ID002 - DNH - Event Logistics
-
Upload
vo-dang-tinh -
Category
Documents
-
view
213 -
download
0
Transcript of ID002 - DNH - Event Logistics
SUGGESTION TO DESIGN AN EVENT LOGISTICS ACTIVITIES MANAGING SYS-
TEM
Do Ngoc Hien, Nguyen Thanh Tam, Le Ngoc Quynh Lam
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh
ABSTRACT: Event organization industry is a new field in Vietnam, but it will bring potential bene-
fits for effective and efficient companies. Unfortunately, local companies have not competed with foreign
ones in this field in most aspects such as experience, creativity, technology and budget. Management of
event logistics activities is an important competitive factor and usually Vietnamese event companies do not
do well. This research would suggest a way to improve it and an application would be presented as an il -
lustration with promising results.
Keywords: event logistics system; project management models; assignment resource problem;
1. INTRODUCTION
According to a survey of market research or-
ganization FTA, event was the second most com-
monly marketing tool used. Annually, there are
more than USD 20 billion costing for promoting
products, in which USD 15 billion paid for orga-
nizing the events such as client meeting, intro-
duction and show of product. However, event or-
ganization industry is a new field in Vietnam and
in recent years rapidly grows up.
Event to introduce new products or services
is an indispensable activity of organizations,
where they can tell customers important informa-
tion and advertise themselves [1].
Event organization process is a combination
of resources such as labors, materials, equip-
ment, and tools to provide services assuring all
supporting and event activities happen in a right
time, at a right place, efficiency and effective-
ness. It intends to give an important communica-
tion message for their customers [2].
Since becoming the WTO member, advertis-
ing industry has been quickly developed in Viet-
nam and many foreign large ones participate in
this market. As a result, many local advertising
companies and event organizations have been
founded, so a fierce competition on idea, quality
and price has happened.
Unfortunately, local companies have not
competed with foreign ones in this field in most
aspects such as experience, creativity, technol-
ogy and budget. Event is usually done by a group
of relative members such as hotel, conference
center, and/or advertising company. Therefore,
event cost is paid much more than necessary due
to no profession. One of important reasons is that
management of event logistics activities is not
efficient and effective, even in local professional
companies operating in event organization field.
Event logistics is known as a network of ac-
tivities, facilities and people needed to organize,
plan and deploy resources on an event and finish
it effectively [3].
Unfortunately, it is rarely research in event
logistics field and in Vietnam it is really a new
one. This research would be proposed a model
that would help improve effective and efficient
aspects such as cost, time, and labor force for or-
ganizing the event.
2. APPLICATION OF PROJECT MANAGE-
MENT MODEL IN ORGANIZING EVENTS
Event organization is a process following a
strictly timeline at a specific place with many lo-
gistics activities from the preparation stage to
finishing one. During that process, event logis-
tics activities are done in sequence and planed
scenarios. Actually, some activities using ma-
chines, equipment, tools and/or other required re-
sources make necessary supporting products
such as meeting rooms, stages, special chairs or
tables, while others create services such as de-
signing invitation letter, invited guest list, sound,
light, transportation, and booking hotel rooms.
All made products or services serving for event
activities are in successive, overlapping to form a
flow over time as shown on the Figure 1.
Figure 1: Timeline of event logistics activities
Each event could be considered as a project,
so a harmoniuos combination of project manage-
ment and event organization would bring many
essential benifits [4] for event industry in Viet-
nam. A basic project management process is
shown on Figure 2.
Figure 1: Project management process [5]
Complex, large project is breakdown into
many smaller subprojects, so they could get eas-
ier in managing, allocating resources, and assign-
ing responsibilities. Therefore, purposes of the
event are clearer and it facilitates to build up a
suitable organizational structure to manage the
whole project, which could follow pyramid
model, network or a combination depending on
the scale and scope of the project and the number
of event activities.
When the event logistics activities and tasks
are identified and assigned, an optimum se-
quence has to be determined. Depending on
available resources, they can be performed in si-
multaneously or orderly.
