Construction logistics in urban development projects – learning from, or repeating, past mistakes of city logistics?

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-03-2020-0128
• Published date: 21 September 2021
• Date: 21 September 2021
• Pages: 49-68
• Subject Matter: Management science & operations,Logistics
• Author: Mats Janné,Anna Fredriksson

Construction logistics in urban

development projects –learning

from, or repeating, past mistakes

of city logistics?

Mats Jann

e and Anna Fredriksson

Department of Science and Technology, Link€

oping University, Link€

oping, Sweden

Abstract

Purpose –The construction industry is reluctant to utilizeconstruction logistics centres (CLC). To understand

why, the purpose of the study is to increase the understanding of drivers and challenges of CLC utilization.

Design/methodology/approach –Adopting an activity-based cost methodology, nine construction

projects’CLC utilization in a Swedish urban development project is analyzed for a time period of three

years (2013–2016).

Findings –There is a difference between drivers and challenges for implementing and utilizing CLCs, which

are often implemented to reduce third-party disturbances. The drivers to utilize a CLC, however, stem from

achieving efficient logistics. The authors identify two different utilization strategies; the CLC is used either

for just-in-time (JIT) deliveries or as a consolidation point.

Research limitations/implications –The study shows that construction logistics is to some extent

repeating some mistakes of its big brother, city logistics. The study hypothesizes that there are differences

between CLC implementation and utilization drivers and challenges that are often overlooked, which can

explain the lack of CLC utilization.

Practical implications –The study shows that it is crucial for construction projects to develop and

formulate a logistics strategy for how to utilize the setup, i.e. deciding whether to use the setup as a

consolidation point leading to fewer deliveries and more materials on-site, or as JIT, leading to more deliveries

but fewer materials on-site.

Social implications –CLCs can reduce environmental impact and third-party disturbances. However, to

make this come true, acceptance among the users is needed. The study provides understanding of drivers and

barriers for CLC implementation and utilization that can increase acceptance among users (i.e. construction

projects).

Originality/value –The current study is one of the first studies to analyze CLC utilization.

Keywords Construction logistics, Construction logistics centers, City logistics, Third-party logistics

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

With increased urbanization and densification, more materials and resources need to be

transported to and from urban construction projects (Guerlain et al., 2019). Thus, the

Drivers and

challenges of

CLC utilization

49

© Mats Jann

e and Anna Fredriksson. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is

published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce,

distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial

purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence

may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

The authors would like to extend their gratitude to all the company and municipal representatives

who have participated in this study. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank the anonymous

reviewers and the editor for their thorough work in reviewing the article; their work has increased the

quality of the article substantially.

The research presented in this article has been financed by JPI Urban Europe/Sweden’s Innovation

Agency VINNOVA under Grant 2018-02499 and the Development Fund of the Swedish Construction

Industry, SBUF, under Grant 13605.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0957-4093.htm

Received 1 October 2019

Revised 21 August 2020

12 February 2021

26 July 2021

3 September 2021

Accepted 5 September 2021

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 33 No. 5, 2022

pp. 49-68

Emerald Publishing Limited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-03-2020-0128

importance of construction logistics in urban settings has increased. Guerlain et al. (2019)

identify construction logistics as part of the city logistics realm, which, according to Strale

(2019), includes research into urban freight transport as well as the policies, measures and

initiatives imposed by municipalities, city authorities and private actors on the urban

transport system. However, construction logistics is rarely managed as a part of city logistics

initiatives; instead, construction logistics is treated as a special case of city logistics to be

managed by the construction industry. Additionally, there has been limited knowledge

transfer between the city logistics and const ruction logistics realms, meaning that

construction logistics seems to be repeating the same mistakes as city logistics instead of

learning from their experiences.

Construction projects need to focus on reducing their logistics impact on cities without

sacrificing the efficiency of construction operations (Sundquist et al., 2018). Similarly to

how urban consolidation centers (UCCs) are used in city logistics (Allen et al., 2014), one

solution within construction logistics is to develop CLCs (Lundesj€

o, 2015). Like UCCs, CLCs

focus on consolidating transports going into and out of construction sites, thus reducing

disturbances to the surrounding community as well as improving logistics flows and

planning opportunities for the construction project (Guerlain et al., 2019), which increases

the projects’value-adding time (Spillane and Oyedele, 2017). However, Jann

eand

Fredriksson (2019) found that the benefits of CLCs seem primarily to consist of reduced

disturbances to the urban transport system and residents and businesses nearby. At the

same time, the cost of utilizing CLC services has been found to be allocated predominantly

to the construction projects (Hamzeh et al., 2007). Thus, there seems to be an imbalance

between who incurs the costs and who reaps the benefits of employing CLCs. This

imbalance, according to, Dubois et al. (2019), among others, has led to a situation where the

construction industry is reluctant to utilize municipal or developer-implemented CLCs in

their projects, as they see CLCs as added costs with little value. Studies within city logistics

have shown that there are also utilization challenges connected to UCCs due to low

commitment from end-users and service providers (Malhene et al., 2012), which depend on

poor business models and a low focus on value-creation for end-users (Bj€

orklund et al.,

2017). However, in construction logistics, the utilization challenges have not yet been

thoroughly investigated. This makes it difficult to know if the challenges of increasing CLC

utilization are real or if the low utilization is just an expression of construction projects’

unrealized expectations or their lack of knowledge about how to reap the benefits of CLCs in

their operations. Thus, the purpose of this studyis to increase the understanding of drivers

and challenges of CLC utilization.

This study takes the approach of exploring the utilization of drivers of and challenges

to CLCs, through quantitatively studying CLC utilization in terms of space utilization,

time for materials handling, number of deliveries and costs, with the help of invoices. It

then compares the quantitative data with the qualitative understanding gathered

through interviews and observations. The study is guided by the research questions as

follows:

RQ1. How do construction projects utilize CLCs?

RQ2. What are the drivers of and challenges to CLC utilization?

The paper is structured as follows: first, a literature review on city logistics and UCCs and

construction logistics and CLCs is presented. This is followed by the research approach and

methods used, including the development of the analysis method, alongside the case

description. Thereafter, the findings are presented and analyzed in order to answer the

research questions. This is followed by a discussion, and finally, the conclusions and

contributions of the study are presented.

IJLM

33,5

50