4.Road freight transport: vehicle costing.
In the growing market globalization, where the customer demands are changing rapidly,
the enterprises have to focus on cost reduction and profitability (Kovács and Kot, 2016). Cost
reduction and improvement of efficiency are very important goals of every service providers,
which gives a firm demand research in this field. The intensity of the transport activities
connected to production and service is continuously increasing due to the growth of the
efficiency of the economy and the bigger intercontinental supply chains. The importance of this
research study arises from the fact that 30 % of the cost of the whole supply chain comes from
transportation. The ratio of road transport in Europe is 78 % of the total freight volume.
Therefore every production and service companies put great emphasis on the optimization of
transport activity (IFM, 2007). Currently the calculation of the transport fee of a given transport
task depends on the individual estimation of the transport managers. It could result in losses if
the bid for the transport task is lower than the first cost of it, therefore profit would not be
realized for the carrier. If the bid for the transport task is higher than the first cost the fee of the
transport task would be higher than the market price, so the company would not be competitive
on the market. The goal of the research is to develop a first cost calculation method, which
provides more precise result than in recent practice. There are three alternatives for to fulfil
transport tasks in practice: 1. by own vehicle and own driver, 2. by rented vehicle with own
driver, 3. by rented vehicle with external contract driver (outsourcing). The first method is the
most common, when own vehicle is used with own driver, because the most important strategic
aim of the companies is to maximize the utilization of resources. Second and third methods
could be only relevant if the own resources (vehicle and human) are not sufficient to fulfil the
clients‘ orders. Since the first method is applied for most of the road freight transport volume, a
software was developed for the cost calculation. Therefore this research is original and unique,
because the elaborated first cost calculation method and the developed software is more precise
and faster compared to the recent practices, so it can be widely used in the practical applications.
The first costs are be defined for all the three mentioned methods to fulfil a transport task. Based
on the cost calculation of the three methods the carrier can decide whether it is worth completing
the given transport task and which is the optimal (more profitable) method. Due to the precise
calculation method and the software, the bid for the transport task will not be lower or higher
than the market price, so risk and losses of the company can be minimized, and the profit
becomes well predictable. The elaborated calculation method and the software, helps the
strategic decision making of general management, optimization of transport activity and making
optimized short and long term operative plans.
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