Logistics Management: meaning, functions, importance, process and best practices

Logistics refers to the overall process of managing how resources are acquired, stored, and transported to their final destination. Logistics management involves identifying prospective distributors and suppliers and determining their effectiveness and accessibility. This is the process of strategically managing the procurement, movement and storage of materials, parts and finished inventory (and the related

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Logistics Defined

The word logistics traces its origin to the Greek word logistikos and the Latin word logisticus, mean­ing the science of computing and calculating. In ancient times, the term was frequently used in connection with the art of moving armies and supplies of food and armaments to the war front. The use of this word

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Scope of Logistics

As against the old concept, which was restricted to the army, logistics has gained recognition in business organizations as an important business function and as a tool for developing competi­tiveness. To an organization how it delivers products and services to the customers—whether the product may be tangible or intangible—is of critical importance. The effective

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Logistics – A System Concept

In a manufacturing enterprise, the business process starts with the flow of material from the sup­pliers to the manufacturing plant and then to the customer through the distribution channel. Traditionally, in the functional organization, the business process consists of discrete activities such as procurement, manufacturing, and distribution under the control of the respective depart­ments.

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Customer Value Chain from Logistics

In recent years, the following three forces have changed the perspectives on logistics: Globalization Focus on supply chain management Outsourcing of non-core-competency functional areas The entire world has become a global village for the marketers because of the liberalization of economies of countries and the emergence of World Trade Organization (WTO), which is forcing

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Logistics Functions

Logistics is a process of movement of goods across the supply chain of a company. However, this pro­cess consists of various functions that have to be properly managed to bring effectiveness and efficiency to the supply chain of the organization. The major logistical functions are shown in Figure 1.2. 1. Order Processing It is

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Logistics for Business Excellence

Logistics is an information-based process of material movement from a supplier to the manufacturer and to the customers. Hence, for business excellence, logistics operations need to be integrated on the following two fronts: Integration of logistics into the business Integration of components of logistics Any business process consists of a set of activities that

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Objectives of Logistics Management

The primary objective of a logistics system is to move the inventory in a supply chain effectively and efficiently to extend the desired level of customer service at the least cost. To achieve this, the following subsets of the above broader objective need to be achieved: 1. Inventory Reduction Inventory is the biggest culprit

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Logistics Solution

Traditionally, manufacturing organizations used to have their in-house logistics departments taking care of all aspects of logistics from the source of raw materials to the delivery of finished products to the customer. But logistics is not the area of core competency of manufacturing or trading organi­zations. Hence, this job needs to be handed over

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Logistics Future

Today corporations are looking for a sustainable competitive advantage not for growth alone for but also for survival. The killing competition is compelling corporations to review their business processes to deliver the products and services to the customers, who are more demanding and looking for the value for money they are spending. Today competition

Customer Service for Competitiveness

Customer service is a set of activities and programs designed and implemented by a business firm to make the buying experience more rewarding. These activities enhance the value of a product or service the customer gets from the seller. Customer service is the most important dimension of product/service offerings to the customer. Value-added customer

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Customer Service Phases

Customer service is the measure of how logistics is creating the time and place utility for a product. The meaning of customer service varies with the organization, the product it is marketing, and the transaction phase it is undergoing. The buyer looks for value for the money he is spending, while the seller, in

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Service Attributes

The most important and critical aspect of customer service is physical distribution of the product; that is, making the right product available at the right place and at the right time, followed by the motivation of service success facilitators such as channel members to complete the physical distri­bution. For FMCG or mass-consumed products wherein

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Value Added Logistical Services

The purpose of providing services is to deliver value to the customer for the money he is spend­ing in acquiring a product. To add value to tangible products, the intangibles, such as after-sales service, are provided to the customer. Similarly, for adding value to intangible products, the help of tangibles is taken. For example,

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What Is Supply Chain Management?

Due to emerging competition in the dynamic markets of globalized economies of countries across the world, business organizations the world over have realized that the business process of satisfying the demand of the customer is of critical importance to them. They realized that a functional approach to business process would no more help in

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Supply Chain Linkages

Integrating the supply chain to improve logistics efficiency is the key challenge. Competition today is not between individual companies but between supply chains. Hence, for a supply chain to be success­ful, it should integrate the three individual business processes of procurement, manufacturing and distribution by consolidating the sub-linkages in each of the above functional

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Role of Logistics in the Supply Chain

Logistics basically connects the source of supply with the sources of demand. It bridges the gaps between market demand and the capabilities of supply sources. Logistics helps in bridging these gaps so as to make them invisible at the points of demand in the supply chain. To achieve this, all compo­nents of the logistics

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Mapping the Supply Chain

To understand the implications of cost and value additions at the different stages of inventory movement in the supply chain, it becomes necessary to map the supply chain. Mapping will give an insight into the scope and opportunities that exist for cost reduction and productivity enhance­ment. The movement of inventory across the supply chain

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E-Business Solutions for Supply

These are computer programs to capture, represent, distribute and apply knowledge to solve specific problems in the logistics supply chain. An Integrated Supply Chain is a cross-functional approach. Hence, critical problems in different functional areas can be resolved using a software solution for a particular area or a comprehensive software to cover all the

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Warehousing – A Logistical Challenge

A warehouse acts as a supporting function for logistics and plays a key role in attaining the overall objectives of the firm’s logistical supply chain system. In today’s context, a warehouse is used as a switching facility rather than a long-term storage house. The attention is paid to higher inventory turnover, lower operating costs

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