Transport management - a Swedish case study of organizational processes and performance

Transport represents a critical link for lean supply chains from forests to mills. The management processes developed by individual organizations are often a result of their supply context and mill service demands. The goals of this study were to i) provide a general process map for transport management in cut-to-length supply systems and ii) quantify the effect of varying planning and control cycles on organization performance. The key performance indicator for organizational performance was weekly delivery fulfillment, and the study was limited to the non-winter months when there is greatest variation in road trafficability. The process map documents operational planning and control activities at monthly, weekly, and daily levels. Two main variants of planning activities were found. These had diverging effects on delivery fulfillment as transport distances increased but could also facilitate varying degrees of responsiveness in core supply areas. Regarding the control cycle, the number of follow-up activities used by managers increased with the number of mills/terminals served and their total weekly delivery volume.