Satya Shah

The objective of the paper is to evaluate the impact and applicability of digitalisation, especially digital tracking system, on third-party logistics (TPL). Over last few years, logistics activities have seen huge turn through the provision and outsourcing capabilities shared with third-party logistics providers (TPLs). More recently, the growth and disruption of digitalisation and digital technologies enabling the business processes and models, much of the TPL or 3PLs have been challenged to remain competitive in the market. Many of the current literature has been focussing on travel, retail and E-commerce platforms that has seen digital disruptions at more impactful nature, compared to wider supply chain and logistics management areas. The paper examines with the use of case study of a leading technology development company in Malaysia. The case adopts and implements tracking app to enable service standards are maintained through three stages - fundamental stage, development stage, and future improvement stage.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of "Strategy" within businesses in the retail sector. It is undoubtedly a main factor that all businesses consist of a supply chain and for the efficient operation of that business it must be managed proactively to be successful. The advent of Covid-19 worldwide has affected all types of businesses that of the retail sector. Its' influx has created the need for a more radical approach to strategizing and the analysis of the whole procurement process. This paper descriptively will be focusing on three key components to the process being strategizing, employees and logistics. Because of Covid-19, businesses are now fast tracking their business practices in line with that of the "Internet of Things (IOT)" for ultimate survival of the business and its longevity. It is a thought of the author that, "With the correct business mindset, everything you do should be with the intention for it to ethically lead to the pronounce accumulation of profit". To achieve this one must focus on the mission of the business and its vision thus activating the strategic elements to compensate.

This research study aims to evaluate the significance of Technology and Industry 4.0 for Student Performance in Higher Education. Industry 4.0 is part of digital revolution which amalgamates various technologies like AI, distributed computing, virtual reality (VR), Internet of Things (IoT) & Big Data to bring a fundamental transformation in the current industry. The integration of these technologies has benefited all domains of society including Education. Education 4.0 aims to use Industry Revolution 4.0 technologies to the benefit of education field by providing means to improve the education sector using techniques like Education Mining, Prediction and Prescription of student's performance during their learning duration at universities. This study tries to highlight some important literature in the area of Industrial Revolution 4.0, Education 4.0, Big Data, Machine Learning, Descriptive, Predictive and Prescriptive analysis as well as learning analytics tools to provide a guidance for the stakeholders of the Education Industry to enrich their process for getting improved student performances at risk.

With the global value chain establishment, the globalisation sourcing is the current normal practice in most of multinational companies. Some organisations focus on their core competencies and out-source previously in-house value-added process to external and third-party sub-contractors. Many companies reported that the limited knowledge about their upstream suppliers has resulted knowledge exchange about their critical sub-tier suppliers. The purpose of the research paper is to evaluate the applicability of Kraljic Portfolio Model, Lean and Agile techniques with Value Steam Mapping (VSM) tools and established frameworks at a Malaysian manufacture of IT storage product, to address their supply disruption challenges through direct supplier and sub-tier suppliers. This study aims to determine theories and techniques able to optimise value chain with critical sub-tier supplier through the changes of strategic and operational plans within the organisation and its supply chains.

The paper examines the growing pressure on manufacturing firms towards reduction of costs, continuously innovating services and products, and faster response time to address global competition in the marketplace that has resulted in firms adopting towards more lean and agile approaches. The study aims to analyse the proposition of Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) to ABC Ltd to reduce excessive inventory from suppliers located in China. Research extends the details of current issues, proposed process changes when executing VMI program, and the potential benefits and problems that can be attained to both ABC Ltd and the offshore suppliers. A series of propositions are being engaged to show how VMI can be a successful improvement tool and not just an accounting issues if the involvement of the management practice is enough into the process changes. The findings are examined through existing research, to deliver ABC Ltd the solutions that will achieve optimal inventory policies.

