The Location strategy :: A Conceptual emphasis on locating a distribution centre in the Netherlands for the first time

SOFJAN, Tharik Achmad, Drs. D.F.R. Maccow

2002 | Tesis | Magister Manajemen

overall profit because transportation costs alone can total as much as 25% of the product’s selling price. Moreover, the consulting firm McKinsey believes that location ultimately has the power to make (or break) a company’s business strategy (Bartness in Heizer & Render, 2001). Therefore, the decision to locate the distribution centre becomes a strategic decision. Those reasons, we believe, make a dilemmatic condition for any operations manager of a firm to consider. Policy makers and operations manager can use this report of study in general. The policy makers in general could learn the Netherlands’ Role & Policy that shape its Distribution Centre Competitive Advantage, as well as those American companies’ experiences when they were evaluating a location for their distribution centre. The operations manager in general could learn those American companies’ experiences when they want to locate their distribution centre in European area. The conclusions are a firm should consider the Netherlands as a home base in Europe because of these following determinant’s factors that shape the Netherlands’ Distribution Centre Competitive Advantage: Factor Conditions: the excellent infrastructure, the multilingual Dutch labour force, the availability of the main port Rotterdam & Schiphol Airport, and its high labour productivity; Demand Conditions: the prime geographic location next to Germany, UK, and French market with an easy reach of Eurbpean’s crowded population; Related & Supporting Industries: the Dutch education system, its labour’s flexi-model system, its transportation and distribution service infrastructure, and its multi modal main port distribution, and; Firm Strategy, Structure, and Rivalry: there are thousands of freight forwarding, storage, an value-added distribution companies, as well as stateof- the-art telecommunications and electronics support for data interchange and cargo tracking. Furthermore, There are top five sub-factors being mentioned by those companies under sample that have the biggest influence on the choice of a company for locating its distribution centre; they are the Netherlands’ Good Education, Infrastructure, Strategic Location, Worker’s Attitudes, and Intangible Costs.

Kata Kunci : Manajemen Produksi,Strategi Distribusi Produk