Matching volatile demand with transportation services in Vietnam

Purpose – Demand for retail transportation is typically volatile, and it is driven by the end of period (month) spiky deliveries. This is especially the case in emerging markets. The purpose of this paper is to examine situation in one of the leading Vietnamese logistics service company with numerous customers within the area of Ho Chi Minh City. Design/methodology/approach – Research work is based on a case study within a company called Gemadept, who is providing logistics services in Vietnam. Researchers were given access to the company data on distribution system, and the authors had collected daily data from transportation operations. Findings – Considerable truck utilization can be achieved even with volatile retail demand environment if optimization is applied to allocate trucks and drivers on certain routes and customer demand points. Relaxing service level of customers shall improve situation further, but not significantly. However, from logistics service point of view, it would be best to use num...