ACFS Logistics: Australia's Leading Provider Of Container Logistics Essay.

After reading further background material on the concept of an intermodal company and relevant case studies on related companies, This can be located in Australia or an international location (i.e. ACFS in Australia).
Identify logistics management strategies to resolve any issues related to the operational aspects of the company.
In your report you need to consider:
The main problems at with the current logistics network in NSW or as it applies to the city where your intermodal is located How they might be resolved
What, if any, involvement should the NSW Government have in the resolution of the problems Sustainability should be used here.

Introduction to ACFS Logistics

ACFS is considered to be one of the largest privately-owned container logistics operators in Australia. Here, the facilities are generally seen to be located in the different port locations with maximising the quick and the efficient utilisation of wharf. It works with western facilities in Sydney and Melbourne, where the company is also focusing on using compliments for diversified clientele based metropolitan areas. The services include the transport, logistics 3PL and CFS/FAK+LCL. Being a part of the organization, ACFS logistics also deals with a variety of services like road and rail transport, warehousing, container parks, distribution and others. All of these services are provided to a wide range of customers in order to meet the requirements of the consumers. In last few years, the organization has expanded its business enough for becoming one of the biggest logistics service providers across the Australia. In addition, this company is responsible for controlling road and rail transpiration of containers. The company has been working on handling the revenue of 17% from the import for the retail goods with management services that are working for the supply chain. This ensures the reliability on the system with maintaining control over the entire process.

ACFS logistics is considered as one of the largest export and import logistics service provider across the Australia (Touboulic & Walker, 2015). The company has the strategy for integrating domestic logistics as well as small organizations for consolidating and creating another efficient and effective firm. In past few years, some acquisitions have been done by the company and added them to its network for betterment of the organization. This is widely competitive in the market place. The company has been working on providing the different services and the facilities to the people who are working with the different logistics services to maintain the control over the entire process. ACFS has been considered to be the largest provider of the logistics with maintaining cut edge technology for the setup of network in Australia. The facilities provided include the export and the import provisions which are in Brisbane, Melbourne etc. The company logistics assets are mainly depending upon how the different multi-user terminals are located and can be used for the regional services of rail. The seamless network is to depot and then work with the container park facilities with proper movement of the import and export. (Fernie & Sparks, 2014) The consumer value is set-up through reliability as well as high speed delivery

Services Offered by ACFS Logistics

 The company named, ACFS logistics has already reached a new level of success in their business in last few years but the market is highly competitive and unpredictable. There are number of factors outside and within an organization that are affecting the logistics industry at large. These create barriers and challenges in the way of functioning the business properly (Meixell & Luoma, 2015). Additionally, some of the issues such as problems caused due to regulations, national policies and strategies, development policies and regional planning, regional transport planning, state transport planning and investment in the infrastructure are affecting the Current NSW Logistics Network. Many issues are evident as well as require proper action in order to outsource those properly. In past years, many policies have been issued that indirectly or directly cause issues for the logistics supply chain.  

The challenges are related to the geographical conditions.

Considering the issues for the congested traffic of Australia, there have been issues related to how to provide the on-time services to the clients. In recent days, activities that are done in port have been relocated to Port Botany from Port Jackson that has actually resulted in modal split’s modification of the containers, which move to as well as from the port. In addition, Port Botany has a great deign and they use trucks for transporting goods (Fosso et al., 2018). The export and import firms have a conflict over this topic that the container trucks are not responsible for any environmental problems and should not violet any type of environmental rules and regulations otherwise, the optional alternatives will remain close for operations. The council of local government has refused the use of newly constructed road network instead of using rail networks for freight transfer.

Challenges related to the Regional issues

In an industrial area, there is nearly about 60-hectare unused area left that is connected through rail line to Port Botany. In coming years, this area is going to be developed for converting it into an intermodal facility. This attracted a conflict along with government, while state government had announced the development of this unused area (Swanson et al., 2017). Australia is working on handling the low-density population with aspects to match with slow internet speed and response of the mobile phones.

Problem with the terminal space & other challenges

Terminals are considered as the intermodal boundary within a logistics network. The container handling in order to reduce down the costs as well as keep the track of shipping records properly plays an important role. Limited space will be a serious issue in upcoming days as the demand is increasing day by day indiscriminately. Port Botany is considered as the second largest container port across the Australia. Port’s lease is undertaken by NSW ports consortium. A plan was purposed a tunnel between St. Peters and Rozelle for releasing congestion over existing network. After the NSW state elections, ruling government was changed and the purposed plan was changed simultaneously. Lack of proper funding for completing the purposed plan became one of the hot topics of the elections (Brandenburg et al., 2014). Due to this reason, the plan had divided the parties as well as the plan is still under processing.

Challenges Faced by ACFS Logistics

Other challenges

The company named, ACFS is very new to commodity rail haulage’s market. For posing an image in the market place, the service of this company needs to be very effective and high quality. Its operations may be adversely affected by the current down train in the commodity market. From the emerging economies, the demand of the iron ore and coal is weakening. Therefore, the earnings and contracts are failed to cover the exhaustive costs (Manga, Lalwani, C. and Lalwani, 2016). The company ACFS needs to consider junior mines for remaining in the competition and for sustaining in this competitive market place as well.

