EXPLORING THE PROCESS OF AQUA LOGISTICS IN THE MALAYSIAN AQUACULTURE INDUSTRY- A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Background: The production of freshwater aquaculture fish has developed quickly and being important activity. An intensive logistics system is required to handle the shipment since the aquaculture products especially aquaculture fish are perishable. The process begins right after fish farming to final consumption. It involves a large number of stakeholders as the significant effort is required to build an efficient supply chain. However, little is known about process faced by the Malaysian aquaculture entrepreneurs during the aqua logistics activities. Therefore, this study aims to address this gap by exploring this phenomenon.

Methods: For methodology part, a series of 12 aquaculture companies through focus group discussion (FGD) with the entrepreneurs were done across aqua logistic business. This was done to explore the topic and refine the research questions.

Results: The present study discovers that there were linkages along the value chain of aqua logistics in aquaculture industry, which provides a specific recommendation to stakeholders in managing day-to-day logistics operations. Also, the findings show four main process emerging from the qualitative study, which led to the following themes, namely: [i] procurement; [ii] production; [iii] order fulfillment; and [iv] transport and distribution.

Conclusion: The adopted qualitative methodology provided rich information that will lead the future research. In brief, this study has contributed new knowledge to the existing literature in aqua logistics and will benefit the future studies.