LOGISTICS, HOW TO ORGANIZE COMPLEX OPERATIONS

The Grandma visits Gavà, El Baix Llobregat

Today, The Grandma has been in Gavà participating in a new course about the importance of new technologies and digitalization in Logistics.  It is a very interesting theme and she has wanted to know more things about it. The Grandma has spent a fantastic day because she has been sharing this course with some old friends from Gavà and Begues and they have been talking about past experiences, present chances and future dreams.

Before going to Gavà, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.

19. Sharing Documents (I) (Spanish Version)

Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics is the management of the flow of things between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet requirements of customers or corporations.

The resources managed in logistics may include tangible goods such as materials, equipment, and supplies, as well as food and other consumable items.

The logistics of physical items usually involves the integration of information flow, materials handling, production, packaging, inventory, transportation, warehousing, and often security.

Logistics management is the part of supply chain management that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective forward, and reverse flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customer's requirements. The complexity of logistics can be modeled, analyzed, visualized, and optimized by dedicated simulation software. The minimization of the use of resources is a common motivation in all logistics fields. A professional working in the field of logistics management is called a logistician.

Logistics

The term logistics is attested in English from 1846, and is from French logistique. The Oxford English Dictionary defines logistics as the branch of military science relating to procuring, maintaining and transporting material, personnel and facilities. However, the New Oxford American Dictionary defines logistics as the detailed coordination of a complex operation involving many people, facilities, or supplies, and the Oxford Dictionary on-line defines it as the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. As such, logistics is commonly seen as a branch of engineering that creates people systems rather than machine systems.

According to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (previously the Council of Logistics Management), logistics is the process of planning, implementing and controlling procedures for the efficient and effective transportation and storage of goods including services and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements and includes inbound, outbound, internal and external movements.

More information: Project Manager

Academics and practitioners traditionally refer to the terms operations or production management when referring to physical transformations taking place in a single business location (factory, restaurant or even bank clerking) and reserve the term logistics for activities related to distribution, that is, moving products on the territory.

Managing a distribution center is seen, therefore, as pertaining to the realm of logistics since, while in theory the products made by a factory are ready for consumption they still need to be moved along the distribution network according to some logic, and the distribution center aggregates and processes orders coming from different areas of the territory. That being said, from a modeling perspective, there are similarities between operations management and logistics, and companies sometimes use hybrid professionals, with for example a Director of Operations or a Logistics Officer working on similar problems.

Logistics

Furthermore, the term supply chain management originally refers to, among other issues, having an integrated vision of both production and logistics from point of origin to point of production. All these terms may suffer from semantic change as a side effect of advertising.

Inbound logistics is one of the primary processes of logistics concentrating on purchasing and arranging the inbound movement of materials, parts, or unfinished inventory from suppliers to manufacturing or assembly plants, warehouses, or retail stores.

Outbound logistics is the process related to the storage and movement of the final product and the related information flows from the end of the production line to the end user.

One definition of business logistics speaks of having the right item in the right quantity at the right time at the right place for the right price in the right condition to the right customer. Business logistics incorporates all industry sectors and aims to manage the fruition of project life cycles, supply chains, and resultant efficiencies.

The term business logistics has evolved since the 1960s due to the increasing complexity of supplying businesses with materials and shipping out products in an increasingly globalized supply chain, leading to a call for professionals called supply chain logisticians.

More information: Flash Global

In business, logistics may have either an internal focus (inbound logistics) or an external focus (outbound logistics), covering the flow and storage of materials from point of origin to point of consumption. The main functions of a qualified logistician include inventory management, purchasing, transportation, warehousing, consultation, and the organizing and planning of these activities. Logisticians combine a professional knowledge of each of these functions to coordinate 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, while the other coordinates a sequence of resources to carry out some project.

Logistics automation is the application of computer software or automated machinery to improve the efficiency of logistics operations. Typically this refers to operations within a warehouse or distribution center with broader tasks undertaken by supply chain management systems and enterprise resource planning systems.

Industrial machinery can typically identify products through either barcode or RFID technologies. Information in traditional bar codes is stored as a sequence of black and white bars varying in width, which when read by laser is translated into a digital sequence, which according to fixed rules can be converted into a decimal number or other data. Sometimes information in a bar code can be transmitted through radio frequency, more typically radio transmission is used in RFID tags. An RFID tag is card containing a memory chip and an antenna which transmits signals to a reader. RFID may be found on merchandise, animals, vehicles and people as well.

More information: Enjoy a new course-Introduction to Logistics

When we talk about 'smart transportation,'

it is more than moving cargo from A to B.

Digitization within transport and logistics means 

seamless service to our customers, visibility in the supply chain, 

and driving a more efficient business.

Soren Skou