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).
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.
