Optimized Load Planning Of Intermodal Train - Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Disuss about the Optimized Load Planning Of Intermodal Train. Answer: Introduction The report is prepared to focus on the management of networks and logistics departments at Qube Holdings Limited. The ways by which it has managed a good infrastructure by enabling various operating divisions to ensure successful management of import and export cargo supply chains in the area of New South Wales, Australia will also be illustrated here. The management of logistics is one of the major components of the supply chain management that has helped in meeting the demands and preferences of the customers and maintained proper control, planning and implementation of the supply chain resources for moving or storing goods and services from the point of origin to the delivery. The report will illustrate the various issues related to the logistics network and management by Qube at New South Wales, Australia. The resolution strategies will also be provided to ensure that the expenditures re reduced and the customers services are improved as well, which are considered as major benefi ts of logistics management. The issues that are faced by the company and the resolution techniques will be created with the utilization of various logistics models and concepts and furthermore will provide useful recommendations for managing successful logistics network all throughout. Logistics network and management One of the major aspects of supply chain management is the logistics management that has helped in meeting the demands and preferences of the customers through proper planning, control and coordination. It has facilitated the processes of making movements and storage of goods and services along with important data and information from the source to the destination point. The logistics management allows for managing the process of accumulating the raw materials and resources until the process of final production and delivery to the clients and other businesses (Allen, Browne and Cherrett 2012). To respond to the needs and preferences of the customers, the management of logistics has managed to facilitate the process strategy and even planned for necessary approaches. This was done for implementing the most suitable strategies and manages the logistics network and departments with ease and effectiveness. Qube Logistics has set up a new operational unit at New South Wales where operations that are managed include Port Botany Empty park, Macarthur Intermodal terminal, Yennora Intermodal terminal and Port Botany Freight Terminal. The New South Wales logistics unit managed by Qube manages freight depots, warehousing activities and store goods in the containers. The rail terminal network is huge and the size of the rail fleet includes 750 wagons and 65 locos. The logistics management and networking activities at Qube Logistics Holding Ltd are managed by operating services through covering of rail and road transportation, management of warehousing activities and distribution of products and services (Beske 2012). All these kinds of services were combined together for developing an integrated solution and meet the demands and expectations of the business clients. Qube Logistics has even expanded its logistics operations and delivered the best quality logistics services by developing the inf rastructure through innovation and wide network management. More strategic logistics hubs are developed at inland places and even at the ports to enhance the abilities of the company and allow rail, road and air transportation facilities too. Qube Logistics Holding has developed and implemented enhanced technologies and applications for providing the customers with the best quality supply chain solutions (Bruns and Knust 2012). Issues with the current logistics network in New South Wales Various important activities are involved with the logistics management at Qube Logistics including selection of the most appropriate vendors who can provide the best quality transportation facilities. Selection of the best route for transportation of the goods and services from one place to another, identification of the most competent methods of delivery and finally usage of various software and IT components for managing the supply chain solutions and logistics activities are also important. Because of so many things involved during the logistics and network management, issues tend to arise when wrong decisions are made. In case the delivery of goods and services is not on time, then the customers may feel dissatisfied while the damage of goods and services during the transportation activities can also lead to negative mindset created among the customers (da Mota Pedrosa, Nslund and Jasmand 2012). With the inappropriate planning of logistics networks, the expenses would increase a nd there even might be issues while implementing the logistics applications and software. There could also be issues related to outsourcing activities and managing delivery of goods and services without availability of enough resources might even bring inaccurate results (Abc.net.au 2014). Due to high traffic congestion on roads, the goods transportation has been affected and there is delay. Due to tool roads, the people who were assigned with the responsibilities of transporting the goods by road had to pay substantial amount of money. By paying the amount of money, an electronic