Logistics and Supply Chain Management Analysis of ACFS Australia

This report examines the logistics and supply chain management of Australian Container Freight Services (ACFS), a leading freight transport company in Australia. The paper identifies key issues within the industry, such as challenges in intermodal transport, supply chain disruptions, and the need for sustainable solutions. The analysis covers ACFS's operational strategies, including its Warehouse Management System (WMS) and 3PL division, and the importance of customer satisfaction. The report also highlights the company's expansion and its focus on technological advancements to improve operational efficiency. Furthermore, the report offers recommendations to address the identified challenges, aiming to enhance ACFS's freight transport capabilities and overall business performance. The study emphasizes the significance of effective logistics and supply chain management in maintaining a competitive edge within the freight transport sector.

Running head: LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
Logistics Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Abstract
The purpose of the following paper is to discover the main issues that are encompassing the
freight transport industry. The chosen organization in this regard is ACFS in Australia. They
have been the largest freight transport organization in the country. They have been facing some
issues in the recent times. These issues have to be sorted out. The supply chain and logistics
management of the organization has been in trouble for some reasons. The necessary reasons
have been identified and some recommendations have been provided on how they can solve
these issues. This would surely bring some improvement within the organization.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
The description of the intermodal companies..................................................................................3
A brief about the chosen organization.............................................................................................5
Logistics and supply chain of the organization...............................................................................6
Freight analysis by the intermodal companies.................................................................................8
Freight movement........................................................................................................................8
Knowledge, skill and experience.................................................................................................9
Challenges and issues......................................................................................................................9
Sustainable transport solutions..................................................................................................10
Not able to provide proper logistics support..............................................................................10
Responsibility of the NSW government....................................................................................10
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
One of the most important aspects of maintaining a transport business is to govern a good
and thorough supply chain and logistics management. The transport companies feel this to be
one of the most important parts in the freight transport industry has emerged to be one of the
main sources in the transport industry in the recent times. The aim that these freight transport
companies have in mind is to transport the goods and export them to the other countries through
ships. This would carry out the trade in a faster way. This also helps in importing the goods from
other countries as well. It is a notable fact that there are many modes of transportation available
in these days. These are air, water, rail, cable and pipelines. The intermodal freight companies
have become very essential in the modern context. However, the most important things to carry
out this kind of business is to maintain a good supply chain and logistics support. If they set up
very strong network, they will be highly benefitted indeed. This will lead to faster action in many
wings. The intermodal companies will be able to send their goods to their destinations faster and
smoother. They use the cargo ships to send these things to the ports in several countries indeed.
Though some problems have been seen in this context, it is very much important to know that
some way outs have been found in this context as well. The problems have been regarding the
supply chain and logistics. These barriers must be overcome indeed.
The description of the intermodal companies
The intermodal companies have become to be known as the most important parts of the
transport industry. The transportation of the goods by ships has to be carried out properly and
perfectly. The intermodal companies will have to carry out several processes so that they can
achieve their objectives perfect (Liu et al. 2014). These intermodal companies look after all the
important things needed for the smooth flow in the transport of goods. The intermodal

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companies take care of the transportation of the goods from one country to another. They are the
ones who take care of the import and export business all over the world. It has been noticed that
some problems have been spreading over the freight transport industry. These problems are like
the shortage of fuel, increase in the exported goods demand, fuel price increase, shortage of the
drivers and many more. These problems will have to be tackled with efficiency by the experts.
All the governments of the concerned countries are very much worried with these problems.
They are trying to find out some way out for these problems effectively. All these things are very
much important because the issues like the loading and unloading of goods, fuel prices and other
things (Seuring and Goldbach 2013)
All the companies are looking for the way outs in the various ways possible. They want
to ensure the better supply chain management in the areas of transportation and especially freight
transport industry. However, the freight transport industry can provide a good solution for all
these problems (Seuring and Goldbach 2013) One of the larger implications has been in the
modern society is that one of the global economic expansion. This has been a very serious issue.
It is a crystal clear fact that the people involved in the shipping management should be more
concerned about the integrated shipping. It has been noted that the consumer demands are
increasing everyday and the companies will have to increase their services to the most (Seuring
and Goldbach 2013) They will have to send the products to its destinations in a faster way as
possible. This is a huge ask and the contemporary intermodal organizations are taking a huge
step in accomplish these demands. There are some serious advantages of using the intermodal
companies. The lower price rates, flexibility in the loading and unloading of the products
becomes very easy in most cases (Bhattacharya et al. 2014) The companies will want to reduce