An activity or task often can start only after
a given set of other activities or tasks has been
completed. Such constraints are referred to as
precedence constraints. Event facilities or equip-
ment, for example, could not be brought to event
place until a protect and security camp has been
set up. An arrangement of tasks or activities in
an optimum sequence is an important job.
After a good sequence of logistics event ac-
tivities or tasks is determined, a suitable estima-
tion completion time (ETC) for every activities
or tasks is required. Consequently, a Gantt chart
should be developed, which is a good tool to
present the sequence, quantity, time of necessary
logistics activities for an event.
An event generally follows a cycle includ-
ing planning, controlling, and finishing stages as
shown on the Figure 3.
Figure 3: General cycle for an event [2]
In the first stage, creation of ideas, planning
for the event is done, so workload is set up at av-
erage level. If the event is accepted, detail plan-
ning and preparation for that event are done, so
workload is increased at commonly highest. In
the next step, manager only follows up the
project progress and makes the modification if
necessary, so the workload is decreased at the
low level until the date of event. This is a long
and idle time of event resources.
At the right time before the event, workload
is increased due to the censorship of all prepara-
tion for the event. During the event, organizer
workload is decreased at the low level. Organizer
only manages, controls, and responds with any
change during the event. Finally, after the event,
a new cycle has to be set up.
To improve efficiency and effectiveness in
using the resources, professional event organiza-
tions can use them to prepare for another event
or parts of another large event during the peak
time of the resources. In addition, a risk plan for
adapting any change that could effect to the
event purposes should be made. Risk is an im-
portant issue that should be managed or planned
for actions if unexpected events happen.
3. OVERVIEW OF EVENT LOGISTICS AC-
TIVITIES IN VIETNAMESE EVENT OR-
GANIZATION COMPANIES
In Vietnam, there are more than 200 organi-
zations providing professional event services and
many other unprofessional ones operating in this
field. This figure accounts for around 10% of
companies operating in media and advertising in-
dustry [6]. Almost Vietnamese companies oper-
ate as a part of groups, so they only do a subpro-
ject of a large event. They usually organize small
events such as wedding, music, opening, and
meeting events, while important and large ones
are usually organized by foreign companies. Ac-
cording to marketing research organization FTA,
event organization industry increases around av-
erage 30% a year, but most Vietnamese compa-
nies are small and medium, so they hardly com-
pete with other foreign companies operating in
this field.
Although event is usually appreciated and
willing to spend much money, effectiveness and
efficiency of the event in terms of costs and re-
sults are always paid high attention. Therefore,
event organizations have to manage logistics
costs at the minimum level to compete with oth-
ers. Unfortunately, Vietnamese professional
event organization companies usually cannot
compete with foreign ones operating in Vietnam
market due to some reasons. A common event
organization company, for example, faces with
some problem as followings. (1) Organization
process: it is not followed officially or some
companies do not issue a standard process for or-
ganizing events. (2) Checklist: Shortcomings in
resources assignment sheet, activities or tasks
checklist, monitoring and controlling rules. (3)
Warehousing: not good in managing; most
equipment, tools, or machines are not arranged
in good ways like 5S system and miss managing
information system. (4) Management of
progress: Schedule delays are regularly happen
due to not enough necessary resources at the
event time, so some event logistics activities
could not finished. As a result, some complaints
are gotten from the customers. (5) Event man-
ager: integration of subprojects is a problem. In
addition, human managing skill is not done well.
(6) Group leader: they are good in experience
and become group leaders, so professional skills
to adapt different event types are not met. (7)
Cost/Budget: Only based on experience to esti-
mate it, so it is usually wrong. (8) Statistics and
forecasting: It is rarely done [7].
Generally, event logistics activities manag-
ing system do not meet requirements of an effec-
tive and efficient event organization company.
Therefore, a good one could support the com-
pany improve its competition.
4. A SUGGESTION TO DESIGN AN EVENT
LOGISTICS ACTIVITIES MANAGING
SYSTEM
Resources requirements for events have to
be identified and depend on type of events.