tag was provided to the vehicles while passing through the tool gates. There were few regional issues as well including the large distance between the source and the destination. It is known fact that kangaroos are major hazards on the roads in various parts of the country. While transporting the goods, these animals have got killed, which could even cerate major threats not only for the equipments and vehicles but also threaten the human life by causing accidents at the middle of nowhere (Dekker et al. 2013). The logistics industry is highly competitive and this has created few major issues for Qube Logistics in New South Wales, Australia, both due to internal and external factors. It has deteriorated the system functioning and even issues due to lack of maintenance of laws, rules, regulations, national policies, state transport strategies and through investments in infrastructure. The various activities were even changed through relocation from Port Jackson to Port Botany, which created major issues like the dividing of containers. There were many containers that were transported previously to Port Jackson through rail transportation and after that those were transported to Port Botany by using road transportation (Fawcett, Ellram and Ogden 2013). Due to heavy traffic, the transportation faced major issues like delay of goods and services reaching the concerned location and even degrading the efficiency of multi modal transport access in logistics operations management largely. There wer e conflicts and misunderstandings between the employees and staffs of Qube with the other import or export companies at New South Wales regarding the violation of environmental laws, rules and regulations. The Australian Government even prevented the utilization of the road network for transferring freights, rather it was told to select the rail networks for transportation purposes (Fernie and Sparks 2014). Due to huge volumes of freights and other goods, the container was not effective for storing all those. Thus, the lack of storage in the containers and lack of terminal space were considered as other issues faced in the New South Wales location of Qube Logistics. The containers could reduce the costs of expenses and manage records of the shipments and the entire location was the source of containers, so with the increased demands and expectations of customers and better business outcomes, the storage of containers wand terminal space was not sufficient (Abc.net.au 2014). When the containers consisting the freights and goods are transferred, those are being checked for managing the reduction of costs and keeping track of the records of shipping. From the records, it was seen that there was limitation of space for storing those containers though more than 60 hectare of area was not used until then (Forslund 2012). There were also other issues related to the recycling and privatization of assets to ensure that the freights are transported properly without any delay that might be caused due to the network traffic. At New South Wales, the recycling and privatization of wastes were needed to be done, because of which, there was a plan for setting up an underground route to prevent traffic on roads. It was just after the elections and the ruling Government changed, which created a huge issue for the development of the underground path and resulted in sudden changes in plans too. Due to lack of investments and division between the various parties, much more complexities arose, which further created issues while managing the logistics network (Ghadge, Dani and Kalawsky 2012). Other issues arose when acquisitions were done and this even weakened the logistics services efficiency and transactions in the short term planning. The climatic and weather conditions change from time to time and due to severe climatic conditions, the road network might create chances and risks of accidents during the transportation and delay of air transport facilities too. While transporting the freights to the New South Wales location of Qube through water transport facilities, critical weather conditions could increase the sea level and result in destroying the coastal locations (Hu and Sheu 2013). Resolution techniques To overcome the issues and ensure successful logistics management, it is important for the company to implement the best and most effective logistics management practices and strategies for focusing on the collaboration efforts rather than prioritizing on the competition within the logistics industry. By promoting good communication among the providers if transportation facilities, vendors and purchasers, it could be easy for the Qube Logistics department at New South Wales to reduce the expenditures and at the same time, facilitate the management of networks. This would not only make the business achieve success but could also result in generating more revenue in business and attain competitive advantage as well. It was understood from the above section that the Australian Government enabled the company to use rail networks rather than the road networks for the transfer of freights. Afterwards, the rail authority made an effective business decision and ensured that most of the freig hts, i.e., nearly more than 70 percent of the freights in the containers should be transported through the rail networks from the source location to the Port Botany in New South Wales (Jacobs and Chase 2017). It facilitated the multi