Logistical System of Services

Definitions and Significance of Logistics

For the first time the term ‘ logistics ’ as a combination of tasks including production, transportation and utilization of goods, information and various resources was used in the mid-twentieth century, while before it had been used only in a military context, not touching on economics.

Besides, logistics, according to The European Committee for Standardization, stands for planning, organizing, coordinating, and implementing the expedient movement and placing of goods/people/etc., and for the activities supporting the abovementioned practices.

Logistics bridges the dimensions of time and space within a system, which makes it one of the most important units of economics.

Since 1950s, logistics has transformed from a simple operational supporter to a complex process, becoming a comprehensive network of aims and activities. One of the graphic descriptions of modern logistics is Seven R’s: the right product in the right quantity, with the right quality, at the right place, time, costs, and for the right customer, where ‘right’ is always individual and depends on the various factors.

Furthermore, Klaus offers a theory of the third meaning of logistics, which discusses the evolution of the actual transport of goods and the modern understanding of Flow Management, i.e. the understanding of logistics that is necessary in the contemporary economy of divided labor. It is the concept of control of continuously moving flow systems, and logistics is seen as an economic phenomenon that includes activities and processes in chains and networks in order to transform relevant goods and information. According to Flow Management, the main goals (and also the standard problems) of logistics are cost reduction of the transportation processes, making logistics system more adaptable, and enhancement of value of the goods during the logistics process.

The more specific definition of the services that logistics renders in order to achieve its aims will be given in the following.

Logistical System of Services

The logistical system of services consists of various components among which are the core services, i.e. the ones directly supported by the logistical information services and the concomitant ones (e.g. order processing, storage and transport, and transshipment that is closely connected with the latter two).

Order processing gives logistics its dynamic character and consists of, mainly, the processing and monitoring of the order data during the entire logistics process, and of the initiation of invoicing processes.

Storage denotes the warehousing of goods, which have mostly been produced for an anonymous market in order to countervail the divergence of supply and demand.

Finally, transport diminishes the distance between the production site and the storage location, followed by the delivery location, which means it offsets the spatial divergence of supply and demand.

Apart from the core services, there are information services, which produce and utilize data about the goods and their transportation, like information about the forwarder, the recipient, the type and quality of goods etc. That data is the key to planning, monitoring, and supervising in the provision of the actual logistics services, which means there is a tight connection between information and core services.

Then, supplementary information services (references to additional information about the goods, e.g. prices and discounts) and additional services (e.g. advertising packages and labeling of goods) can usually be incorporated into the logistical core process without expanding further organizational effort, which leads to creation of additional value and can also be used for marketing purposes.

At last, there are additional services of logistics, including picking, palletizing of goods for economical shipping, additional packaging for protection etc.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30