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between load optimization and its influences on the automotive industry in Malaysia. The industry plays a huge role in economic growth of this country with multiple national and global car makers. This industry however faces operational and supply chain challenges that affects organizational performance. Using a qualitative method, this study adopts the method of semi-structured interview and questionnaire methods to relate the relationship between cost effectiveness, operational efficiency, carbon footprint, revenue, and gross profit towards the independent variable of load optimisation. The paper aims to address the findings and results of the research and will state the positive relationship between independent and dependent variables, within the context of automotive supply chains.

Last mile delivery and the concept of last mile has been experiencing major disruption from evolving business strategies while focussing on key customer demands and requirements and to have deliveries faster and easier with the advancement of technology and use of new devices such as drones and autonomous vehicles. There has been huge amount of research conducted within perceived quality, customer satisfaction and decision-making processes within the delivery aspects of ecommerce services. With the emergence of innovative technologies, the size and growth demand of the market, there is a wider need to examine the area of the impact of some of these technologies and its future development. The paper examines the concepts of last mile delivery practices, and the advancements in technology to facilitate the implementation within the concept. The study aims to bridge the gap between the commercial and academic research allowing better strategic alignment for decision making process within the global supply chain markets. The paper identifies existing research within the field of last mile solutions, with emerging and widely accepted approaches towards cost efficiency and wider performance measures within the network.

The research aims to examine the level of readiness among third-party logistics in Malaysia in fruits distributors. Z-Fruit Ltd is selected as the case study for this research. Z-Fruit Ltd faces insufficient resources in dealing with their market expansion into East Malaysia as well as the South East Asia region. Through a literature review, this study examined the characteristics of fresh fruits logistics and determine how third-party logistics may possibly assist in solving their supply chain problems. A quantitative research method was used for this research study. Survey data were collected from 150 registered members of Federation of Malaysia Freight Forwarders (FMFF). The collected research data has revealed that 40% of third-party industry in Malaysia are not ready to handle the fresh perishable logistics. Through the research data, it showed that the criterion of Z-Fruit Ltd set towards the third-party is available and practicable in the existing market, however it is considered as pretty niche among the industry standards. This can be seen with most third-party vendors providing warehousing and consolidate freight services but not the temperature-controlled service in avoiding any operation complexity and business risk. In short, outsourcing is the most strategic method for Z-Fruit Ltd to solve their insufficient resources at the current stage. The conducted research study provides Z-Fruit Ltd a selection criterion in searching for a dependable third-party logistics partner.

With the growing competitive markets within an evolving economic environment, businesses are implementing efficient and effective planning of supply chains within every sector. Likewise, supply chains have initially focussed on bringing different entities within the business in a collection of activities and processes to operate in an efficient manner. The purpose of this research paper and study is to evaluate the applicability to implement four improvement strategies namely postponement, supplier integration (SI), sales and operation planning (S&OP) and Strategic Souring (SS) at ABC Ltd. The research examines inventory data, main issues, contributing factors and examine the improvement proposals. The research summarises the implications, benefits, and challenges. The author will adopt current research and theories to evaluate the proposals.

The global battle of climate change is considered paramount, and one of the potential solutions to this could be the integration of sustainable practices at every level of operations in both manufacturing and service sectors. Adoption of sustainable practices is now of high importance in every industry, and various researchers have identified and precept sustainability as what every industry could consider ensuring a better future for better environment and prosperity within most sectors. Meanwhile, consideration of these sustainable practices within significant areas like food manufacturing industry will play a big role in improving the global environmental challenges and positively impact the economic and social aspect of most nations. This study, therefore, aims to evaluate sustainable food manufacturing supply chain environment proposing a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on the triple bottom line of sustainability. The study carries out a survey seeking opinions from the experts in the industry and implements the use of common mean method to analyse and evaluate sustainability performance. The study ranks the performance by evaluating the triple bottom line of sustainability using the level of importance associated with the identified indicators of general food industry. The result identifies the top set of key performance indicators peculiar to rice manufacturing in Nigeria.