ABSTRACT

Measuring and monitoring logistics performance is a key step towardsshowing and improving the competitive advantage of manufacturing enterprises. Inthis paper, the logistics performance measures of industrial sectors arediscussed aiming at reflecting the value created by logistics and thedevelopment situations of logistics. After selecting two inputs and fouroutputs for evaluation, this paper uses the cross-efficiency in Dataenvelopment analysis (DEA)to evaluate the logistics performance which overcomesthe shortcoming of traditional DEA and can rank the effective decision making units.Then, an empirical analysis is carried out to validate the evaluationprocess based on surveys of logistics in seven industrial sectors in China. The rankingsby sector indicate thelogisticsefficiencies ofindustrial sectors and conveyinformation about the logistics environment to a manufacturing enterprise, whichcan be used as guidelines for managerial actions and policymaking.  

1 INTRODUCTION 

With the rapid development of economic globalization, industriallogistics becomes increasingly important in promoting the sustainablecompetitive advantage of manufacturing enterprises and meeting the developmentneeds of the logistics industry. The industrial logistics system involves inhuge amounts of manpower and capital and incurs expensive logistics costs. Thelogistics volume of industrial products accounted for 88.8% of the total sociallogistics volume in 2008 (CFLP, 2009). Indeed, the development of logistics canmake considerable savings and help realize customer satisfaction. Measuring thelogistics performance in different industrial sectors is a key step towardsreducing costly inefficiencies and maximizing opportunities for growth. 

Evaluating the logistics performance in industrial sectors requiresboth method and data consistent with that aim. Several studies have addressedthe logistics performance issue of manufacturing enterprises. For instance, Daughertyet al. (1994) and Shang et al. (2005) studied the benchmarking logistics in manufacturingenterprises in United Statesand Taiwanrespectively. Generally, benchmarking compares an organization’s performancewith the best in the industry and learns from their experience. However it issometimes difficult to find or get details from the best competitor.