Logistics

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Inside Nexus Distribution, a United States logistics provider. Image shows goods stacked on pallets with forklift.

Logistics can be considered as a tool for getting resources, like products, services, and people, where they are needed and when they are desired. It is difficult to accomplish any marketing or manufacturing without logistical support. It involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging. The operating responsibility of logistics is the geographical repositioning of raw materials, work in process, and finished inventories where required at the lowest cost possible.

The dictionary definition of logistics is: "The time related positioning of resources."

As such, logistics is commonly seen as a branch of engineering which creates "people systems" rather than "machine systems".

Contents

1 Background
2 Business logistics
3 Military logistics
4 See also
5 External links

Background

Logistics can be defined as having the right quantity at the right time for the right price. It is the science of process. Incorporates all industry sectors, and manages the fruition of project life cycles, supply chains and resultant efficiencies.

Logistics as a concept is considered to evolve from the military's need to supply themselves as they moved from their base to a forward position. In ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine empires, there were military officers with the title ‘Logistikas’ who were responsible for financial and supply distribution matters. The Oxford English dictionary defines logistics as: “The branch of military science having to do with procuring, maintaining and transporting material, personnel and facilities.”

Logistics as its own concept in business evolved only in the 1950s. This was mainly due to the increasing complexity of supplying one's business with materials and shipping out products in an increasingly globalized supply chain, calling for experts in the field.

Moving a container from road to rail transportation

Business logistics

In business, logistics may have either internal focus, or external focus covering the flow from originating supplier to end-user (see supply chain management). The main functions of a logistics manager include purchasing, transport, warehousing, and the organizing and planning of these activities. Logistics managers combine a general knowledge of each of these functions so that there is a coordination of resources in an organization. There are two fundamentally different forms of logistics. One optimizes a steady flow of material through a network of transport links and storage nodes. The other coordinates a sequence of resources to carry out some project.

Military logistics

In military logistics, experts manage how and when to move resources to the places they are needed. In military science, maintaining one's supply lines while disrupting those of the enemy is a crucial—some would say the most crucial—element of military strategy, since an armed force without food, fuel and ammunition is defenseless.

The Iraq war was a dramatic example of the importance of logistics. It had become very necessary for the US and its allies to move huge amounts of men, materials and equipment over great distances. Logistics was successfully used for this effective movement. The defeat of the British in the American War of Independence, and the defeat of Rommel in World War II, have been largely attributed to logistical failure. The historical leaders Hannibal Barca and Alexander the Great are considered to have been logistical geniuses.

External links