modal transport access and even improved the effectiveness of the logistics and network management largely for Qube Logistics, Australia (qube.com.au 2018). Analysis There are various strategies that are implemented to resolve the issues faced within the logistics and supply chain management at Qube Logistics Holding Ltd in Australia. The company must work with other business partners to focus on the making of cooperative decision and at the same time make an effective decision for the success of the business and even align the logistics alliance aligned with the organizational goals and objectives. There were other issues related to the lack of enough storage in the containers for storing the freights and goods (Lai and Wong 2012). The rolling horizon approach could be undertaken for managing the various containers with inbound, outbound and transit containers altogether. This would help in allocating the storage functions properly and at the same time reduce the workload by ensuring that the same plans were not repeated (Zhang et al. 2013). The reverse logistics network and management also helps in managing the products and services that may no t be used or there is no need to be managing those. The reverse logistics mechanism is useful for reusing the materials and recycling the products and services while moving those from the source to the destination at New South Wales. The four major benefits that could be obtained by using the reverse logistics could be the reduction of costs, manage substitute products and services, reuse and recycle the elements properly too (Manuj and Pohlen 2012). Logistics concepts and models The reverse logistics could be used as a quantitative model by dividing those into three major components including the planning for distribution, control and management of inventories and planning for production. The non-linear model could also be developed for considering both the return and forward networks and at the same time resolve the issues of limited capacity by making sufficient numbers of trucks, vehicles, warehouses and machines required for transportation activities and also for the purpose of logistics and network management. The strategy implemented could also help in ensuring that the vehicles, once emptied the freights at the destination, were used again as soon as possible (Myerson 2012). The costs could be used with the use of model through proper management of return trips and making sure that the trucks and vehicles were properly managed. This could enhance the safety level while transporting goods from one place to another. The intermodal transportation could be used for allowing faster delivery of the freights and goods and reduce the chances of risks like damage of property and losing those. The intermodal transportation could also be beneficial for moving the freights from the source to the destination, i.e., New South Wales location conveniently and appropriately. The JIT approach is another effective way of moving the freights and manage successful logistics network within the allocated time frame. There could be situations when shipments and freights must be delivered at the right place at the right time, which could result in the satisfaction of customers. By managing the emergency and regular shipments properly, it would be easy for easing the jobs that might be complex and ensure successful delivery of the products at the right time and place, furthermore should keep the customers satisfied and allow the company to gain more profit in business (Huscroft et al. 2013). While using the JIT or Just In time model, various factors must be considered including the time of delivery, cost and quality. The transshipments could help in managing the system of distribution considering the one to many approach and even when the goods and services were not delivered to the right location and at the right time. The major functions of the transshipments included the breaking down of bulk amounts of freights and transferring those n the form of smaller components while consolidation could be another major function. Consolidation could allow the company to join the smaller shipments of freights altogether and combine those into a larger one and then get that delivered to the concerned location. The empty space in the location would be covered and the space of containers could be enhanced for storing more goods (Huscroft 2016). To gain the best economies of scale, the size of vehicles used for the transportation purposes should be different at different stages during the process of delivery of freights from the source to the destination. Recommendations It is recommended to optimise the entire supply chain management activities in a cooperative way for achieving the long-term relationships and ensure successful management of logistics at Qube. The improvement of rail networks should be done as well for enhancing the freight storage and allow for reduction of risks and high investments done. By enabling global restructuring, the spaces of containers as well as the ports would be enhanced. It is also recommended for the Australian Government to ensure that the reconstruction and expansion of certain areas in logistics network and management should be done for fulfilling the requirements and preferences of the logistics services and ensure proper financing to the public infrastructure (Verma, Verter and Zufferey 2012). According to the Government of Australia, here