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Growing airport capacity constraint, airports' increasing attention to profits, and regional hub formation in Northeast Asia suggest a need to study efficiency performance of the region's major airports. This article empirically evaluates the level and change of efficiency (productivity) of Tokyo (Narita), Osaka (Kansai), Seoul (Incheon and Gimpo), Beijing Capital, Shanghai Hongqiao, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong airports. We apply data envelopment analysis (DEA) to new panel data covering the 1994-2007 time period. We find that all the sample airports have recorded an increase in productivity over the period. Given the initial low productivity level of Chinese airports, this finding suggests that a series of deregulatory measures adopted by the Chinese government may have worked in improving airport productivity. On the other hand, no sample airports have experienced consistent growth in productivity. To improve productivity, the airports in Northeast Asia need not only technological revolutions at the industry level, but also technical improvements, such as better airport management, operations, and investment, at an airport level. Alternatively, the region may need to adopt more aggressive liberalization measures to stimulate further traffic growth. A number of future research areas are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impacts of air transport liberalization policies on economic growth, traffic volume, and traffic flow patterns, and investigates the mechanisms leading to those changes. Our investigation concludes that (1) liberalization has led to substantial economic and traffic growth. Such positive effects are mainly due to increased competition and efficiency gains in the airline industry, as well as positive externalities to the overall economy; (2) liberalization allows airlines to optimize their networks within and across continental markets. As a result, traffic flow patterns will change accordingly. Strategic alliance is a second-best solution and will have a reduced role when foreign ownership restrictions are relaxed; (3) there is a two-way relationship between the expansion of low-cost carriers (LCCs) and liberalization. The rapid growth of LCCs leads to increased competition and stimulated traffic, calling for the removal of restrictions on capacity, frequency, pricing and entry. In addition, development of LCCs in domestic markets can promote liberalization policy for international aviation by increasing the competitiveness of the national aviation industry. On the other hand, the existing regulations hindered the growth of LCCs. Further liberalization is needed for the full realization of associated benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crossdocks play an important role in supply chain operations. Due to the need to decrease transportation lead time to coordinate with other supply chain activities such as just-in-time, make-to-order, or merge-in-transit strategies, shortening the total transfer time at crossdocks is increasingly important. In this research, we use real-time information about freight transferring within a crossdock to schedule waiting inbound trailers in order to reduce the time freight spends in a crossdock. We use dynamic simulation models to compare the performance of several strategies. These are first-come, first-served, look-ahead, minimum processing time, and minimum total time policies. We examine these under different trailer arrival headways, crossdock layouts, and destination distributions. Our simulation results show that our time-based algorithms save more time than the first-come, first-served and look-ahead policies. In addition, these algorithms appear to result in higher service reliability and productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study which examines productivity and quality issues in the regional airline industry in the United States. In this study, the regional industry refers to those airlines that generally operate aircraft of fewer than sixty seats in short-haul scheduled passenger service between smaller communities and larger hub airports. Code sharing arrangements, marketing alliances, and a host of other joint business strategies have resulted in a process of industry consolidation, concentration, and integration of regional with the large commercial carriers. The case study involving the decision by two large regional airlines to introduce new, larger aircraft into their fleet was initiated in 1991. In 1991, Sky West ranked as the 13th largest regional airline in terms of number of passengers. The other airline involved in the study is Wings West Airlines, the 16th largest regional carrier in 1991, carrying over 1 million passengers. Airline management is disturbed by the fact that only 7 percent of the respondents commented that they believed the newer and larger aircraft offered higher levels of safety.

This article focuses on a study which was conducted to determine the physical distribution productivity measures currently used by major manufacturers, wholesalers and trucking companies in South Carolina. For the purposes of this research, physical distribution activities were limited to transportation and warehousing. It has been estimated that these two functions account for about 75 percent of total physical distribution cost. To fulfill the purpose of this research, two main questions were asked: what measures are routinely used by distribution executives to measure transportation and warehousing productivity and what obstacles are perceived by distribution executives to constrain productivity improvements in transportation and warehousing. Data were collected using a mail survey sent in July 1989. The results indicate that most major South Carolina companies have not progressed much beyond the 1979 national level of sophistication. Less than 20 percent of the South Carolina firms sampled used productivity measures associated with the top two evolutionary stages of productivity measurement. Nearly two-thirds of the sampled companies rely on productivity measures that relate distribution costs to macro outputs such as dollar sales or measures which compare dollar costs to budgeted costs.

The article determines how widespread part-time employees and contracting out have become in the transit industry in the U.S. One long-standing target of critics of the transit industry is its labor-cost components. Payroll costs comprise nearly two-thirds of the industry's annual operating costs and the work force has often been criticized as being low in productivity. Consequently, considerable pressure has been exerted on transit management to make more effective usage of labor inputs. Two frequently suggested approaches to addressing this issue are increased use of part-time employees and contracting with outside firms to perform certain transit functions/services which historically have been provided directly by transit operators. While individual system development and efforts to measure its impact have given the part-time employee issue considerable visibility during the past several years, little information has been gathered concerning the extent of its use in the transit industry in general.