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1 – 10 of over 4000Xu Zhang and Hans-Joachim Schramm
This paper presents an overview of the recent development of Eurasian rail freight in the Belt and Road era and further evaluates its service quality in terms of transit times and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents an overview of the recent development of Eurasian rail freight in the Belt and Road era and further evaluates its service quality in terms of transit times and transport costs compared to other transport modes in containerised supply chains between Europe and China.
Design/methodology/approach
A trade-off model of transit time and transport costs based on quantitative data from primary and secondary sources is developed to demonstrate the market niche for Eurasian rail freight vis-a-vis the more established modes of transport of sea, air and sea/air. In a scenario analysis, further cargo attributes influencing modal choice are employed to show for which cargo type Eurasian rail freight service is favourable from a shipper's point of view.
Findings
At present, Eurasian rail freight is about 80% less expensive than air freight with only half of the transit time of conventional sea freight. Our scenario analysis further suggests that for shipping time-sensitive goods with lower cargo value ranging from $US1.23/kg to $US10.89/kg as well as goods with lower time sensitivity and higher value in a range of $US2.46/kg to $US21.78/kg, total logistics costs of Eurasian rail freight service rail is cheaper than all other modes of transport.
Practical implications
As an emerging competitive solution, Eurasian rail freight demonstrates to be an option beneficial in terms of transport cost, transit time, reliability and service availability, which offers a cost-efficient option enabling shippers to build up agile and more sustainable supply chains between China and Europe.
Originality/value
Our study firstly provides a comprehensive assessment of present Eurasian rail freight including a thorough comparison with alternative modes of transport from a shipper's point of view.
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Amani Natheesha Karunathilake and Anuja Fernando
Air transport accounts for nearly 40% worth of the global trade cargo volume, where more than 50% of the air cargo is carried on passenger flights. Therefore, this paper aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
Air transport accounts for nearly 40% worth of the global trade cargo volume, where more than 50% of the air cargo is carried on passenger flights. Therefore, this paper aims to focus on identifying the influencing factors for both passenger and cargo demand-driven networks to smoothen the global supply chain.
Design/methodology/approach
The data for the study was collected through literature reviews and interviews with industry experts. The analytical hierarchy process was used to analyze the expert's opinions on the critical factors affecting air cargo demand growth. Regression analysis was conducted using the selected variables to develop a model to calculate air cargo demand growth.
Findings
According to the expert opinion, it was identified that facilities under airport capacities and facilities are mainly affected by the air cargo carried by combi carriers. The model was developed considering the air connectivity index and air cargo demand at destination variables.
Research limitations/implications
The factors identified here are mainly related to the current situation in Sri Lanka. Applying this methodology to other economic zones will add new factors related to their economic contexts and could be generalized as the influencing factors for the growth of air cargo demand by finding more results.
Originality/value
Previous studies have been conducted using different factors and models to forecast air cargo demand, and those did not consider demand from combi and all-cargo carriers together. More than 98% of air cargo trades in Sri Lanka are happening through combi carriers. Hence, Sri Lanka will be a best case study to analyze the behavior of combi carriers.
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The purpose of this paper is to present an objective decision-making framework and conduct a benchmarking study in the air cargo industry.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an objective decision-making framework and conduct a benchmarking study in the air cargo industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The decision-making framework and benchmarking methodology evaluates the aircraft value for money (VfM) as a benefit-to-cost ratio calculated adopting a measure of relative efficiency. This efficiency score is measured as a comprehensive efficiency index obtained by combining several efficiency scores calculated by implementing four data envelopment analysis (DEA) models.
Findings
The framework is used to carry on a benchmarking study in the air cargo industry on a sample of 27 airplanes. The average VfM is 67.04 percent, with measurements between 39.96 and 116.03 percent. Only three airplanes achieve full VfM and behave as benchmarks to the remaining airplanes. Boeing B727-200 is a broad player in the market. Some old cargo models (DC 9-30F) deliver the same amount of VfM as more recent aircraft models (i.e. MD-11F and A300-600F).
Research limitations/implications
The decision-making framework and benchmarking methodology can usefully support managers to make sound decisions and plans. Even though DEA generates attributes weights to different alternatives that are independent of the buyer preferences, the framework flexibility allows introducing a weighting scheme to take into account the managers preferences for certain aircraft performance/functional features. It can easily include new functional/performance measurements and adapt the VfM measurement to the particular economic context, strategy, and business model of the airlines, or be transferred to different industries.
