SCM Lowdown

Chinese Supply Chain to the Task of Olympic

As far as for the mega event like Beijing Olympics, the logistics had to work very hard and total logistic services cost estimated to US$ 5.8 billion. As estimated 3 million athletes, journalists and spectators gathered in the Beijing for 29th Olympic Games.

As more than 200 countries participated in the Games, nearly 12 million pieces of apparatus were handled by logistics companies providing support to the event. This created huge business opportunities for domestic and overseas logistics companies.  During the entire period of Olympic Games more than 75,000 tonnes of equipment and facilities were transported. And the need for 2000 transport vehicles were also carried out by trans-national logistics companies like as UPS, DH and, TNT and local carriers as well.

There has been quite a wider gap between in terms of co-operation between Chinese manufacturing and logistics companies which hampered the growth of Chinese logistics companies. However with the development for Olympic Games, the Chinese logistics provider learnt advanced technologies. The Olympic Games that lasted for two and a half weeks involved incredible level of logistics and planning.  The logistics expenses $6.18 billion 15.5% of total games budget were estimated in the planning stage when in 2001 China successfully bid for the Games in 2001.

As from the start, the Beijing government was cautious about dealing with environment issues as Beijing was notorious for air pollution since 1998. For the task Chinese government moved factories to other provinces, used cleaner motor fuel, planted new trees and imposed strict traffic rules encouraging people towards public transport. A dedicated Olympics Logistics Centre (OLC) was made in Beijing to set up place for a   vast number of materials and equipment required. The centre was responsible for the 37 main Olympic venues, 15 non-competition venues and 72 independent training venues. The OLC was operated and managed by US-based United Parcel Service.

This extensive exercise done by Chinese logistic companies have open quite wide open horizon for logistics companies to work in future and coming time for mega activities like Olympic and other activities.

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