Therefore, a classification of events should be
done before allocation of resources is done. (1)
Level 1: indoor event (IE) or outdoor event
(OE). (2) Level 2: each type of event at level 1
should be classified into three classes depending
on the expected attendants at the event as follow-
ings. With indoor events, they are small (less
than 200 people) - IE1, medium (range 200 ÷
500 people) – IE2 and large (more than 500 peo-
ple) – IE3 classes. With outdoor events, similarly
they should be classified into small (less than
300 people) – OE1, medium (range 300 ÷ 700
people) – OE2, and large (more than 700 people)
– OE3. (3) Level 3: it depends on the type of
event and generally there are 6 types of events as
followings. (a) IE-1: Arts – Music – Fashion, (b)
IE-2: Company party – Wedding – Birthday (c)
IE-3: Press conference – Common conference –
Workshop; (d) OE-1: Anniversary, (e) OE-2:
Opening – Ground, (f) OE-3: Festival – Fair –
Exhibition. In generally, an event could be fixed
into one of eighteen types of event. It could help
assign resources easier to organize any event.
Actually, each event type has its own re-
sources requirements and competition on re-
sources usually happens. Therefore, priority of
events to be allocated resources should be identi-
fied. There are several temporary types of impor-
tant resources as followings: (1) R1: manager re-
source including event manager and group
leader; (2) R2: Sound system; (3) R3: Light sys-
tem; (4) R4: Camp, event house, production
place, and executing place; (5) R5: Graphic de-
sign, printing, Camera, Video; (6) R6: PG, PB,
MC, Modern, Security, Singer; (7) R7: Closing,
Mascot, Tools, (8) R8: Flower, Gift, memory
Item, Decorate; and (9) R9: Transportation and
food services.
In additions, seven criteria could be used to
determine event priority as followings. (1) Suit-
able with company forte or strength: in 16 event
types mentioned above, it is easy to determine
which one is suitable with company forte or
strength; (2) Profit: it depends on the type of
event, customer, and market competition, so
margins is expected high or low, which usually
ranges from 20% ÷ 50%; (3) Coming date: com-
monly, it follows the rule “first come first
serve”; (4) Importance of loyal customers: usu-
ally, company have a list of close customers, so
they are usually considered to assign a priority;
(5) Scale and Scope of event: Company ability to
accept event complex level, required profes-
sional, and feasibility; (6) Event time and place:
when-where combination in convenience for or-
ganizations; and (7) Remaining time for event:
the event with shorter remaining time should be
done sooner.
Actually, company is usually not interested
on complex calculations and algorithms to ar-
range priority for events with multiple criteria.
They usually set up a brainstorming meeting to
rank events with seven criteria as mentioned
above. This method is known as a simple and ef-
ficient way.
5. A CASE STUDY
An event organization company received or-
ders in a month with detail information shown as
in Table 1. Because of constraints of resources,
company has to make a decision which one(s)
should be undertaken. Therefore, a rank of
events was identified before assignment of re-
sources was done.
Table 1: List of events
No.
Event con-tent Place
At-ten-dance
Type of event
1
Ground to construct Transimex Distribution Center
Song than 2 IP, Binh Duong
250 OE1-2
2Funny Fair Saigon Exhi-bition
Le Thanh Ton, Dist. 1
400 OE2-3
3
Opening event of Nha Be Conrock Company
Hiep Phuoc IP 250 OE2-
1
4
The 9th An-niversary of Dat Xanh Group
234, Ngo Tat To, Binh Thanh Dist.
500 IE3-2
5
Eternal beauty night –HCMC model Club
Model Club Dong Khoi St., Dist. 1
350 IE2-1
6
Business Networking Agency & Supplier
Riverside Palace, Ben Van Don st., DisT. 4
150 IE1-3
7Wedding party at Thao Dien Village
Thao Dien, Dist. 2
600 IE3-2
8Saigon busi-ness man night
White Palace 500 IE2-
2
There are seven criteria considered as men-
tioned above, so a group of experts was set up to
evaluate event orders. Each considered event
was scored from 1 to 5 as mentioned above fol-
lowing those criteria. The evaluated result is
shown as in Table 2.
