Challenges of Halal Logistics in Malaysia

Title: Challenges of Halal Logistics in Malaysia

INTRODUCTION

        The article that we had reviewed were all focusing on the challenges and the opportunities or strength of Halal Logistic in Malaysia. ‘Halal’ is a word from Arabic which means lawful or permissible where it covers actions of human being, things and animals. Meanwhile, halal logistics is the process of managing the material and information flow throughout the supply chain in accordance of the halal standard. The material flow covers the transport, storage and terminal operations. The information flows cover the management of data in supply chain such as product information, demand data and halal logistics label, code and certificate. Technology factors, environmental factors, management’s factors, and government factors by Tan et al. (2012) need to be considered in order to adopt the halal transportation for halal logistics in Malaysia. In addition, other factors that need to be considered if a company would like to change are organizational members’ beliefs, attitudes and intention to change (Weiner, 2009). Thus, the challenges and the opportunities or strength of Halal Logistics in Malaysia are determined by the organization it self either they are able to adapt to the situation and change the way they organize their company in order to attract the Muslim Tourists.

ARTICLE SUMMARY

Based on the article “HALAL LOGISTICS IN MALAYSIA: A SWOT ANALYSIS” by Mohamed Syazwan Ab Talib and Abu Bakar Abdul Hamid in 2013, it discussed about the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats in the Halal logistics environment. The strengths of the Halal logistic are come from the internal factors of a strong support from the Malaysian government. First effort is by establishing a Department of Islamic Development Malaysia in the year of 1982 that nowadays known as JAKIM. Second is the reputable Halal logistics service provider. In Malaysia, many providers in term of transportation and warehouse for storage have the halal certificate from JAKIM and the Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM). Known as a Model for Muslim Country also one of the strength for Halal logistics in Malaysia because the United Nation had recognized Malaysia as the best country in producing Halal products and holds reputable image among other Muslim countries (Bohari et al., 2013). The issues that concern in this article is about the certification and handling. This is the weakness of Halal logistics in Malaysia. One of the important issues is about the Halal logo that is fake or outdated. Halal logo have many cases of misused by irresponsible parties such as putting a Halal logo in a product that may contain non-Halal substances. Another issues are the lack of consistency in the term of animal slaughtering and the Halal logo on a packaging of a product that contain non-Halal ingredients has been stated by Farouk et al. (2006). This issues really concerning because it makes the Halal logo unreliable.

In the article of “Halal Logistic Certificate in Malaysia: Challenges and Practices” by Nuur Fathin Roslan, Fauziah Abdul Rahman, Faradina Ahmad and Noor Irdiana Ngadiman (2016), discussed about the challenges and practices of Halal logistics certificate in Malaysia. The issues in these studies is about the Halal certification of the Halal logistics Service Provider (LSP). Malaysia only have 9 from 303 logistics company that have Halal Logistic Certificate. The procedure of the Halal logistic certificate application are maintain and same for every application made by all logistic companies. There are 7 qualification as stated in the JAKIM Handbook need to be follow in order for the application to be approved which is the application must be register with Company Commission of Malaysia (SSM) and other government agency, have a business licence from local authority, fully operate before making the application, handle Halal Product only and follow the standard request, ensure all material have halal certificate, apply to all types of product produce and the premise, and for repackaging activity that need to submit halal certificate for the product.      

Based on the article “Issues, Challenges and Strengths of the Halal Logistics in Malaysia” by Syuhaida I. A. R. et, al. (2018) stated that the delivery process of halal products across the supply chain until towards the customer are the responsibility of the food manufacturer and it is their responsibility to ensure that their logistics activity are comply with the requirements of halal food way of handling them. In Malaysia, the halal certificate that introduced by Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (JAKIM) is encouraged to be owned by the product and service producer, manufacturer, distributor, trader, repackaging, food premise and the abattoir. According to Syazwan et. al. (2013), there are several challenges of the halal logistics in Malaysia, which is the integration among the logistics service providers, between Halal authorities and logistic providers, financial challenges and perception of implementing Halal logistics and lastly about the government’s support and promotion of Halal logistics. According to Sirajuddin et. al.(2016), In order to ensure that Halal logistics is success, the support and collaboration between all parties such as Halal logistics service providers, Halal authorities, governments, product or service manufacturers and consumer are all needed and for sure it will leave a greater impact on the growth of Malaysian economics and Muslims in general.