Transportation responsiveness and efficiency within the building supply chain

Following the example of the manufacturing industry, the construction industry has utilized supply chain management to improve its performance and competitiveness. However, although performance measurement has attracted particular attention in the sector since the 1990s, supply chain performance measurement has been largely overlooked. Therefore, given that buildings are outputs of supply chain systems, there is a need to develop a better understanding of performance measurement pertaining to the interactions and interdependencies between the constituent parts of these systems. Based on primary data collected through a field study, the performance of two material distribution companies is examined in terms of their capacity to provide a time-responsive and cost-effective service to the building industry. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to assess performance according to a range of performance indicators and to explore the relationship between transportation responsiveness and cost efficiency. The results show that vehicle-loading efficiency levels are particularly lower than those estimated in other sectors and reveal the prevalence of empty vehicle runs during backhauling. Significant variations in performance between the two companies are observed to be mainly attributable to the nature of business itself, as well as to adopted distribution strategies.