Table 2: Score of event orders
Criteria
Event 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
OE1-2 5 4 5 5 4 2 4
OE2-3 2 3 2 2 2 5 2
OE2-1 5 5 1 3 4 3 1
IE3-2 4 1 4 5 1 5 3
IE2-1 3 2 5 5 3 5 5
IE1-3 4 3 2 3 4 4 4
IE3-2 5 4 2 5 3 4 4
IE2-2 5 3 1 5 5 4 5Wei-Ght 0.21 0.15 0.18 0.14 0.09 0.11 0.12
A rank of event orders was determined
based on total score of each one as shown in Ta-
ble 3. Therefore, manager is easy to select which
one(s) should be done.
Table 3: Rank of event orders
RANK EventType of event Total score
1 Event 1 OE1-2 6.09
2 Event 8 IE2-2 4.83
3 Event 7 IE3-2 4.41
4 Event 5 IE2-1 3.78
5 Event 3 OE2-1 3.78
6 Event 6 IE1-3 3.78
7 Event 4 IE3-2 2.94
8 Event 2 OE2-3 2.31
A suggested process to assign resources in
this case study brings a better result. Company
could undertake three or four events among eight
considered ones. Research result suggested that
company should select event 1, event 8 and
event 5 with its resource constraints while crite-
ria are satisfied at the high level, as shown in Ta-
ble 4.
Table 4: Resource assignment results
Event 1 (OE1-2)
Event 8 (IE2-2)
Event 5 (IE2-1)
Redun-dant re-source
R1
1 event manager, 3 leader
1 event manager 8 leader
1 event manager 3 leader
1 leader
R2
2 com-mon Sound systems
1 profes-sional sound system
1 profes-sional sound sys-tem
1 com-mon sound system
R3 20m2 led
1 profes-sional light sys-tem
1 profes-sional light sys-tem
2 light systems, 30m2 led
R4
A stage 5mx10m Frame 700m2, pallet 1000m2,Carpet
A stage 6mx12m
A stage 5mx10m
2000m2 pallet200m2 Carpet
1000m2
250 chairs
R5 10 days 10 days 7 days 0 days
It is a better result in comparison with the
experience method done by the company. Actu-
ally, company only undertook two events, event
8 and event 4, so most resources were rarely
used in the final week of that month.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Event organization industry is a new field in
Vietnam, but it will bring potential benefits and
also challenges for Vietnamese companies.
Event logistics activities management is an im-
portant system of any event organization com-
pany. This research suggests a way to integrate
project management models to manage event lo-
gistics activities with a case study as an illustra-
tion, and shows promising results.
THIẾT KẾ HỆ THỐNG QUẢN LÝ CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG LOGISTICS SỰ KIỆN
Đỗ Ngọc Hiền, Nguyễn Thanh Tâm, Lê Ngọc Quỳnh Lam
Trường Đại Học Bách Khoa, ĐHQG - HCM
TÓM TẮT: Công nghiệp tổ chức sự kiện là một lĩnh vực mới tại Việt Nam và hứa hẹn sẽ mang lại
nhiều lợi nhuận tiềm năng cho các công ty nếu hoạt động hiệu quả. Không may là các công ty Việt nam
không thể cạnh tranh nổi với các công ty nước ngoài về nhiều mặt như ý tưởng, kinh nghiệm, khả năng
sáng tạo, công nghệ, và ngân sách. Quản lý hoạt động logistics sự kiện là một yếu tố cạnh tranh quan
trọng và thường các công ty Việt Nam không làm tốt việc này. Nghiên cứu này đề xuất cách thức cải thiện
điều đó và trường hợp điển cứu được trình bày như là một minh họa cho cách thức đề suất với kết quả rất
hứa hẹn.
Từ khóa: Hệ thống logistics sự kiện; Mô hình quản lý dự án; bài toán phân bổ nguồn lực
REFERENCES
[1]. Lưu V. N, Tổ chức sự kiện, (2009).
[2]. Julia S., Professional Event Coordination,
(2004)
[3]. John J.C., and Edward J.B., The Manage-
ment of Business Logistics,( 2002).
[4]. Martin C., Marketing Logistics, (2003).
[5]. Avraham S., Jonathan F. B., and Globerson
S., Project Management, (1994)
[6]. Vietnam Yellow pages 2012.
[7]. Nguyen T.T., and Do N-H., A design of
event logistics activities management system for
MIO Communications Company.