Logistics Practices in Ethiopian Medium and Large Leather Footwear Manufacturing Firms
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Date
2016-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The paper has made a study on the practices and challenges of logistics in Ethiopian medium
and large leather footwear manufacturing firms with regard to customer service, inventory
management, supply, transportation and warehousing activities. The main objective of the study
was to describe the current logistics practices. The study raised six research questions that are
answered as a result of the study. For the study descriptive type of research was used, and
quantitative and qualitative data was collected related with the extent of firms’ logistics practices
using structured questionnaires and different secondary documents. The target population covers
all the seventeen medium and large scale leather footwear manufacturing firms in Ethiopia.
Finally, the collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, and secondary document
analysis is done for confirming the findings. The result indicates almost all the modern logistics
infrastructures like ERP, EDI and Radio frequency are not applied by these firms for ease of
logistics operation, and commonly logistics is practiced at the lesser extent. Even though these
firms practiced the logistics activities in their day to day operations, most of the firms have no
logistics department in their organizational structure. Foreign currency shortages, higher taxes,
lack of integrated system and long lead time in ports are found to be the critical challenges of
logistics for footwear manufacturing firms in Ethiopia.
Key words: Logistics Practices, Logistics Challenges, Footwear Manufacturing Firms
Description
Keywords
Logistics Practices, Logistics Challenges, Footwear manufacturing firms