Enhancing cross border operational efficiency with techno-social systems
Abstract
The emerging of global value chains means that, for a country or region to fully take advantage of this global phenomenon, then that country or region will need to be competitive in many areas of trade including trade corridor transaction costs. African trade corridors are not competitive enough to take advantage of the global value chains and other economic benefits. This is because the transaction costs within African trade corridors are very high compared to other countries and regions. The work described in this thesis aims to find ways of improving the efficiency of African trade corridors, and in particular, the cross border operations. Three simulation models were developed in order to investigate three aspects of cross border operations: the customs cargo clearance processes at a border post; some component elements of CREMS (customs risk engine and management system), which comprised of GPS (Global Positioning System) cargo trucks tracking data and infraction detection procedures; and the human behavioural models as applied to cross border operations. The results of the investigation show that, it is possible to reduce cross border transit time by at least 75%. The results also show that, when risk assessment is determined by use of a combination of a posteriori assessment procedure together with real time GPS tracking data, infraction detection by CREMS can be improved by at least 26% compared to the legacy system. The results further show that, with appropriate reward and incentive schemes, it is possible to further improve the performance of trade corridors from human behavioural perspective by at least 16%. When techno-social techniques are applied in curbing adverse human conduct, the cross border transit time was further reduced by at least 18%. The conclusion drawn from the results is that, if technological or technical systems are to be effective in applications where there is intensive human involvement, then such technological/technical systems should be designed to take into account the human and social elements – techno-socio solutions.
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