Analysis of factors that affect transport mode choice decision in logistics

Nowadays, globalization has increased the competition rate. Companies that want to survive in national and international competitive environment resorted to logistics strategies. Logistics activities provide added value to companies such as; easy access to markets, reducing production costs, improving distribution strategies, ensuring the stock control, improving the fast product delivery, serving consumer-oriented service and minimizing the damage of products during transportation. Successful execution of logistics activities depends upon important selection processes. One of them is the selection of transport mode. The performance of the transportation vehicle can affect the productivity and efficiency of the firm's logistics strategy. Furthermore, transport mode choice is crucial for many companies to provide the competitive advantage and sustainable growth. For this reason, the process of identifying and reviewing many criteria for the correct selection of the transport mode requires a detailed framework. The aim of this study is to find out the relationships between the criteria which affect the efficiency and choice of correct transport mode in logistics activities. In this context, one of the biggest furniture component producer company in Antalya's freight mode selection criteria were analyzed. Firstly, the relation level between the criteria is examined with ISM (Interpretive Structural Modeling), then the criteria are divided into 4 groups as autonomous, dependent, linkage and independent factors to analyze to impact degrees and dependency relationships between the criteria with MICMAC (Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification) method. In this study, the importance of the selection process of the transportation mode in logistics activities has been emphasized and knowledge of the logistics, basic activities of logistics, situation of the national and international logistics industry, important differences between logistics and transportation, transportation mode and the criteria which are effectively the choice transportation mode process were mentioned in the theoretical part. As results of the study, Number of Customer Complaints from Logistics, Carrying Cost, Carrying Product Capacity and Frequency of Freight Forwarding are located at the top of the ISM hierarchy. Therefore, it is understood that these four criteria are the most important criteria affecting the efficiency of a transport mode selection process and the efficiency of transport activities. Spent Time in Loading, Storage, Unloading Processes and Flexibility of Moving Products in Different Sizes / Weights criteria are located at the bottom of the ISM hierarchy. It has been understood that these criteria are among the criteria that the company specialists pay attention to when choosing the mode of transportation. It is understood that from MICMAC analysis: Packaging, Flexibility of Moving Products in Different Sizes / Weights, Flexibility in Number of Moved Products, Changeability of Timeline, Service Consistency, Risk of Loss, Damage and Stolen Risks in Transportation Process, Number of Customer Complaints from Logistics and Average Service Time are autonomous factors and they are not affected by the system. Carrying Product Capacity and Frequency of Freight Forwarding criteria are dependent factors and they are deeply linked with the system. Flexibility on Route, Flexibility on Delivery Point, Transportation Cost, Handling Cost and Warehouse Cost are linkage factors. These factors affect themselves as well as other factors. Spent Time in Loading, Storage and Unloading Processes and National and International Route are independent factors and these criteria have to impact on other criteria.