd need to make plans earlier depending upon the weather forecasting (Kushwaha 2012). In this way, they can employ some heating arrangements in the vehicles for winter and cooling arrangements for summers so that the drivers can deliver the products with their exact qualities. Employment of efficient workers can help to minimize this obstacle to some extent.
In order to avoid the demographical challenges, the management of Qube Holdings Ltd needs to employ deserved and efficient workforce so that the transportation systems can be conducted smoothly (Krishnapriya and Baral 2014). By rotating the duty schedules and providing proper trainings to every employee, this organization can ensure their employee efficiency and competence.
For the congested traffic and road changes, this organization needs to go for another route through which they can easily execute their transportation plans. In order to solve this issue, this organization can relocate their warehouses to some non-congested location where they can reach easily. To avoid toll taxes, Qube Holdings Ltd can change their routes where they need not to give huge toll taxes. Moreover, they can go for huge loadings so that they can minimize the numbers of their road trips. In order to beat the distance related obstacles, this organization can go for railway transport system so that they can minimize the time. In addition, by employing skilled drivers and making the journey with forced breaks after certain times, Qube Holdings Ltd can overcome this problem (Simon et al. 2015). Employment of more warning signs for animals and the conditions of the road can decrease the number of accidents. Moreover, by inserting more protective equipments in the vehicles, Qube Holdings Ltd can ensure the security of the drivers and their expensive motor vehicles.
In order to overcome the legislative challenges, Qube Holdings Ltd needs to be aware enough about different safety and quarantine related regulations of Australia. This organization should make suitable plans for maintaining the essential regulations of Australia. To ensure capital for this company can make lobby to different rich business groups, which can prove to be useful enough if they cannot manage capital from the government.
In order to reduce the resistance from the employees regarding the employment of new technology and make them efficient enough to adjust in them, Qube Holdings Ltd should employ skilled employees who can adapt any change instantly (Fayezi, O’Loughlin and Zutshi 2012). By making suitable planning for the purchasing decisions, this organization can become able to reduce additional business costs. Moreover, they should have back up strategies so that they can rediscover their data even if their technology collapses.
Conclusion
In this way, the logistics management of Qube Holdings Ltd is discussed elaborately. The issues in their supply chain management are described minutely. Suitable recommendations are also provided along with the related theory of supply chain management so that this selected organization can easily overcome their issues by applying them.
Reference List
Blecker, T., Kersten, W. and Ri, C.M., (2015), Supply Chain Security R Services. Proceedings of the Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL), 1(1), pp. 1-460
Fayezi, S., O’Loughlin, A. and Zutshi, A., 2012. Agency theory and supply chain management: a structured literature review. Supply chain management: an international journal, 17(5), pp.556-570
Ibrahim, S.B. and Hamid, A.A., 2014. Supply Chain Management Practices and Supply Chain Performance Effectiveness. International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) ISSN (Online), pp.2319-7064
Krishnapriya, V. and Baral, R., 2014. Supply chain integration-a competency based perspective. International Journal of Managing Value and Supply Chains, 5(3), p.45
Kushwaha, G.S., 2012. Operational performance through supply chain management practices. International journal of business and social science, 3(2).p.55
Simon, A.T., Serio, L.C.D., Pires, S.R.I. and Martins, G.S., 2015. Evaluating supply chain management: A methodology based on a theoretical model. Revista de Administração Contemporânea, 19(1), pp.26-44
Touboulic, A. and Walker, H., 2015. Theories in sustainable supply chain management: a structured literature review. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 45(1/2), pp.16-42
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