AMMPL Project: Benchmarking Logistics – purchasing of freight services in the areas of sea, road and air transport
AMMPL project: Benchmarking Logistics – purchasing of freight services in the areas of sea, road and air transport
The Association Material Management, Purchasing and Logistics (AMMPL) offers its members the service of comparing their cost structure for purchasing of logistic services to that of other companies. The benchmarking project has so far been implemented since 2003 for the areas of sea, road (national, international) and air freight.
The evaluation of more than 15000 compared freight cases has yielded the following results:
- high bandwidth of air and sea freight. In the air cargo branch, the bandwidth was up to 250%, while the bandwidth in container shipping was up to 200%.
- mean bandwidth of road freight
- high influence of freight volume on the freight level
- no large shipping agent gets the best conditions everywhere
- in relation to high volume, large shipping agents are paying particularly low freight rates
- in relation to medium volume, sometimes medium sized businesses are paying the lowest freight rates
- all large shipping agents still have potential for reduction of freight costs
- medium sized business shipping agents should develop strategies for better utilization of bundling effects in purchasing of freight services
Benchmarking for the cost structure of purchasing of logistic services can only be utilized successfully, if methods and possibilities, but also its limitations, are known. A benchmarking performed one-time must not be understood as a miracle cure to increase one’s own competitiveness. Rather, benchmarking should be integrated as a fixed component of corporate processes. For that reason, AMMPL will continue the project Benchmarking Logistics with expanded parameters in individual areas from September 2004.
The most important expansions are in the area of
- supplementation with general cargo and partial load shipments for road freight,
- addition of a large number of European countries with corresponding routes, sorted by postal codes,
- supplementation with flat rates for air freight,
- consideration of transport times for sea freight.
For the purpose of data entry, a data entry software is made available to participants.
After evaluation of the data, a report is created for the participants, summarizing all comparison ratios for the ratios specified by the participant within the scope of a ranking table.
The method of benchmarking enables participants to identify potential opportunities for savings and their own capabilities and to verify whether their expenditures and prices are in a favorable ratio.
