The logistics involves planning, implementing and controlling efficient, effective flow and storage of goods and services from the beginning point of external origin to the company and from the company to the point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements. Logistics is generally viewed as within one company, although it manages flow between company and its suppliers and customers. Supply chain management includes logistics flows, the customer order management and production processes and information flows necessary to monitor all activities at the supply chain nodes.
Traditional view of many organizations is modeled after military organizations where many players are under the command of leaders. Then, many related tasks have to be performed by different people from different function. Doing this way, coordination among each function is not effective because each function considers only their own objectives.
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| Traditional View of Logistics Function |
Modern logistics are now pay attention to more integrated process under the same unit to formulate more productive work flow.
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| Integrated Logistics Management Concept |
Lots of academic literature now is moving forward to supply chain management trend then the boundary of logistics and supply chain management is pretty blur. In order to understand the core concept while doing my thesis, I turned to doctoral dissertation. Stock (2001) complied the list of doctoral dissertation in logistics published during 1992-1998. The graph below is the summary of top ten dissertations classified by subject area in.
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| Number of Doctoral Dissertation from 1992-1998 |
Implication is that, if you want master it, you need to have profound knowledge across various topics. If you are production planner, you can't just blame customer service and procurement for demand/supply imbalance problem. Each function should know what the others are doing and try to help each other.
The increasing numbers of dissertations investigating these broader and more pervasive issues reflect some of the changes taking place within the logistics discipline. With the recognition that logistics is a boundary-spanning activity; with logistics viewed as a way organization to develop sustainable competitive advantage; and in recognition that logistics can contribute to customer satisfaction and value-added; it is not unexpected that these dissertation subject areas have shown increases.
Recommended Reading
I would like to recommend you to check out these books. Most of them have a short preview available through Google Book.
- Marketing Logistics. Understanding customers is the gateway to improve operations. Customer facing function then should have thorough understanding about the concept. This book will equipment you with all necessary tools to achieve this.
- Purchasing and Supply Chain Management. This is a classic book for purchasing professionals. Each chapter comes with key concept, questions and case study. This is very good reference for graduate students in business.
- IOMA Handbook of Logistics and Inventory Management. If you need good reference covering all aspects of logistics, this book is the one for you. Each chapter provides you with basic concept, tools and check sheet that you can use to management day-to-day operations.
- Sales and Operations Planning. Every demand planner should read this book. Reducing forecast error doesn't necessarily improve service level/reduce cost.
- Warehouse & Distribution Science. This book clearly explains about the concept and techniques used by modern warehouse to improve operations. There are also questions at the end of each chapter to test your overall understanding. The authors are J. Bartholdi and S. Hackman. This is the free e-book, provided to you by Supply Chain and Logistics Institute at Georgia Tech University. "You are welcome to use them so long as the copyrights remain intact, credit for authorship is acknowledged, and nothing is resold at profit.", this is the word from authors.
- Transportation: a Supply Chain Perspective. This book covers 3 aspects of
transportation in logistics/supply chain context, mode of transportation and transportation planning and execution. The book is filled with key concepts, case study, summary and end-of-chapter questions.
Update 20 Jan 2013: this article represent classical concept of logistics. Anyway, new evidences about the origin of logistics has been found here.
Update 20 Jan 2013: this article represent classical concept of logistics. Anyway, new evidences about the origin of logistics has been found here.