Studies
About the Studies
How did it all begin?

In 1991, two academic researchers - Dr. C. John Langley and Dr. Karl B. Manrodt - recognized that logistics and transportation professionals needed relevant and up-to-date data and information in order to be better managers of these functional areas. The result was the undertaking of a study that investigated trends and issues in the field. Seventeen years later, this study has become an annual examination of logistics, transportation and supply chain practice. This study was also the genesis for the Third Party Logistics (3PL) study, now in its thirteenth year. Dr. Langley has been the director of the study from the beginning and continues to head the research effort. With Dr. Langley focused on the 3 PL study, Dr. Manrodt asked Dr. Mary C. Holcomb to join the team in 1994. Since that time the two have worked to develop this study into a leading research effort for logistics, transportation and supply chain professionals.

18 years of researching trends and issues in logistics and transportation

Seventeen years ago there were two primary questions that participants of the study wanted to know: “How did my company perform relative to our competition?” and “What are large shippers doing differently than others?” A core set of transportation and logistics statistics are collected through the survey instrument each year and these data enable companies to benchmark their performance relative to their competition. There has always been a perception that large size firms (in terms of annual sales revenue) use their size to manage transportation and logistics. In the early years of this study, many medium to small size firms thought that large firms were the primary movers in adopting leading edge logistics practice, and the medium to small firms understood the value of lessons learned. Hence, the questions about how large shippers were managing transportation and logistics differently than others. A gap still existed, however, regarding the issues that many managers were facing on a frequent basis. Thus the study was expanded some years ago to include an in-depth look at a current topic of interest to the participants of the study.

In 2000, the annual study introduced six drivers of excellence in world class supply chain management. The 2001 continued the examination of these drivers through the development of a roadmap for assisting firms in their efforts to transform the organization to an adaptive state. Beginning in 2002, the annual study focused on a particular driver of supply management excellence. Drivers that have been examined over the past years include: visibility (2002), operations excellence (2003) which researched two drivers – execution and speed, supply chain connectivity (2004), collaboration (2005), and the power of optimized strategy, planning and execution in the supply chain (2006).

With the completion of the research on the six drivers of excellence in world class supply chain management, the annual study in 2007 began the development of a “playbook” to assist logistics and supply chain managers in organizing, managing and controlling critical logistics and supply chain processes. The continuing struggle to reconfigure key supply chain processes in 2008 prompted us to use the playbook framework again for this study to present the current strategies, tactics and operations being used by a myriad of companies that are domestic and global in location. The report presents the best “plays” for the game of logistics and supply chain management.