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.