Warehouses consolidation in the logistic clusters: food industry's case
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Tiekimo grandinės; Sandėliavimas; Logistika; Supply chain; Warehousing; Partial freight; Logistic cluster.
ENThe globalization is affecting the economic development of world. Internet provided a dramatic increase in information and money transaction speed, therefore small markets are also growing rapidly in the international markets. The focus of this paper is on a cluster of companies with logistics intensive activity. This includes mainly logistics services providers, such as transportation companies, warehousemen, third party logistics companies, also distributors, forwarders and retailers, as well. The logistic clusters can be used to provide the competitive advantage for the small markets, however, the main singularities of small market are related to the partial freight distribution problem. Manufacturers tend to buy raw materials in low quantities that may dramatically increase the price per pallet. In the article a methodology proposed by the authors’ offers to combine different types of warehouses and transportation methods. A case study was conducted in a small market’s food industry that amplifies the possibilities of logistic cluster usage in a food industry. Taking into account the analysed information, it was concluded that warehouses consolidation processes in the logistic clusters can dramatically reduce the cost of food supply chain. Moreover, the implementation of a consolidation warehouse in a logistic cluster can provide environmental and economic benefits, which makes the cluster more attractive.Additionally, the most important factors in food supply chain, such as distribution network of flow from food suppliers to customers combining transportation quantity and ordering size together with controlled temperature conditions by using refrigerated compartments in order to optimize logistic costs, were indicated. As the result, the guidelines to the improvement of warehouses consolidation process in the logistic clusters for the food industry have been developed. In the future partial freight optimization network will be modelled in order to properly evaluate the economical possibilities of logistic cluster usage in the food industry. [From the publication]