are various acts, laws, legislations and rules that are needed to be implemented like the Heavy Vehicle National Law and Road Safety Remuneration act. This could not only cr eate positive impacts by lowering down the costs of providing the internal training and developmental programs but would also enhance the safety level, furthermore prevent the regulatory bodies from any sort of overlapping or contradictory orders. It is also recommended to make investments for the improvements of organizational infrastructures and furthermore resolve the political and social issues and at the same time, decrease the costs and taxpaying abilities. This would rather help in investing on the projects that could benefit both the community and enhance the efficiency of the New South Wales location (Winter and Knemeyer 2012). Conclusion The report was developed for focusing on the most important concepts of logistics and network management considering the business organisation Qube Logistic Holding Ltd. The company has managed to store its freights and delivered those to the new location in New South Wales for easy transportation and delivery to the clients with ease and effectiveness. There were certain issues while relocating and moving the freights and goods from one location to another and because of that it was important to enable various logistics management approaches for ensuring successfully delivery and this could result in the satisfaction of the customers. Few issues were damage and loss of goods and services during the transportation, high traffic that could lead to congestion on roads and unstable weather conditions. The company could follow various legislations, laws, rules and regulations to make sure that the Government support should be obtained and the shipments and freights were transported prope rly to the concerned location at Port Botany in New South Wales. References Abc.net.au 2014. Abc.net.au. [online] ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-24/extended-interview-with-maurice-james/5547814 [Accessed 23 Jan. 2018]. Allen, J., Browne, M. and Cherrett, T., 2012. Investigating relationships between road freight transport, facility location, logistics management and urban form.Journal of Transport Geography,24, pp.45-57. Beske, P., 2012. Dynamic capabilities and sustainable supply chain management.International Journal of Physical Distribution Logistics Management,42(4), pp.372-387. Bruns, F. and Knust, S., 2012. Optimized load planning of trains in intermodal transportation.Or Spectrum,34(3), pp.511-533. da Mota Pedrosa, A., Nslund, D. and Jasmand, C., 2012. Logistics case study based research: towards higher quality.International Journal of Physical Distribution Logistics Management,42(3), pp.275-295. Dekker, R., Fleischmann, M., Inderfurth, K. and van Wassenhove, L.N. eds., 2013.Reverse logistics: quantitative models for closed-loop supply chains. Springer Science Business Media. Fawcett, S.E., Ellram, L.M. and Ogden, J.A., 2013.Supply Chain Management: Pearson New International Edition: From Vision to Implementation. Pearson Higher Ed. Fernie, J. and Sparks, L., 2014.Logistics and retail management: emerging issues and new challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan page publishers. Forslund, H., 2012. Performance management in supply chains: Logistics service providers' perspective.International Journal of Physical Distribution Logistics Management,42(3), pp.296-311. Ghadge, A., Dani, S. and Kalawsky, R., 2012. Supply chain risk management: present and future scope.The International Journal of Logistics Management,23(3), pp.313-339. Hu, Z.H. and Sheu, J.B., 2013. Post-disaster debris reverse logistics management under psychological cost minimization.Transportation Research Part B: Methodological,55, pp.118-141. Jacobs, F.R. and Chase, R.B., 2017.Operation and supply chain management. Mc GrawHill. Lai, K.H. and Wong, C.W., 2012. Green logistics management and performance: Some empirical evidence from Chinese manufacturing exporters.Omega,40(3), pp.267-282. Manuj, I. and Pohlen, T.L., 2012. A reviewer's guide to the grounded theory methodology in logistics and supply chain management research.International Journal of Physical Distribution Logistics Management,42(8/9), pp.784-803. Myerson, P., 2012.Lean supply chain and logistics management. New York: McGraw-Hill. qube.com.au. (2018). Qube.com.au. Retrieved 21 January 2018, from https://www.qube.com.au/ Huscroft, J., T. Hazen, B., J. Hall, D., B. Skipper, J. and B. Hanna, J., 2013. Reverse logistics: past research, current management issues, and future directions.The International Journal of Logistics Management,24(3), pp.304-327. Schnsleben, P., 2016.Integral logistics management: operations and supply chain management within and across companies. CRC Press. Verma, M., Verter, V. and Zufferey, N., 2012. A bi-objective model for planning and managing rail-truck intermodal transportation of hazardous materials.Transportation research part E: logistics and transportation review,48(1), pp.132-149. Winter, M. and Knemeyer, A.M., 2013. Exploring the integration of sustainability and supply chain management: Current state and opportunities for future inquiry.International Journal of Physical Distribution Logistics Management,43(1), pp.18-38. Zhang, X., Zhang, Z., Zhang, Y., Wei, D. and Deng, Y., 2013. Route selection for emergency logistics management: A bio-inspired algorithm.Safety science,54, pp.87-91.