LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

According to Waters (2003), logistics management is the part of supply chain management that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective forward, and reverses flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customer’s requirements. The logistics of physical items usually involves the integration of information flow, material handling, production, packaging, inventory, transportation, warehousing, and often security (Misra, Kahn & Singh, 2010).

Supply Chain Performance refers to the extended supply chain’s activities in meeting end-customer requirements, including product availability, on-time delivery, and all the necessary inventory and capacity in the supply chain to deliver that performance in a responsive manner (Warren, 2004).

In today’s environment of “Survival of the fittest” more and more companies tend to examine, restructure and reposition their operations to gain competitive advantage, and in this, logistics can play a vital role in the integration and differentiation strategic designed to produce the desired competitive advantage (Jaheem, 2008).Under the strategic logistical management, choice of transportation mode is a fundamental part. Transport cost includes all costs associated with the movement of product from one location to another. The average transport cost range between five to six per cent of the recommended retail price of the product (shah, 2002).

According to (Chopra and Meindl, 2007) supply chain has become an important focus of competitive advantage for firms and to achieve an a high supply chain performance, companies need to effectively move raw materials, coordinate flows into, choices of transportation, cost of the transportation, packaging the product for shipment, storing the product, and managing the entire process. Sufian (2010) stated that the performance of supply chain was influenced by managing and integrating key element of information into their supply chain.

According to Sufian (2010) to achieve a better performance, logistic management strategy need support the business strategy. Logistics strategy includes cost reduction, capital reduction and service improvement. However, increased variety of goods, globalization of marketing and seasonal variations are among the major challenges of logistics system which leads to the necessity of developing effective logistics strategies in the agricultural sector (Gebresenbet & Bosona, 2012).

Effective logistics management is important to build and sustain competitive advantage in product and services of firms (Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2004). To compete at the supply chain level, firms must adopt an appropriate logistics management strategy. The strategy needs integrate and coordinate throughout the supply chain to generate the performance of supply chain in firms (Green Jr. et al., 2008).

LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

Consequently, supply chain performance is an amalgamation of three important measurements specifically efficiency, effectiveness and adaptability (Wakhungu 2010). Thus, supply chain performance in most organizations in Africa is measured by way of increased productivity in the production department by employing better production techniques rewarding returns.

Ledgerwood (2000) concurred with the fact that the main objective in most organizations in the Uganda is to increase productivity. As productivity increases, logistics management needs to be handled with utmost professionalism. Thus, there is need to have accountability by following laid down procurement procedures so as to realize improved supply chain performance 

The new vision printing and publishing co. ltd is increasingly looking at logistics for improving customer experience and for differentiation. Meeting service level agreements is a basic requirement for moving from customer satisfaction to customer delight. Today’s demanding customers require not just fulfillment of requirements, but also cooperation and alignment with their service partners for mutual benefit and revenue growth.

According to CSCMP (2007), logistics management is that part which implements, and controls the efficient, effective forward and reverses flow and storage of goods, services and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customers’ requirements.

Kilasi et al. (2013) highlights that in today‘s highly competitive environment, many companies are striving to gain a share of the global market and to take advantage of higher production and sourcing efficiency and The new vision printing and publishing co. ltd. 

Also Tseng et al (2005) argued that a key determinant of business performance nowadays is the role of logistics management functions in ensuring the smooth flow of materials, products and information throughout the company‘s supply chain. 

Also Buyukozkan, et al. (2008) argued that as a result of the trend of nationalization and globalization in recent decades, the importance of logistics management has been growing in various areas. He further argued that for firms, logistics management helps to optimize the existing production and distribution processes based on the same resources through management techniques for promoting the efficiency and competitiveness of enterprises. 

In the study carried by Tilokavichai & Sophatsathit (2011), the study concludes that effective logistics management provides the right product in the right place at the right time that is why it has received much attention over the past decade from practitioners and government. While Liu & Lyons (2011) argued that realizing the importance of sustainability in logistics management it is critical for competitive advantage because operational performance has a positive impact on company‘s financial performance.

However, for logistics management to be considered contributing to a firm‘s performance, logistics performance needed to be measured (Keebler & Plank, 2009). In their study Fugate, at el., (2010) confirmed that, due to increasing awareness of logistics management implications in firm performance and growing awareness of the benefits of leveraging logistics to increase customer value, measuring of performance of logistics had become a high priority. 

In this study, the new vision printing and publishing co. ltd the total cost of logistics ranges from 7% to 12% of sales and is growing due to increasing supply chain complexities. Thus, there is an increased focus from corporate management on controlling and managing this cost.