The European economy has been undergoing radical changes in recent years. Analyzing data from the European Statistical Office since 2005, one can observe an approximately 5% increase in the volume of sales and turnover in wholesale and retail trade in European Union countries. In 2009, the effects of the global financial crisis became apparent, which caused a slowdown in economic development.
Nevertheless, companies remain active, adapting their strategies to changing market conditions. Mergers between enterprises are emerging, and new concepts for managing processes in enterprises are being implemented. At the same time, competition and consumer expectations are increasing. It is also worth emphasizing that regardless of the state of economic development, an increase in freight transport using road transport has also been recorded in the last four years. For example, based on the latest data provided by the Central Statistical Office, in 2010 the share of road transport in freight transport by type of transport in Poland, calculated in tons, amounted to 84.4%, and calculated in ton-kilometers, 70.4%.
These changes have meant that a given enterprise, wanting to function on the market and, more importantly, to develop and generate expected profits, has been forced to introduce changes in its current operations. Therefore, it has become necessary to search for such sets of actions, most often carried out in a sequence, which will enable the creation of a product or service with a specific level of value acceptable to the customer.
In the case of manufacturing or service companies, methods of rationalizing the costs of current operations are important. Particularly important is the reduction of logistics costs resulting from the implementation of processes in individual supply chains.
In view of the above, the purpose of this paper is to present a solution enabling the rationalization of costs resulting from the current method of organizing selected logistics processes in supply chains. (…)
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Source: Logistyka Magazine 4/2012