Importance of Transportation and Logistics Management for the Dubai Expo 2020 - Capstone Project Example

The paper "Importance of Transportation and Logistics Management for the Dubai Expo 2020" is a good example of a capstone project on management. The Expo 2020 is a term that connotes a Global-scale registered Exposition slot of the time commissioned by the BIE (Bureau of International Expositions). Following the requisite procedure, Dubai was selected for the Expo 2020. The Theme for this Expo will be ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future (Maeve 2013). In that respect, the sub-themes for the Expo include opportunity, sustainability, and mobility.

While this event may seem like just another normal world event, the logistics involved, especially transportation logistics are massive. The Expo is particularly important to the region as it is the first of its kind in the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and South Asia (SA) region. The significance of this Expo was witnessed through the events that followed Dubai’s victory of the right to hold the Expo. Subsequently, fireworks erupted over the Burj Khalifa followed by the declaration of a public holiday.

The Expo will be held on a 438-hectare site with a strategic connection to the three mega airports in the country. Besides, a dedicated transport network will ensure that all the visitors meet and interact with the spectacular architecture, witness overwhelming exhibitions, and meet a diversity of cultures across the region and the world. The events and preparations leading to the Expo are expected to add 277, 000 jobs to the UAE employment sector (Al Maktoum 2015) with an addition of more than $40 billion into the region’s economy.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed, the Dubai ruler, assured the world of an astonishingly choreographed and smooth event. The Expo would see a sudden rise in the country’s GDP, hence, its significance and the necessity of its seamless undertaking. Most importantly, the country and the entire region have to make critical changes in their transport and logistic systems, which calls for integrated transport and logistics management. Essentially, transportation refers to the movement of services, commodities, and goods from one geographical location to the other (Trivedi 2010).

On a dissimilar note, logistics define the science and art of producing, finding, and distributing products and materials in the required places in their respective quantities. Thus, transportation and logistics management comprises the planning, executing, and monitoring the composite processes and procedures for efficient transportation and handling of the goods and services from one point to the other (Rushton 2006). From the definition, it is worth noting that transportation is the central part of logistics while logistics is much more than just transportation.

The other aspects of logistics aside from transportation include packaging, containerization, documentation, insurance, storage, exportation and importation policies, and Freight Damage Claims. Other elements of logistics include collaboration and working with other executives who are part of the supply chain, managing the partners and suppliers as well as risk mitigation and expenditures.Logistics is a wider concept. There exist two major distinctions of logistics. For instance, inbound logistics focuses on the buying and scheduling the inbound movement of the commodities from the suppliers to their clients like retail stores or manufacturing plants.

Conversely, outbound logistics is concerned with the movement of the finished products from the final part of the production line to the end-user. However, as the core part of the logistics, transportation also includes various composite aspects whose contribution to the transportation chain and management cannot be ignored. The particulate aspects include transportation sourcing, rating, planning, tendering, and freight payment and audit. In their distinction, both transportation and logistics management are vital aspects of the planning and subsequent success of any event.

The stakes of the importance of such considerations are even higher when looking at a massive global event like the Dubai Expo 2020.