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the handing charges. If the intermodal companies can handle their logistics management, they
will be able to give the advantage to the companies.
A brief about the chosen organization
The organization that has been chosen to write this paper is one of the most noted freight
service companies in Australia, Australian Container Freight Services (ACFS) (Auscfs.com
2018) They are considered to be the largest transport company in the entire Australia. The
foundation year of this company was 2005 with the aim to provide their customers with the best
services. This freight service company was located in New South Wales. Asciano Limited is the
parent company of ACFS. They are liable to provide the best freight services in the cities like
Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. They provide many kinds of services to their customers like
the stuffing and de-stuffing of the good at the port areas or harbors.
Some of the other services that they provide are like container storage and handling, cross
docking, less container load (LCL), fill container load (FCL) storage, transport of FCL and LCL,
storage facilities on the basis of free service and bond storage (Auscfs.com 2018) They are also
the one organization who looks after the consultancies that look after the process of the cargo
handling and storage. They also deal with the supply chain implementation services as well. This
organization also looks after the packing and unpacking of the containers, stock taking and cross
decking (Allen, Browne and Cherrett 2012.). Another location of this organization is in Port
Botany in New South Wales. They are facing some serious challenges in its supply chain
management and all these issues will have to get rid of properly.
The main purpose of this organization is to provide the best services to their customers in
a timely manner altogether (Saeed 2013) The supply chain will have to be improved a lot for this

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organization. Probably this will be a very big help from the end of the customers. This will
increase the market share for the organization and earn more profits for them. The reputation of
the organizations will increase in this fashion as well. ACFS has been regarded as the biggest
container logistics operation team in the whole Australia. They wanted to become the company
who would provide the best freight and logistics services in the country and beyond. They used
to look after the logistics and warehousing in many cases as well. The organization has got a
very strong base of customers that include the exporters and importers of blue chip. There are
around 500 employees working in the organization. Some of the activities that are taking place in
this context are like container freight station activities (Auscfs.com 2018). The employees who
are engaged in the process of warehousing and freight logistics are much experienced in the
warehousing. However, their services have been expanded in Fremantle from 2015.
Logistics and supply chain of the organization
The logistics and supply chain has been regarded as very essential in the carrying out of
the service of the organization (Christopher 2016) This is why the logistics is given much
importance indeed. This has been regarded as one of their extensive strategies to strengthen their
customer base and gain the loyalty of the customers. The work should be carried out faster. The
needs of the customers must be satisfied in many ways indeed.
It is a notable fact that the company ACFS always provides the best services to their
clients all the time. They intend to provide the best services to their clients through the
implementation of their Warehouse Management System (WMS). The managers of the
organization always meet the expectations from the operational departments. The organization is
keen to improve their operational excellence through the introduction of the technological

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advancement (Harris, Wang and Wang 2015) They intend to use the various technological tools
in the most ways. This will very much helpful for them indeed. They like to beat the other
companies in the race and gain as much customers they want. They have also improved the
quality of their inventory control system as well. Their desire is to show their clients their actual
worth. This is why they have always managed to extend their warehouses and been successful in
managing their stocks properly. In this regard, they have set up proper customer links in order to
satisfy the needs of their clients.
The company ACFS has created a 3PL division in their operations. This is being operated
by the various fleets that range from the drop decks to the Maxi Liners (Christopher 2016) It has
been examined that these things can carry 68 pallets per load. This is indeed important since it
increases the capacity of carrying the goods. The weight of the goods is also increased. These
initiatives will definitely decrease the prices of the loads in an effective manner. This will be
elemental for the employees as well. The productivity of the organization will increase by
minimizing of the costs in this fashion (Christopher 2016) The employees are trained properly so
they can attain their objectives. This training benefits the organization in turn. ACFS has always
looked to put more focus on the productivity and the efficiency of the employees has been put in
the focus as always. They intend to improve the brilliance of their operations team because this
will be helpful for them in many ways. The organization will be largely benefitted if they
improve their 3PL division system (Christopher 2016) The primary focus of ACFS will be on the
successful fleet management that will increase the efficiency of the organization in many ways.
The modern era of technology has blessed the generation with the introduction of the
intermodal freight transport where the goods will be transported from one place to another by
ships (Harris, Wang and Wang 2015) The business drivers of the intermodal companies will

