Editorial

From the editor’s desk

Stephen Kruger

Copyright: © 2023. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Department of Transport and Supply Chain Management at the University of Johannesburg proudly presents to you Volume 17, 2023 of the Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management (JTSCM): an accredited publication unique to South Africa. This journal is the only of its kind in South Africa.

Fields of study

The journal serves as an independent publication for scientific contributions in the fields of transportation and supply chain management.

This edition of the journal contributes articles that have been reviewed and revised by national and international reviewers.

As Editor-in-Chief, I would like to thank all the authors who have worked so hard to make this an interesting and varied publication. Thanks to all the reviewers who have made it possible to make sure that we could provide quality articles for this publication.

A word on logistics and supply chain

When one considers supply chain from a logistics point of view, it can be divided into three sections, namely inbound logistics, production logistics and outbound logistics. All of these logistics components consist of the same core elements, namely transportation, warehousing and inventory management. The difference between them is that inbound logistics has an interrelationship with purchasing, production logistics and production, and outbound logistics with marketing and distribution. Many organisations pay more attention to outbound than the inbound logistics, which is also reflected in the articles in this journal (not only in this edition). On the other hand, one may find that there are businesses where the outbound logistics are much less complicated than the inbound logistics. It must be understood that inbound and outbound logistics systems must be treated equally as they both form an integral part of the value chain. If any section of the value chain is neglected, it will lead to fewer final products and services coming out of the channel and subsequently customer dissatisfaction (Nieman & Bennet, 2014).

A word on artificial intelligence

Under the leadership of AOSIS, this journal is contributing to an artificial intelligence (AI) policy that will be concluded before the end of this year. This document will provide insight into the following:

• using AI to report your research
• using AI to conduct research
• guiding principles
• implications for reviewers.

Prominent articles in this publication (Volume 17-2023)

There are two very prominent articles in this publication that need to be mentioned:

• Impact of Covid-19 restrictions on South African air transport and tourism indicators by Joachim Vermooten (UJ).

Background: Air travel restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 impacted air travel to and from and within South Africa significantly. The duration of the pandemic was more protracted than initially expected as new variants of the pandemic (in ‘waves’) resulted in additional restrictions.

Objectives: To determine the nature of COVID-19-related air travel restrictions, their impact on annual passenger demand, the number of flights operated (supply of services), the related average passenger loads carried as well as on tourism indicators of the direct contribution of travel and tourism, the total contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) and employment (Vermooten 2023).

• Trends in weather-related marine cargo insurance claims: A South African perspective by Francois du Plessis, Leila Goedhals-Gerber and Joubert van Eeden (US).

Background: Marine cargo insurance covers the loss or damage to goods while in transit. It is an important supply chain risk management tool for organisations involved in international trade, especially in regions where cargo insurance penetration is low and protection gaps are high. However, marine cargo insurance faces new challenges because of increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events. This study focuses on the case of South Africa: a developing country with a strategic role in connecting Africa with the global market.

Objectives: The research analyses the trends, differences, and seasonality of weather-related marine cargo insurance claims in South Africa from 2013 to 2022 (Du Plessis, Goedhals-Gerber & Van Eeden 2023).

Both of these are high quality articles. I am sure the readers will find both very interesting.

Articles that were submitted and approved come from various institutions within South Africa and abroad. Articles with very interesting topics are dealt with in this volume (to name a few):

• E-Procurement in South African government departments
• Capacity and performance of marine services in South Africa’s ports
• Policy enforcement, corruption in South African universities
• Sinusoidal stimulus considering food waste
• Customer satisfaction in Kenya: An online perspective
• Supply chain agility
• The role of software in reverse logistics.

Many thanks to everyone contributing to this edition.

Reference

Du Plessis, F., Goedhals-Gerber, L. & Van Eeden, J., 2023, ‘Trends in weather-related marine cargo insurance claims: A South African perspective’, Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management 17(0), a954. https://doi.org/10.4102/jtscm.v17i0.954

Nieman, G. & Bennet, J.A., 2014, Business management: A value chain approach, Van Schaik, Pretoria.

Vermooten, J., 2023, ‘Impact of COVID-19 restrictions on South African air transport and tourism indicators’, Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management 17(0), a812. https://doi.org/10.4102/jtscm.v17i0.81