Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Description

The scope of logistics management is wider than just optimizing transportation costs. Decisions about logistics have their effect on inventories, on packaging, on materials handling and on purchasing and marketing (sales) decisions and vice versa. The terms logistics and supply chain management are sometimes used interchangeably. Some say there is no difference between the two terms, that supply chain management is the “new“ logistics. Logistics is new unique, it never stops! Logistics is happening around the globe 24 hours days Seven days a week during fifty-two weeks a year. Few areas of business involve the complexity or span the geography typical of logistics. Logistics is concerned with getting products and services where they are needed whenever they are desired. Most consumers take a high level of logistical competency for granted. Purchasing, materials handling, logistics, transportation, inventory control, and supply chain management have continued to evolve, causing many of these functional areas to intersect with one another. This intersection has resulted in blurred definitions for some of these terms such as logistics and supply chain management. Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers (Harland, 1996). Supply chain management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption (supply chain). "Supply Chain is the network of organizations that are involved, through upstream and downstream linkages, in the different processes and activities that produce value in the form of products and services in the hands of the ultimate consumer". The book is designed to contribute to the existing body of literature available on supply chain management.