Impact of logistics processes on supply chain facilitative role in dairy industry in Sri Lanka: A Thematic Analysis

Abstract

Globally, supply chain and logistics have become main indicators to achieve performance developments. The dairy industry plays a key role in agro business as it provides significant contribution towards the economy of Sri Lanka. The industry is spread over a wide range, starting from small dairy farmers in rural areas through supply chain flow including collecting, processing, transporting and storing. Many difficulties can arise in different situations in the supply chain of the dairy industry, especially milk collection, transport of milk from farms to operational stations or plants. Therefore, this research was conducted on issues of operational performance in dairy industry. The main purpose of the research was to identify the impact of logistics process towards the supply chain facilitative role in dairy Industry in Sri Lanka. Additionally, this focuses on identifying the effective process in collection, processing system and supplier connectivity. This study was conducted with ten companies in Colombo and sub areas, selected using the purposive sampling method. The research was done as a qualitative study; a thematic analysis. Ten dairy companies were selected in different scale, opportunities and environments. Through the analysis it can be concluded that key logistics functions have a greater impact on supply chain facilitative role while optimizing the operational performance. While the majority of the participants interviewed expressed certain negative comments about problems in dairy industry, almost all considered in this study have taken steps to reduce the negative aspects and issues as much as possible, but with more strategies to be implemented further.