IMPROVING THE LANDED COST OF IMPORTING FOOD FROM FRANCE

Abstract

This research is a case study of a Thai importing company. The company was facing a significant increase in landed costs. The objectives of this research were to identify problems, find solutions, and implement appropriate actions to improve the landed cost of food importation from France. Recommendations, solutions, and preventive actions were provided to improve and reduce the cost of this business as well as avoid recurrent problems. This research applied tools approach to define the problems, measure the current performance, analyze the root causes of the problem, and identify improvements to the current process. The researcher also suggested an improvement plan with recommendations to achieve a sustainable process of operational improvement for the company. The result has shown a significant improvement in the delivery performance of the suppliers after implementing the improvement plan. The two major root causes, a gross price, and a freight charge, had been reduced, lowering the landed cost of food importation. The company still needs to have continuous improvement to develop a process to be more efficient. This is to ensure a sustained improvement is carried out with practical monitoring to prevent recurrent problems.