Identifying root causes of inefficiencies in road haulage: case studies from Sweden, Switzerland and Germany

Henrik Sternberg, Lina Harispuru

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Road haulage operations in general, and distribution in particular, are inefficient. Given the societal importance of road haulage and the low efficiency of the sector, road hauliers need to improve their operations and systematically tackle inefficiencies. However, the real causes of these inefficiencies, the “root causes”, have not been sufficiently examined in previous studies. This paper expands on prior research by adapting existing models that can be used to identify the root causes of inefficiencies, and to enable systematic improvements in road transport operations. Our research is based on a lean approach and an adapted version of Ishikawa’s model. It is shown as a matrix based on transport processes and the Ishikawa categories to identify the root causes of inefficiencies in road haulage that influence performance. The adapted model was tested in three road haulage case studies. Our findings suggest that most efficiency problems appear in the actual transport execution.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)73-83
Number of pages11
JournalInternational Journal of Logistics Research and Applications
Volume20
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Transport Systems and Logistics

Free keywords

  • Road freight transportation
  • haulier efficiency
  • Lean transportation
  • transport improvement

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