Investigating the enablers and barriers for introducing port-centric logistics within the Indian logistics network

The prevailing lack of transportation, port and intermodal facilities is one of the major hurdles for the development of the Indian Logistics sector and causes congestion at various points in the supply chain. The UK port industry has also been facing many challenges in the recent past. The congestion challenges in UK ports have eased to a certain extent in recent times due to investment and new government and private sector initiatives. One example of this has been the adoption of a “Port-Centric-Logistics” strategy by some UK ports to attract direct callers in these ports. This strategy will try to replace/reduce the feedering that is going on between the continent and UK, and improve the efficiency and productivity in the whole supply chain up to the end user. Teesport has taken the lead in this exercise and set up a fully-fledged distribution centre which provides facilities such as container stripping, storing, repacking at the port already, in collaboration with ASDA. This model is now being considered by other ports such as Hull and Liverpool in order to improve their competitive edge over European ports.