Attitudes of Small and Medium-Sized Chemical Companies towards Logistics Technologies

Abstract

At present, the implementation of supply chain management not only within a selected enterprise but throughout the chain of suppliers and customers is considered to be one of the most important opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. Its fundamental goal (increasing the efficiency of material flows) can be achieved using logistics technologies that facilitate material flow monitoring and efficient transfer of raw materials, semi-finished products, finished products, and goods all the way to the final customer. Some of them require the cooperation of business partners in the supply chain; some are even designed to support and develop such cooperation. A prerequisite for their application in practice is that partners in the chain consider them important for effective purchasing/sales management while willing to apply them in the business relationship. The objective of the primary research carried out in small and medium-sized chemical enterprises was to identify attitudes towards selected logistics technologies. It was found that respondents generally consider logistics technologies to be of little importance in improving business operations. Most likely to be implemented are technologies that require only limited business partner cooperation. These include, in particular, consignment storage, electronic data interchange, and identification of goods using barcodes. Some of the logistics technologies will most likely fail to find their way to small and medium‑sized chemical companies in the near future (in particular cross-docking and radio frequency identification). Small and medium-sized enterprises do not consider them important and show little willingness to implement them.