Middle East logistics companies face quality, time and cost efficiency challenges, says CMCS

In reality, logistic cycles are managed by virtual project teams located across the globe and at different time zones, where members come from different cultures with different communication skills and preferences. What makes this more challenging is that every time the cycle is repeated, new issues and risks are encountered which makes each cycle, to a certain extent, unique.

"This challenge becomes more complex when an organization has many concurrent cycles competing for the same resources," said Bassam Samman, CEO and Founder of CMCS. "Logistics cycles are not done in a vacuum as their deliverables are always essential inputs to other cycles to commence, such as building projects, holding events, maintaining a plant, running a war, aiding a crises among many others. Nevertheless, the successful achievement of this challenge will ensure increased client satisfaction and loyalty which leads to increased retention rates."

Samman added: "Applying professional project management practices to logistic processes can provide the solution for meeting this challenge. Project management practices help organizations create an accountable and collaborative team environment that enables the achievement of desired business goals and objectives."

Additionally, in developing the project plan, the project team would require to make a number of assumptions to address the project uncertainties that could stem from issues relating to the project scope of works, management actions, organizational issues and external factors. Those are considered as risks for which, some might have negative impact on the project objectives. Risks would include accidents to transportation and cranes, delays in custom clearance, damage to shipped material among others.

For each risk identified, an assessment will be made to the occurrence likelihood and the impact of the risk. The two attributes will be used to calculate are risk exposure which could vary from high, serious, moderate to low. This will enable the project team to set priorities for responding to negative risks which might include taking actions to avoid the causes of the risk, or considering action that will mitigate the consequences of the risk or transferring the risk to other parties or accepting the consequences of the risk actively or passively.

"Issues, changes and new risks will be continuously assessed and managed by the project team to maintain the objectives of the projects. Previously identified risk response actions will be taken as planned and the project team will assess its effectiveness. The project team will maintain of a log of all lessons learned and good practices that will become a valuable asset to the organization to be used on future projects," concluded Samman.