• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.321-327
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• 2013

As the market of express delivery services expands rapidly, delivery service companies are exposed to severe competition. As a result of the surplus of delivery companies, they are struggling with remaining competitive at a reasonable price with appropriate level of customer satisfaction. To cope with competition pressures, a strategic alliance is suggested as an effective solution to the challenges faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in express delivery services. Therefore, this study suggests a combined optimization and simulation approach to the reconfiguration of an express delivery service network for strategic alliance with respect to strategy partnership of closing/keeping service centers among companies involved and adjustments of their cutoff times. An illustrative numerical example is presented to demonstrate the practicality and efficiency of the approach.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.16
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• pp.295-329
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• 2001

The wonderful new world of shopping - being able to order items you need by just one click. However, there is one factor that has not changed at all - customers, whether they are private individuals or public companies, want to have the product delivered to their address, and usually as fast as possible too. To achieve this, the operators of virtual shops must make use of a fully operational and efficient delivery service. The internet and its potential for creating a virtual market for millions of buyers and sellers, has generated a lot of excitement in the express delivery industry. Clearly e-commerce will cause greater growth in the business-to-residential package market. Korean express delivery industry is not an exception to this trend. Currently, while major three service providers enjoy a lion's share in Korea, a lot of small and medium companies are struggling to capture more shipments in express parcel market. Nevertheless, it will be forecasted that Korean parcel market will be consolidated and become an oligopoly market in the near future.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.50
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• pp.163-185
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• 2011

The purpose of this paper is to suggest competitiveness promotion factors of korean Parcel Express Service Industry. This study considered in terms of three competitiveness promotion factors which are a firm's subjective factors, a industrial environment factors, and a governmental policy factors. According to analysis results of the factors, a firm's subjective factors(4.07 score) are scored the most ones of competitiveness promotion factors of korean Parcel Express Service Industry, to be compared with a industrial environment factors(3.89 score), with a governmental policy factors(3.76 score). Therefore, first of all, korean Parcel Express Service firms have to promote competitiveness through as follows : (1) speedy meeting to customer's needs, (2) to promote customer service, to reduce delivery lead time, (3) to procure reliability of Parcel Express Service with customers mutually, (4) strategy of global Parcel Express Service.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.56-63
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• 2016

For air express service providers offering various express delivery services such as overnight delivery and next-business day delivery services, establishing quickly cargo loading plans is one of important issues owing to the characteristics of air express business, i.e., a short amount of time is available to complete all cargo loading operations before flight departure after receiving air express containers, pallets and bulks. On the other hand, one of major concerns in the air cargo loading planning is to make a plan that insures the stability of an aircraft to avoid take-off, flight, and landing accidents. To this end, this paper considers an air cargo loading planning problem, which is the problem of determining locations in the aircraft cargo space where air containers, pallets and bulks to be loaded while insuring the aircraft stability, motivated from DHL and Air Hong Kong. The objective of the problem is to maximize the total revenue gained from loading air express containers, pallets and bulks. To solve the problem, this paper suggests a simulated annealing algorithm to overcome impracticality of the integer programming model developed by a previous study requiring excessive computation time. The results of computational experiments show that the heuristic algorithm is a viable tool for establishing express cargo loading plans as giving robust and good solutions in a short amount of computation time. Scenario analyses are performed to investigate the effect of the current activities of air express carriers on the revenue change and to draw practical implications for air express service providers.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.39-50
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• 2020

Purpose: This paper aimed to study the current locations of post offices to analyze service coverage area for parcel delivery in the Eastern Economics Corridor (EEC), which must be considered in the last mile to extend delivery service for e-commerce growth. Thailand Post was the case study in this paper. Research design, data and methodology: To involve solving the delivery service area under the last mile condition, the authors proposed a network analysis to determine service radius by employing a Geographic Information System (GIS). Furthermore, this paper applied Dijkstra's algorithm as a network analysis tool from GIS for analyzing the last mile service coverage area in a new economics zone. At the same time, the authors suggested an approach as a solution to locate last mile delivery center in EEC. Results: The results of the study pointed out that Thailand Post should consider more last mile delivery centers in EEC to support its express service in urban areas as well as improve the efficiency of service coverage for parcel delivery and create more advantages against competitors. Conclusions: This paper proposes a network analysis to extend the last mile service for parcel delivery by following Dijkstra's algorithm from GIS and a solution approach to add more last mile delivery centers. The results of the research will contribute to boosting customer satisfaction for last mile delivery service and enabling easy accessibility to a service center in EEC.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.282-289
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• 2007

