logo

How Urbanization Affects Supply Chain Management

   

Added on  2023-01-19

1 Pages1378 Words54 Views
Business Development
 | 
 | 
 | 
This continuous evolving phase of urbanization affects the way
customer
shop and the way it is delivered to the end customers. It
is
essential for a company to understand and analyze the
preferences,
purchasing behavior and need of an individual in
order
to select the deliveries. The overall the aspect of
urbanization
leads to have high level of spending in logistics.
Moreover,
Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals
advises
shipper to do personalized deliveries to their customers
quicker
. There are several researches which talk’s about
complexity
of logistics operations with rise in urbanization. It is
important
to get involved in the technology which would be more
innovative
and technologically advanced to avoid the risk of
increasing
traffic congestion. There are several barriers to the
current
city supply chain management system: with constructing
more
building, there is a less space left for parking and unloading
goods
imported by the industry (n.a, 2013).
There
is traffic congestion and the companies are having high
operating
cost of warehouses. Hence it is recommended to have
city
distribution center in each city because with growing
customer
needs, the deliverables will be increasing and hence to
have
effective supply chain management. With having several
positive
effects of urbanization on supply chain management, the
city
faces challenges too; hence the city center will be able to
provide
efficient and sustainable movement of goods in cities.
The
report talks about impact of urbanization on supply chain
management
in detail and related solutions (Karl, 2017).
It
has been observed in the past 4 to 5 decades that the urban
population
has been continuously on the rise. We can see that
rural
population is reducing and urbanization is happening at a
rapid
pace due to the change in standard of living and economic
growth
. Young workers today prefer to stay in cities and try
reducing
the travelling expenses. The lifestyle is also changing
very
quickly.
With
a rapid change in urbanization, companies need to think a
lot
on the shifting demographics. The companies need to align
their
organization’s strategies accordingly. For supply chain
vendors,
it is necessary to know where their customers live and
work
. The companies would have to increase the channels for
product
reach in order to meet the growing demand and
changing
demographics.
Urbanization
will definitely cause more spending for the logistics players. The
shipping
companies need to deliver personalized services to different
customers
. We no longer live in a world of commodification, but we live in a
world
of personalization and customization. The supply chain vendors would
have
to invest more in technology in order to remain relevant and agile in the
market
with more millennial. The supply chain vendors need to invest in
technologies
such as Internet of things, Cloud services, and 3D Printing,
predictive
tools, GPS devices, RFID tags and Smart Sensors. The customers today
can
order products form anywhere at any time and hence companies need to be
on
their toes to meet the rising dynamic demands (Peterson, 2017).
The
buying power of people across the globe is increasing and hence supply
chain
vendors need to respond ‘Just in time’ to make up for the deliveries.
Today,
the supply chain vendors need to use telematics to make sure that in
case
of unexpected disruptions, the deliveries would be rescheduled or
redirected
. The businesses today are concern about the disruption that has
come
in traditional systems of deliveries. The world is growing digital today and
customers
are more than ever connected.
Challenges

As
per research reports like Frost & Sullivan, almost 70% of the population on
the
globe will be living in cities. This would raise the bar for all companies to
deliver
products in real time and would drive tremendous competition. The
number
of deliveries of products would increase drastically, causing issues such
as
traffic congestion, air pollution, etc. Most of the deliveries would be either
same
day deliveries or next day deliveries (n.a, 2019).
There
are couple of other challenges such a as shortage of power, water as well
as
health and safety. More deliveries would case more requirements of drivers
for
logistics. A lack of supply of drivers in comparison to rising demand for
deliveries
would infuse losses for the supply chain ecosystem. Labor crisis can
be
a crucial aspect of urbanization. Cost of production may go up as the
approach
of producing in low labor cost countries is fading away. Companies
need
to produce and deliver product on the same day and hence alliances and
partnerships
would play a major role (Bretzke, 2013).
·

Most
of the cities today do not have the infrastructure to handle the growing
urbanization
. The facilities are very scarce and more people coming to live in
cities
would only make the situation worse. Huge mega cities create enormous
amount
of waste which is difficult to manage based on current facilities.
Solution
to tackle the urbanization
After
studying the challenges raised by the urbanization, let us now discuss about
the
solution which can be used to deal with those challenges.
Ensure
that the supply chain of your organization becomes more responsive. Most
of
global supply chains till now were designed to produce goods in low cost
countries
and gains profit on capitalizing the available resources and opportunity.
This
approach is no more effective with growing needs and usage of products in
phase
of urbanization. The benefits would go to those corporations which are
able
to produce products in varying quantities & at different places based on
available
demand. It will enable businesses to provide quick delivery (chauhan,
2014
).
It
is important to invest in technology to make the supply chain faster and
accurate
. It is essential to import the technology to collaborate with partners in
order
to make products available at each corner of the world and that results in
increasing
market share. From a technological perspective, 3D printing is one
technology
that would help the supply chain ecosystem to deliver the products
just
in time. Printing an object that is required could be done in seconds and
dispatch
for same day deliveries rather than going with traditional process of
sending
requests to industries and getting products after days. Moreover, truck
platooning
and self-driven trucks can be used to tackle the issue of labor crisis
arising
due to urbanization and its demands.
It
is recommended to build supply networks which are more diverse and flexible,
allows
you to operate in most emergent scenario in the industry. For instance,
companies
like UPS are expanding their horizons by Access Point program where
in
the packages can be dropped or picked up from local shops or petrol stations
that
are nearest to the customer. This would also reduce the individual home
deliveries
and thereby reducing traffic congestion in the city. Even Amazon has
started
similar services in the US (Ascutia, 2017).
It
is even advisable to avoid the massy and small framework of supply chain
process
. The supply chain network should be designed in a way that enables us to
reduce
the financial burdens and enhancing the level of consumer services. it
would
make us more fragile and simple. For example, AmeriQuest Transportation
Services,
delivers comprehensive fleet management solutions which enable
companies
to minimize the costs by maximizing the productivity, leads to be a
part
of more competitive things.
Introduction

Urbanization and supply chain management

Urbanization and supply chain management
Solution to tackle the urbanization
How
has urbanization affected supply chain management?
2008

Off peak
deliveries

Priority EDI
2010

Locker boxes
Real time
solution

2012

Smart truck
with sensors

Electric fleet
2015
-2020
Self monitoring
vehicle

Cloud logistics
How Urbanization Affects Supply Chain Management_1

End of preview

Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.

Related Documents
Effect of Urbanization on Supply Chain Management
|1
|1329
|79

How Urbanization Affects Supply Chain Management
|1
|1872
|37

Converged Network Solution for Catacomb
|4
|1266
|342

E-logistics and supply chain management
|5
|813
|426

Port Logistics City
|15
|3494
|373

Supply Chain Management - UPS Supply Chain Solutions.
|8
|1824
|23