Fraunhofer Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics
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Requirements on e-commerce distribution and their implications for the use of heavy trucks
No full textThe European market is experiencing a digital revolution and e-commerce shopping is a rapidly
increasing trend. E-commerce growth has accordingly led to increased logistical activities and
also driven a need for new flexible solutions of delivery. Stakeholders in the e-commerce
industry all have different requirement on the transportation and heavy truck manufacturers
today have their focus on fulfilling the needs of the stakeholders conducting the transport which
creates a gap in what is required and delivered. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how
heavy truck manufacturers can adapt to the e-commerce transport operations requirements in
the European market.
This qualitative study is based on secondary data and conducting interviews to triangulate the
issue and create a broad picture over relevant stakeholders and their requirements and
upcoming trends. Fifteen different interviews with eleven different organizations within the
realm of e-commerce, such as e-tailers, carriers, heavy truck manufacturer and external
stakeholders were conducted.
The thesis finds that the major trends in e-commerce are the growing cross-border market, the
demand for transparency and tracking throughout the distribution chain, the growing issues
with last mile and reverse logistics driven by retailers and customer behavior and requirements
on a higher service level of deliveries. New, more effective modes of delivery have started to
emerge with parcel lockers, click and collect and other more sustainable solutions. The thesis
discusses a misconception by e-tailers of customer requirements where the focus is mainly on
fast and convenient transport. Furthermore, it is discussed that transport is an important part of
e-commerce and that transport services should be priced and transparent.
The thesis concludes that e-commerce business is growing so fast that it is still under
development and the implications from customers behavior are hard to analyze. E-commerce
drives new modes of transport and delivery which puts requirement on the heavy truck
manufacturer to offer transport solutions with the possibility to communicate with and adapt to
other modes of transport and delivery
Photo OCR for nutrition labels - Combining machine learning and general image processing for text detection of American nutrition labels
No full textAutonomous high-speed vehicle manoeuvring - An optimal control approach to autonomous driving
No full textUse of deep neural networks for classification of micro-Doppler signature from radar data
No full textOffshoring of Construction Engineering Services-top strategy, work processes and challenges -a two-way case study perspective between Sweden and India respectively Romania
No full textCurrently planning and executing the largest urban city development project in the Nordic region, the city of Gothenburg (Sweden) is forecasting an urgent need of professionals within all chains of construction projects if the projects are to be realized. This urgent need can furthermore be expanded to other cities in Sweden such as Stockholm. The demand can only be met if several strategies are incorporated, one of which is to utilize competence and resources from other countries, hence, adhering to using offshoring as a strategy for construction engineering services. The purpose of this master thesis is therefore to analyze how a large global company within the sector works with implementing strategies connected to offshoring. Furthermore an aim is to analyze how the design process is conducted in the global virtual teams being present and to investigate which challenges which are the most prominent. A qualitative research approach together with a case study have been used in this thesis. The theoretical framework have encompassed three broad areas in total, namely strategy, work processes and challenges in global virtual teams. This was done in order to get a holistic picture of the whole chain when using offshoring as a strategy. Cost reductions and resource seeking was stressed as the fundamental strategic motives by the theoretical framework, whereas the challenges were mostly connected to communication, culture and partly interpersonal aspects. The case study has been conducted with a two-way perspective by interviewing both managers and engineers in Sweden, India and Romania, where the two later are used as offshoring destinations. The empirical findings suggests that offshoring challenges might not be as much related to language barriers and cultural aspects as suggested by previous research. The findings rather highlight the fact that the lack of project management skills from the Swedish engineers is a large contributor to obstacles in projects. In terms of strategic reasons for adapting an offshoring element, the findings correspond to much of the recent studies adhering to the ever increasing importance of seeking resources, i.e. not only searching for cost reductions. Considering that the company in hand is relatively new with offshoring services to India and Romania, a rigorous apparatus including clear strategic moves and adapted work processes has already been put into place. Furthermore a healthy awareness regarding challenges connected to the work is present among both engineers and managers in respective country. An improvement of project management skills among the Swedish engineers, coaching of senior employees which struggle with working in global virtual teams, and an encouragement of team building could benefit the organization