While demands for express couriers service are rapidly increasing due to recent progress of electronic commerce, express courier service companies are struggling to take a larger market share through ongoing improvement in their service processes. Cut-off time is the time limit that all orders delivered before the limit are guaranteed for the delivery within the very next day. Extending cut-off time for express service centers can provide the express company with increase of total sales, but it may also cause increasing the possibility not to satisfy customer needs due to work delay in the consolidation terminal. We develop a design model for express courier service network based on a recursive optimization/simulation procedure. With the optimization model, we seek key design parameters such as the cut-off time for express service centers and the capacity of the consolidation terminal maximizing total sales profit while satisfying the desired level of performances. With the simulation model, we consider the dynamic nature of the network and obtain relationships between the design parameters and the performance measures with the multiple linear regression. The validity of the model is examined with an example.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.80-87
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• 2010

As express courier market expands rapidly, companies are exposed to fierce competition. To cope with struggle for their survival, they are continuously making efforts to improve their service system. Even if most of service centers are directly linked to a consolidation terminal in courier service network, some of them with regional disadvantages are operated in milk run type from/to the consolidation terminal, which is a traditional PDP (Pick-up and Delivery Problem). This study suggests an approach to solve the PDP with the objective of maximizing the incremental profit, which belongs to PTP (Profitable Tour Problem) class. After the PTP is converted to TSP (Traveling Salesman Problem) with the same objective, a heuristic algorithm based on GA (Genetic Algorithm) is developed and examined through an example problem in practice of a courier service company in Korea.

• IE interfaces
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• v.16 no.spc
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• pp.99-104
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• 2003

While demands for express service are rapidly increasing according to recent progress of electronic commerce, express service companies are struggling to take a larger delivery service market share through ongoing improvement in their service processes. Extension of cut-off time for express service centers can provide the express company with increase of total sales, but it may also cause to increase the possibility not to satisfy customer needs due to work delay in the consolidation terminal. Therefore, compromised decision for cut-off time of each service center should be made by taking operation characteristics of the consolidation terminal into account. This study suggests an approach for determining the cut-off time for express service centers according to operational characteristics of the consolidation terminal with the objective of maximizing expected incremental sales. The problem defined in this study can be represented as two successive models; one is an integer programing model in which the best cut-off time for each sales center are determined, and the other is a single machine scheduling model in which a working schedule in the consolidation terminal is obtained. A genetic algorithm is developed to solve the two models simultaneously. Finally, an example problem is carried out to verify applicability and performance of the algorithm with the data set collected from an express company.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.397-408
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• 2015

Purpose: Express mail service(EMS) supplied by 'Korea POST'is an international postal service which brings letters, documents and parcels to a destination abroad in the fastest and safest way. This service is in a tough competition with global companies such as TNT, FedEx, DHL or UPS. To build an effective strategy for being competitive, an intensive study on EMS service quality should be accomplished from a customer's perspective. Methods: Kano model and improvement gap analysis are used to categorize and prioritize EMS service quality attributes. A 5-point Lickert scale is employed to apply the Kano model and improvement gap analysis. Each quality attribute can be classified as weak in comparison with competitors, critical for improvement, or potentially competitive. Results: Price, on-time delivery and delivery quality are to be kept as is; fast delivery, parking convenience and staff expertise can be potentially competitive; and the other attributes are considered to be critical for improvement. Conclusions: Fast reimbursement and proper compensation when shipping items are lost or damaged are to be improved with high priority. Efforts to secure fast delivery, parking convenience and staff expertise are needed to be competitive in the future.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.125-147
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• 2011

Considering a trend of logistics and transport industry in these days, it can be said that international express courier service is one of the most familiar transport type to the general public. Especially in Korea, due to development of electronic commercial transaction and the popularity of television home shopping, it can easily anticipated that express courier business will continuously grown in the future. However, the legal basis for international express courier is not properly set up so far. The only clause about this can be found on Korean Aviation Law said as 'commercial documents delivery business'. The origin of the commercial documents delivery business in Aviation Law is to make exception from public postal services which has been exclusive status as monopoly based on the Korean Postal Law. Basically, according to this regulation, all the private postal delivery is prohibited except some sort of commercial documents such as consignment notes, packing list, invoice etc. Thus, those documents could be delivered not only by public postal services but also by private courier company according to the Korean Postal Law. This waiver has probably come from under developing condition of Korean postal circumstances, however it should be revised according to the modernized business practice. Reflecting these revisions, the articles of Korean Postal Law adopted 'international express courier document' as the exception of postal service. Therefore, Korean Aviation Law also needs to be revised as Postal Law in due course. In addition to revision of Korean Aviation Law, some sort of new legislation is required to govern the private legal aspects such as legal liabilities, duties and rights of each parties on international express courier. This should be governed by 'law' not by 'terms and conditions' provided by business operators. Furthermore, to support and develop the current domestic logistics companies as international express courier company, it is required to regulate with the separate express courier law.