The silk road was the first global supply chain dating back to around 200 BC. The road extended 4,000 miles linking Europe, China, and the Middle East, thus facilitating trade between these regions (Coates, 2012). The road facilitated exchanging various goods like silk, spices, tea, jewels, and nuts while allowing the dispersion of different cultural and religious beliefs and technological innovations. The efficiency that came with the silk road trade meant that traders could depend on moving their goods via road and expect to meet various consumers’ supply and demand needs. Traders had to develop meeting points along the silk road to facilitate trade during the silk road era, thus led to the development of great bazaars such as the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul (Coates, 2012). Although air transport was not an option in the past, traders came to rely on road transport as an efficient and economical supply chain strategy.
In contemporary times, many organizations in the transport and logistics global supply chain have opted to diversify their cargo movement modes. They have incorporated air and water transport as significant modes of goods movement. Unfortunately, these modes have proven to be quite problematic as there has risen the problem of congestion in seaports (Jung et al., 2019). Congestion leads to delays in unpacking cargo from the ship, which results in traders not getting their cargo on time. With air transport comes the challenge of expenses, especially if the cargo is heavier (Jung et al., 2019). The silk road trade and supply chain’s efficiency has thus informed some of the foundational supply chain strategies, which insist on “don’t ship water” and “don’t ship air”. These strategies mean that transportation and logistics companies have to mainly rely on moving their cargo via road in these contemporary times, which will help do away with the challenges of air and water cargo movement.
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References
Co ates, R. (2012). The silk road- the first global supply chain. Supply Chain Management Review . https://www.scmr.com/article/the_silk_road_the_first_global_supply_chain
Jung, H., Kim, J., & Shin, K. (2019). Importance analysis of decision-making factors for selecting international freight transportation mode. The Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics , 35 (1), 55-62. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2092521219300082
