Tangible and intangible factors for supply chain co-transportation practices

Resumen

In the last years, companies have concentrated on optimizing their production processes and cut their costs down signi?cantly, while neglecting the costs for transportation. Today, when the trend for companies is to move their production to countries in the Middle East and Asia, to attain lower production costs, one can ?nd that the cost for transportation will increase due to the long distances. Therefore, it is very important to try to minimize and optimize these costs as soon as possible to achieve competitive advantages. This paper aims to outline all these factors and explain their importance for companies that are willing to joint a collaborative transportation network. From experience, companies that are thinking to start collaborative transportation practices must check not only the tangible factors but also the intangible ones, as these are factors-related to the relationship and degree of collaboration to be kept with the different partners. Keywords: Co-transportation, factors, supply chain.