REASONS FOR LOGISTICS TO EXIST
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Logistics management from this total system is the means whereby the needs of customers are satisfied through the coordination of the materials and information flows that extend from the marketplace through the firm and its operations and beyond that to supplies.
For example for many years marketing and manufacturing have been seen as largely separate activities within the organization. At best they have coexisted, at worst there has been open warfare. Manufacturing priorities and objectives have typically been focused on operating efficiency, achieved through long production runs, minimized setups, changeovers and product standardization. On the other hand marketing has sought to achieve competitive advantage through variety, high service levels and frequent product changes.
In today’s more turbulent environment there is no longer any possibility of manufacturing and marketing acting independently of each other.
It is now generally accepted that the need to understand and meet customer requirements is a prerequisite for survival. At the same time, in the search for improved cost competitiveness, manufacturing management has been the subject of massive renaissance. The last decade has seen the rapid introduction of flexible manufacturing systems, of new approaches to inventory based on materials requirement planning (MRP) and just in time (JIT) methods, a sustained emphasis on quality.
Equally there has been a growing recognition of the critical role that procurement plays in creating and sustaining competitive advantage as part of an integrated logistics process.
In this scheme of things, logistics is therefore essentially an integrative concept that seeks to develop a system wide view of the firm. It is fundamentally a planning concept that seeks to create a framework through which the needs of the manufacturing strategy and plan, which in turn links into a strategy and plan for procurement
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