Problems with the weather

Adverse weather conditions are one of the strong factors, which affect the logistics activities at large. However, logistics systems and transportation are designed for withstanding all types of weather as well as unpleasant climate conditions, nevertheless the harsh situations such as snowfall, heat waves, and high temperature may reduce down the speed of the transportation. The shipping lanes also experience sea level rise or fail (Durach, Wieland & Machuca, 2015). These extreme conditions effect costal infrastructure and harbour facilities tremendously.

Making a strategy for logistics management is extremely important. The main goal of this logistic management is making an effective plan for coordinating all the necessary steps for getting the best quality services at least possible cost. Logistics is a vast process that starts from picking up the actual product from the original point to deliver it to its destination point. There is a strong requirement of designing logistics management strategies depending on various customers, various locations and variety of product lines as the supply chains keep changing and evolving. Making a flexible planning is mandatory for coping up with the changing market requirements and demands (Brekalo & Albers, 2016). As the company, ACFS is struggling form several issues in the market place; the company should use an effectible logistic management strategy for betterment of their business organization. Recommendation is also given in this task regarding it. It will help the organization for identifying as well as analysing the issue and consequently make necessary changes for avoiding the reduction in consumer service or overall profitability of the organization.

Strategies for solving the issues

For solving the problem of less container space, one of the best solutions can be the rolling horizon approach. This approach can be applied, while the place requires handling a wide number of containers with outbound, inbound and transit containers together. The first horizon is selected, and the time is chosen after that same plan should be repeated (Wieland, Handfield & Durach, 2016).

Strategies for Solving Logistics Issues

Handling the logistics: The organizations of linked and same industry must be together as well as cooperative decision must be taken, while deciding about the operational strategies. In case of a company decides onto the dominant decision, this may affect the whole functioning of other business organizations. However, this type of approach is not good and effective for business organizations. Logistic alliance needs to be made for fighting with any type of problem.

Legislative Solutions: The funding could be handled easily with the proper planning and then updating the information and working on the rules and regulations. The lobby group needs to make sure of the infrastructure projects which are accepted with the negligible disruptions.

Working & Handling the Intermodal transportation: One of the common and beneficial processes in transportation is using different types of modes. Due to this reason, ACFS is using this. It allows delivering products at a very impressive speed along with fewer chances of loss or damage. This can be used in remote or regional areas too for making transpiration more fruitful and convenient (Tatoglu et al, 2016).  

Improvement in the capacity & Transportation Service: While there are not sufficient trucks, machines, warehouse space or drivers, limited capacity phenomenon mist be applied and used. According to this strategy, backhauls must allow empty vehicles for making use during coming back (Wieland et al., 2016). Consequently, it is possible to use return trips efficiently as well as the cost of the exhaustive process can be saved. It is possible to happen transportation in one-to-many distribution system, while the vehicles that have bought freight from the origin point cannot reach the destination point. There are mainly two functions of Break-Bulk & Consolidation.

Just-in-time (JIT)

At the time of frequent or small shipments, basically JIIT deliveries are used. Many times, there is a requirement for emergency shipments at right place on the right time (Yu et al., 2016). Proper management of the emergency shipments and regular shipments is considered as complex job, which results in higher profitability as well as higher customer satisfaction.

Steps, which are needing to be taken through the government

There is a need to work on improving the rail networks.

The Australian government had announced that freight of Australia will be doubled by 2032, this is mandatory for strengthening the exhaustive rail networks. It is possible to move a large amount of freight along with the low investment and risk by using this mode of transpiration. In order to move between Port and Intermodal Terminals, short haul shuttles are also required. With the increase in haulage distance, cost competitiveness develops simultaneously. Proper rail track should be constructed for sorting out this major issue (Özdamar & Ertem, 2015).

Proper working on infrastructure projects: In all current infrastructure plans, politics is involved, which actually lead towards the wrong selection of the projects. Due to this reason, Infrastructure NSW plan and Infrastructure Australia Plan were made and designed keeping the politics aside. Through selecting the right solution, it is possible to generate maximum return on any type of investment. For any particular issue, best solution finds out for reducing down the applicable cost as well as ultimately burden over the users, taxpayers, and community.

The government should take necessary step for reconstructing and expanding the areas for better functioning, as most of the ports are facing less space and containers issue other than poor landside road access. This will assist the company named, ACFS Logistics NSW for meeting the upcoming requirement and demand of the logistics services. In addition, for outsourcing this issue, investment in infrastructure is such needed. Generally, government finances are not sufficient and fruitful for meeting the expenses needed for this task (Wong et al., 2015)  

Some measures have been recommended by us for solving the issue through applying some of the theories regarding logistic management. In addition, some of the theories is already taken and applied by the company named, ACFS. At the end, we have suggested about the steps, which must be taken through the local government of Australia for unravelling these prevailing problems.

Conclusion 

From the above discussion, this can be concluded that ACFS, which is one of the leading Logistics service providers across the Australia, needs to acquire more numbers of logistic management theories for making an effective logistic management strategy. This strategy can assist the company for function their exhaustive business functions in a more significant manner. A target area was ACFS Logistics New South Wales (NSW). Brief discussions over the company along with its features have been provided in this paper. In addition, the discussion over few of the problems that the company is currently facing in managing their business operations proper has also been outlined in this portion for better understanding of this project.  

References

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Durach, C.F., Wieland, A. and Machuca, J.A.D., 2015. International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management.

Fernie, J. and Sparks, L., 2014. Logistics and retail management: emerging issues and new challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan page publishers.

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