An Exploration of Success Factors for an Effective Inventory Management System in the Sri Lankan Shipping Industry

Abstract

The geographical position of Sri Lanka serves as a competitive advantage in becoming a maritime hub in the Asian region. However, regardless of the strategic positioning of the country, the shipping industry of Sri Lanka has gradually eroded over the past years (Edirisinghe & Gunaruwan, 2013) . Colombo Port in Sri Lanka is generally considered to be the primary port of South Asia (Rathnayake & Edirisinghe, 2015). Their main task in the shipping industry is inventory handling and transporting (United States of America Patent No. US3386600A, 1968). As shown in the past literature when it comes to the Sri Lankan shipping industry, it is assumed that 22% of the container cost is generated due to the container inventory imbalance (Edirisinghe, Jin, & Wijeratne, 2016). This downside has signified the need to improve the efficiency of shipping operations in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to explore the success factors and barriers of an effective inventory management system for the shipping industry in Sri Lanka.