Originality/value
The framework combines technical, functional performance, and economic cost measurements to get a unique efficiency index to evaluate the airplane VfM.
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Majid Eskafi, Milad Kowsari, Ali Dastgheib, Gudmundur F. Ulfarsson, Poonam Taneja and Ragnheidur I. Thorarinsdottir
Port throughput analysis is a challenging task, as it consists of intertwined interactions between a variety of cargos and numerous influencing factors. This study aims to propose…
Abstract
Purpose
Port throughput analysis is a challenging task, as it consists of intertwined interactions between a variety of cargos and numerous influencing factors. This study aims to propose a quantitative method to facilitate port throughput analysis by identification of important cargos and key macroeconomic variables.
Design/methodology/approach
Mutual information is applied to measure the linear and nonlinear correlation among variables. The method gives a unique measure of dependence between two variables by quantifying the amount of information held in one variable through another variable.
Findings
This study uses the mutual information to the Port of Isafjordur in Iceland to underpin the port throughput analysis. The results show that marine products are the main export cargo, whereas most imports are fuel oil, industrial materials and marine product. The aggregation of these cargos, handled in the port, meaningfully determines the non-containerized port throughput. The relation between non-containerized export and the national gross domestic product (GDP) is relatively high. However, non-containerized import is mostly related to the world GDP. The non-containerized throughput shows a strong relation to the national GDP. Furthermore, the results reveal that the volume of national export trade is the key influencing macroeconomic variable to the containerized throughput.
Originality/value
Application of the mutual information in port throughput analysis effectively reduces epistemic uncertainty in the identification of important cargos and key influencing macroeconomic variables. Thus, it increases the reliability of the port throughput forecast.
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Supply chains deliver goods and services between shippers and receivers, covering collection, transportation, distribution as well as their handling and storage in between. In…
Abstract
Supply chains deliver goods and services between shippers and receivers, covering collection, transportation, distribution as well as their handling and storage in between. In particular, transportation services are carried out by different transport modes. In some modern supply chains, different categories of air cargo carriers – combinations, freighter-only, and/or integrators – provide critical transport services.
This chapter develops a methodology for estimating the performance of supply chains served by an air cargo carrier network. The methodology is based on indicators of infrastructure use, technical/technological level, operational factors, economic factors, and environmental performance. This proposed methodology is applied to estimate performance of supply chains served by an integrated air cargo carrier – FedEx Express – operating a single hub in the US domestic air network. Results indicate that the methodology may be useful for estimation of overall supply chain performance under the condition that relevant data are available.
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The purpose of this paper is to design a model of the port performance metrics for improving the quality in ports by integration of six sigma and system dynamics (SD) approach.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to design a model of the port performance metrics for improving the quality in ports by integration of six sigma and system dynamics (SD) approach.
Design/methodology/approach
The port performance is measured by the sigma value (SV), the process capability indices (PCIs), and the cost of poor quality (COPQ) as the performance metrics. A port is a complex system that requires SD as an appropriate tool to simulate the model dynamically. The performance metrics focus on measuring the port performance in the entire flow of material in the cargo handling process.
Findings
With this model, the changing of the SV, the PCIs, and the COPQ can be identified and analyzed the results to improve the performance in ports. These metrics are utilized to eliminate “waste” in the cargo handling process at ports. This waste consists of lost and damaged cargo, equipment and transporter breakdown, and equipment and transporter delay time. The port performance metrics model can assess the causal relationships in ports as a complex system.
Originality/value
Studies on integration between the six sigma model and SD in ports are few and relatively limited. The port’s performance can be measured directly using the SV, the PCIs, and the COPQ in the simulation. The port performance metrics model will give the decision makers to make some scenarios to contribute for the optimization of performance in ports.
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Pei-Ju Wu, Mu-Chen Chen and Chih-Kai Tsau
Cargo loss has been a major issue in logistics management. However, few studies have tackled the issue of cargo loss severity via business analytics. Hence, the purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Cargo loss has been a major issue in logistics management. However, few studies have tackled the issue of cargo loss severity via business analytics. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to provide guidance about how to retrieve valuable information from logistics data and to develop cargo loss mitigation strategies for logistics risk management.
Design/methodology/approach
This study proposes a research design of business analytics to scrutinize the causes of cargo loss severity.
