What Is the Role of Transport Within the Supply Chain?

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Supply Chain and Transport Flexibility

As Oke (2005) has noted the subject of flexibility within the supply chain can now be more complex and confusing. There are a lot of ways you can transport products some of the ways are much faster than the other ones for example air transportation would be much faster than sea transportation but the disadvantage with air transportation are that you are not able to carry as much goods unlike sea transportation allows you to carry more goods. There are four physical movements that have to be taken into consideration such as the choice of transport mode and capabilities of the vehicle fleets. Fleet flexibility relates to the composition of the total fleet in order to provide different services between Sea, Road, Air and Pipeline while vehicle flexibility considers the capabilities of an individual vehicle. It should be noted that elements of transport flexibility include warehouses and transport infrastructure also. Feitelson and Salomon (2000) Supply chain and transport flexibility implementation can be used to gain strategic advantages by having the ability to transship at a categorical supply chain stage to sanction logistics flexibility. According to (Tiwari et al., 2013a, 2013b) The supply chain and transport flexibility is said to be flexible because it ensures smooth undisrupted supply of the products from suppliers to the end users. Transportation, markets are now becoming more international, dynamic, and customer driven due to the large number of consumer needs because now you can purchase goods all over the global. Since now customers are also now demanding more variety, better quality and service, including both reliability and faster delivery are now very important. According to Leslie K. Duclos (2003) a flexible transportation management platform should be able to provide more core complex transportation management components, which allows virus methods of cost effective transportation.

Conclusion

In summation, evidence spots the supply chain role is to deliver the right products at the right time, in the right quantity and quality, at the right cost, and to the right destination of the order. The supply chain management can now be thought of delivering the right products and services to the end consumers in the required time because now day’s customers are looking at getting shorter lead times while at the same time the suppliers want to have less inventory and less risk and damage during the transportation of goods. Studies discussed the functions of transport in the supply chain and how vital component for the operation and integration of the supply chain comes from the use of transportation and logistics management.

Reference list

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