» Home        The costs of supply chain: congestion, disruption and uncertainty David Colledge, Colledge Transportation Consulting (CTC) Inc., Canada Abstract Cargo transportation is no longer a narrow concern of those within the industry. Supply chain issues are being more widely debated. However, the real economic costs and risks of supply chain congestion in the global economy are not being tallied and are therefore understated as key inputs for policy makers. A greater awareness and understanding of the costs of supply chain congestion, disruption and uncertainty is needed by governments and the private sector to justify transportation infrastructure investments as well as new operating practices that will expand system capacity in a timely manner. This paper adopts a case study approach to examine the “congestion tax” on logistics. Many years have been spent transforming logistics from a “push” to a “pull” system to reduce inventories, drive costs out of the system and to improve customer service. Modern logistics depends more than ever on tight distribution schedules and reliable, consistent transportation performance. Yet supply chain bottlenecks increase inventories, cause production delays and add to the costs of imports/exports. The paper explores these impacts from the perspective of shippers, consumers and the Canadian economy, as well as discussing the policy implications. « Back to Abstracts  ©2007 Center for Transportation Studies, UBC. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy