Efficient design of a centralized groupage transport tender

Christian Thomas Regenspurger

Research output: ThesisMaster's Thesis

Abstract

Procurement strategies of large companies are especially characterized by globalization and worldwide networking processes. In order to further reduce production costs and remain competitive in the market, numerous raw materials and components are provided from low-wage countries, or companies outsource their production operations completely to such countries. Research has shown, however, that acquisition prices for raw materials and components cannot be simply reduced after reaching a particular price level. In such cases, the competitive factor of transportation costs – which is dependent on the haul distance - becomes crucial to companies. Therefore, it has become more and more important to globally acting companies to analyze arising transportation costs in detail in order to optimize them by e.g. bundling orders for transportation service providers. As a consequence, the theoretical part of this Master Thesis deals with general definitions of the term efficiency and with explaining the development of procurement in general as well as analyzing central and peripheral developments regarding procurement. Moreover, this thesis specifically investigates the changing circumstances such as globalization and e-procurement. Due to the fact that bundling effects can only be evoked by centralized procurement departments, different organizational structures of procurement are discussed, including their advantages and disadvantages. In addition, procurement processes concerning logistics services are analyzed in detail. Further, the concept of transport rates is explained by investigating the components of transportation costs and their influencing factors as well as different logistics networks, dependent on the size of the load. The practical part of this Master Thesis is based on the theoretical concepts discussed earlier and deals with the centralized and transnational groupage tender Pan-European Groupage Transport (PEGT) by Magna Logistics Europe. The actual state analysis of the procurement process and the depiction of increasing complexity within the process build the foundation for the identification of potentials for improvement and needs for adjustments by using workshops and interviews with experts as well as service providers. The result of the investigation is a target master plan which outlines all necessary process steps as well as defined lead times in order to organize future tenders efficiently, regardless of its complexity.
Translated title of the contributionEffiziente Gestaltung einer zentralisierten Transportausschreibung für Stückgut
Original languageEnglish
QualificationDipl.-Ing.
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Zsifkovits, Helmut, Supervisor (internal)
Award date24 Oct 2014
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Bibliographical note

embargoed until 09-09-2019

Keywords

  • groupage
  • transport
  • transport costs
  • transport tender
  • procurement

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