Logistics

Introduction

This book is comprised of 42 complementary sheets exploring logistics. Each sheet provides a key point, in-depth analysis and dedicated references.

I.1. Sheet 1: The Logistics Function

Key point

The logistics function is central in and between companies. Some even say that without logistics, there can be no professional activity. The importance of its evolution is reflected throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries. Generally speaking, there are five key dates. Before the war of 1939–1945, we were in a “stewardship” rationale. We managed production activity as best we could. From 1945 to the 1970s – the period of the Glorious Thirty – attention was paid to the physical flow and in particular the downstream flow of distribution. We were in a “mass consumption” phase, where the company’s interest was to deliver as many products as possible to the maximum number of customers. We were in a “standardization” rationale here, in an approach known as “push flow”. Industrialization and competition in the 1980s forced companies to tightly control their costs. This financial control was part of logistics activity, through the implementation of analytical accounting (often evaluated using Activity-Based Costing) which allowed us to assess the profitability of a product and/or a range of products. The 1990s highlighted the “flow of information” as a key issue in logistics. By this, we mean the importance of “customization”, a “pull-flow” approach where the customer’s “fixed ...