Findings
The empirical results of the decision tree analytics reveal that transit types, product categories, and shipping destinations are key factors behind cargo loss severity. Furthermore, strategies for cargo loss prevention were developed.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed framework of cargo loss analytics provides a research foundation for logistics risk management.
Practical implications
Companies with logistics data can utilize the proposed business analytics to identify cargo loss factors, while companies without logistics data can employ the proposed cargo loss mitigation strategies in their logistics systems.
Originality/value
This pioneer empirical study scrutinizes the critical cargo loss issues of cargo damage, cargo theft, and cargo liability insurance through exploiting real cargo loss data.
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L. P. Barreto, A. S. Silva and R. C. Ferreira
Identifying and managing supply chain risk is crucial for the competitiveness of a company. However, research focused on the risks of supply chain operations in Brazil is scarce…
Abstract
Identifying and managing supply chain risk is crucial for the competitiveness of a company. However, research focused on the risks of supply chain operations in Brazil is scarce. The purpose of this study is to analyze and assess the risk of cargo theft in the country. The methodology adopted is deductive and based on an analysis of historical data from January 2015 to November 2017, aiming to evaluate risk based on probability and impact. The findings unveil a scenario of criminality of transporting goods in Brazil, where the use of force, violence, and threats to steal goods is most likely to occur en route or when parked in key locations on the way to the distribution center. On the other hand, the higher impact cargo crimes are concentrated en route to the customer. This chapter provides a better understanding of the risks of transporting goods by road in Brazil and contributes to a more efficient supply chain design by identifying the risks and assessing the primary locations of the crimes along with their modi operandi and the period of the day during which the crime occurs.
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This paper aims to study the implication of the stochastic gross-profit-per-day objective on the ship profitability and the ship capacity and speed.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the implication of the stochastic gross-profit-per-day objective on the ship profitability and the ship capacity and speed.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper has used the mathematical model and the solution methodology given by El Noshokaty, 2013, 2014, 2017a, 2017b, and SOS, 2019.
Findings
The paper finds that if the ship owner follows the rate concept and the cargo demand forecast, he can improve the profitability of his company and be able to select the proper capacities and speeds for the ships used.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are not only useful for the shipping or other cargo transport companies but also for businesses like gas reservoir development, car assembly lines in the industry, cooperative farming and crop harvesting in agriculture, port cargo handling in trade and road paving in construction.
Originality/value
The contribution of this paper lies in notifying the ship owners of the possible profitability improvement and the consequences of building ships of larger capacities and slower speeds.
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Anthony Beresford, Stephen Pettit and Yukuan Liu
This paper aims to analyse available multimodal transport route variations for iron ore shipments from northwest Australia to northeast China, focusing on a major iron and steel…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyse available multimodal transport route variations for iron ore shipments from northwest Australia to northeast China, focusing on a major iron and steel manufacturer.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is focused on a case study and uses an established cost model as a framework, for the first time, in the context of heavy bulk cargo shipments. Field interviews and a questionnaire form the principal methods of primary data collection. The characteristics of bulk iron ore transport flow are analysed against traditional criteria and an appraisal of the transport infrastructure in north east China is made, considering both road and rail options, and various possible combinations for transport being evaluated. All factors affecting modal choice in the region are examined, including cargo volume, weight, and value, transport distance, transit time, transport costs and schedule reliability.
Findings
The volumes of iron ore moved are large, with a high weight‐to‐volume ratio, and shipments are regular. The research initially confirms that sea and rail transport combinations are the most appropriate for the movement of iron ore. However, where rail transport corridors are congested, provided that the transport distances are not too great, road haulage appears to be an effective substitute and the most competitive multimodal transport route, at least in the short to medium term, is found to be a rail‐sea‐road combination via Port Bayuquan in China.
Research limitations/implications
The research focuses on the delivery of iron ore to one major steel manufacturer in northeast China; so findings may not be transferable to other companies or circumstances.
Practical implications
The paper first demonstrates that, for heavy, high volume cargoes concentration of flows on to one corridor, perhaps under the control of one service provider, maximises scale economies, but works against competition and route/mode choice. Second, it demonstrates that, for long haul shipments of iron ore, port variations and modal differences for inland transport yield only marginal differences in overall logistics costs.
Originality/value
An assessment of high volume/heavy/low value cargoes such as iron ore has not previously been undertaken using this cost model. This paper therefore provides an original analysis of such supply chains.
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