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definitely improve their business operations in many ways. These ways will effectively enhance
their business operations. This is performed by ACFS in most useful ways. There are some
important features of their business operations. These are:-
Freight analysis by the intermodal companies
The analysis on the business operations of the intermodal companies will have to be
made properly in many ways in this paper (Melo, Graham and Brage-Ardao 2013) This analysis
is not connected to the fuel prices and such other things. This is completely related to the
business operations of the organization. They have looked upon various things like the dock
operations and equipment requirements. This can be framed from their origin (Li, Negenborn
and De Schutter 2015) These things have been tallied by the managers with all the other
important details. The managers have tried to find out the solutions for all the problems and
issues for the intermodal organizations. It is the duty of the managers to develop a proper
blueprint in which they would be able to develop some important outlines. This will help the
organizations to improve their services in all the areas for the intermodal service providers.
ACFS will look to utilize all the resources that have been identified in this business context
(Melo, Graham and Brage-Ardao 2013)
Freight movement
Freight movement has been looked upon as one of the biggest revolutions in the
intermodal freight transport industry. It is one of the most important transport systems indeed
(Harris et al. 2012) All the important resources should be properly utilized in their operations
(Li, Negenborn and De Schutter 2015) One of the most essential things that they will be looking
after in this scenario is the use of the various technological tools. All the technological tools

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should be looked after by them and all the tools should be implemented indeed. This will be
effective in achieving the objectives for them (Jiangping, Zhou and Shuai 2012). The companies
should look to develop their infrastructure in most ways. The operating versions must be updated
by ACFS in all the circumstances. They should use the social media in order to make a good
relationship with their customers. If the customers get all the products and services at the right
time, they will be satisfied indeed. The logistics management of the company will also be
developed in different senses (Harris et al. 2012) They should look to use various machines and
technological devices so they can conduct the operations faster and safer. Thus the ACFS will
grow in all directions. Their market shares will also increase indeed. They are determined to
Knowledge, skill and experience
Some of the most important things that is very important in order to improve the
operational procedures is the development of the skills for the employees. They will have to
implement several new procedures to improve their services. The new members who will be
recruited in the organization will need to be given much importance and responsibility
(Jiangping, Zhou and Shuai 2012). The employees must have proper communication skills and
managerial knowledge that will provoke the organization to work better. The transport options
for the company must be optimized to a great deal indeed. All the managerial issues must be
sorted out by the hierarchy of ACFS.
Challenges and issues
Some important challenges and issues have been noticed in the recent times regarding the
business operations of the ACFS. The intermodal companies have been trying to overcome all
these difficult situations all time long (Allen, Browne and Cherrett 2012) It has been observed in

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the various surveys that the need for the environment friendly solutions have increased a lot. The
most important challenges will be discussed in the following section.
Sustainable transport solutions
The experts and professionals have given much importance on the sustainability of the
environment (Ferrari 2014) They have tried to invent new ways by which the organization
produce real important ways of producing environment friendly solutions.
Not able to provide proper logistics support
ACFS has not been able to provide the proper logistic support to the customers. The
products are taking a longer time to reach their destinations. This is why it is very much
advisable that they should improve it. If this goes on, the services would be hampered (Allen,
Browne and Cherrett 2012)
Responsibility of the NSW government
The NSW government should always provide the proper support to the ACFS. They
should arrange for the technological solutions that they have been lacking so far. They are major
stakeholders so they should ensure that they should not impose huge taxes on ACFS. Some
important guidelines on the foreign levies on the business operations of ACFS should be
practiced (Taniguchi et al. 2014)
Recommendations
 ACFS should develop their technology support system.
 They should provide safe transport systems for the customers.
 Necessary strategies should be implemented (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2012)
 The goods should be delivered at a faster rate.

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 They should be connected with the social media to gain more customers in their favor
(Tuten and Solomon 2017)
Conclusion
This paper can be concluded by saying ACFS has been trying their best to emerge as the
most important organization in the freight transport industry. One of the most important things in
this mix is the logistics and supply chain management. Some serious issues have been noticed in
their business operations. The NSW government should always take the necessary steps to
overcome all the issues that are being faced in this scenario. The necessary policies should be
introduced by the NSW government.

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