Analysis of the Impact of Logistics Practices on the Supply Chain Performances of Companies

The objective of this study is to investigate impacts of logistics practices (i.e. inventory management and transportation practices) on the supply chain performances (SCPs) (i.e. SCP customer satisfaction, SCP cost, SCP flexibility and SCP dependability). For this study, the researchers were collected data through a questionnaire that responded by 452 respondents in the eight selected Ethiopian companies. The particular respondents for this study were employees of the companies that have link with supply chain practices of the company, major suppliers and distributors of the companies. The anticipated relationships between logistics practices and the supply chain performances in the theoretical framework specified were investigated through nine hypotheses. The hypotheses developed and tested were four hypotheses that related inventory management with every four constructs of the SCPs; and four other hypotheses that were related transportation practices with the four constructs of the SCPs. Finally, the last hypothesis was developed and tested the relationship between the overall logistics practices and overall SCPs constructs. The hypotheses were tested by linear regression, ANOVA and Pearson correlation. The results of the study show that the inventory management and transportation practices were significantly related to all SCPs constructs. Also, the combined effect of the overall logistics practices to the overall SCPs was significantly related. This study concludes that the higher levels of logistics practices in the supply chain practices leads to the higher supply chain performances.