International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management

Alfred Wong; Dean Tjosvold; Winnie Y.L. Wong; C.K. Liu

1999 International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management

doi: 10.1108/09600039910253850

Although the value of trusting, long‐term relationships for supply chain management is increasingly recognized, how conflict might contribute to quality supply chain partnerships is not well understood. This study uses research on cooperative and competitive conflict to identify when conflict can help develop productive relationships. Results of structural equation analyses suggest that manufacturers and suppliers who feel interdependent rely upon cooperative approaches to conflict, not competitive or avoiding approaches. Cooperative conflict in turn strengthens trust and a long‐term orientation which result in quality enhancing relationships with suppliers. These results challenge the value of conflict avoidance in East Asia. The theory of cooperative and competitive conflict, although developed largely in North America, seems useful for understanding and building quality supply chain partnerships in East Asia.

Füsun Ülengin; Nimet Uray

1999 International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management

doi: 10.1108/09600039910253869

The primary objective of this paper is to explore how the companies in Turkey plan, manage, carry out and improve their logistics processes and, thus, provide a preliminary analysis to explore the current status of logistics in Turkey. For this purpose, a structured‐disguised survey was conducted with the top 250 firms of Istanbul Chamber of Commerce. The aims were: to specify the organizational, financial and managerial significance of logistics activities; to articulate the sourcing/ purchasing feature, customer service and order processing, to understand the changes in the number of suppliers and customers and to identify the features of activities and tools aimed to improve the quality/productivity in these systems; and to investigate the impact of the general characteristics on the first and second subcriteria for each firm.

Kenth Lumsden; Fabrizio Dallari; Remigio Ruggeri

1999 International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management

doi: 10.1108/09600039910253878

The Hub and Spoke system (H&S), initially applied to the airline industry, is an innovative distribution approach which has proved to be successful especially in transportation systems dealing with several origins and destinations and with balanced good flows in both directions. This paper provides an overview of Hub and Spoke theory and proposes some possible improvements to this practice for freight transportation (trucking industry). In particular, the re allocation of transportation resources and the direct connection between pairs of nodes in the distribution network (short cut) have been applied in a case study involving the SKF European distribution network. All aspects of feasibility have been discussed and alternative solutions have been compared to the present configuration in terms of average lead times, goods flow, truck utilisation rate and transportation costs. The results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed interventions, mainly in terms of cost reduction and system flexibility.

Vaidyanathan Jayaraman

1999 International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management

doi: 10.1108/09600039910253887

There have been numerous extensions of the maximum covering location problem that has been developed in the last decade to deal with facility location. Most of the research, however, addresses a single attribute or objective. In the case when a single criterion such as minimizing average response time to access a service facility is insufficient to address the interests of the decision maker, multiple objectives must be employed. Qualitative factors like customer service and market demand as well as quantitative factors like distribution and operating costs need to be appropriately weighted and used in a mathematical programming model. We develop a multi‐objective model for a service facility location problem that simultaneously sites facilities and allocates demand for products from different customer zones. We apply this model to “real‐world” data and show the practical advantages of using this model to solve capacitated service logistics problems.