Logistics

Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption according to the needs of customers, and a logistician is a professional working in the field of logistics management. Logistics management is a component that holds the supply chain together. The resources managed in logistics include physical goods such as materials, equipment, and foodstuffs, and also intangible items such as time and information. Military logistics is concerned with maintaining army supply lines with food, armaments, ammunition, and spare parts, apart from the transportation of troops themselves. Civil logistics deals with acquiring, moving, and storing raw materials, semi-finished goods, and finished goods. For organisations that provide garbage collection, mail deliveries, public utilities, and after-sales services, logistical problems must be addressed. Logistics deals with the movement of materials or products from one facility to another; it does not include material flow within production or assembly plants, such as production planning or single-machine scheduling. Logistics accounts for a significant amount of the operational costs of an organisation or country. Dedicated simulation software can model, analyse, visualise, and optimize logistic complexities. Minimizing resource use is a common motivation in all logistics fields.

Nomenclature

The term logistics is attested in English from 1846. It is from the French logistique, which was either coined or popularized by a Swiss military officer and writer, Antoine-Henri Jomini, who defined it in his Summary of the Art of War (Précis de l'Art de la Guerre). The term appears in the 1830 edition, then titled Analytic Table (Tableau Analytique), and Jomini explains that it is derived from French: logis, lit. 'lodgings' (cognate to English lodge), in the terms French: maréchal des logis, lit. 'marshall of lodgings' and French: major-général des logis, lit. 'major-general of lodging':

Autrefois les officiers de l’état-major se nommaient: maréchal des logis, major-général des logis; de là est venu le terme de logistique, qu’on emploie pour désigner ce qui se rapporte aux marches d’une armée. Formerly the officers of the general staff were named marshal of lodgings, major-general of lodgings; from there came the term logistics [logistique], which we employ to designate those who are in charge of the functioning of an army. The term and its etymology were criticized in 1832 by Georges de Chambray:

Logistique: Ce mot me paraît être tout-à-fait nouveau, car je ne l'avais encore vu nulle part dans la littérature militaire. … il paraît le faire dériver du mot logis, étymologie singulière … Logistic: This word appears to me to be completely new, as I have not yet seen it anywhere in military literature. … he appears to derive it from the word lodgings [logis], a peculiar etymology … Chambray also notes that the term logistique was present in the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française as a synonym for algebra. The French word: logistique is a homonym of the existing mathematical term, from Ancient Greek: λογῐστῐκός, romanized: logistikós, a traditional division of Greek mathematics; the mathematical term is presumably the origin of the term logistic in logistic growth and related terms. Some sources give this instead as the source of logistics, either ignorant of Jomini's statement that it was derived from logis, or dubious and instead believing it was in fact of Greek origin, or influenced by the existing term of Greek origin.

Definition Jomini originally defined logistics as

... l'art de bien ordonner les marches d'une armée, de bien combiner l'ordre des troupes dans les colonnes, les tems [temps] de leur départ, leur itinéraire, les moyens de communications nécessaires pour assurer leur arrivée à point nommé ... ... the art of well-ordering the functionings of an army, of well combining the order of troops in columns, the times of their departure, their itinerary, the means of communication necessary to assure their arrival at the right time ...

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. 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. Furthermore, the term "supply chain management" originally referred to, among other issues, having an integrated vision of both production and logistics from the point of origin to the point of production.

Logistics activities

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