Couertsy:transportgeography.or

Derived from the Greek term logistikos (to calculate), the word logistics is polysemic. In the 19th century, the military referred to it as the art of combining all means of transport, revictualling, and sheltering of troops. In a contemporary setting, it refers to the set of operations required for goods to be made available on markets or to specific locations. The growth of freight flows has been a fundamental component of contemporary economic systems changes at the global, regional, and local scales, which has made logistics increasingly relevant. These changes are not merely quantitative with more freight in circulation, but also structural and operational. Structural changes mainly involve manufacturing systems with their expanded geography of production, while operational changes mainly concern freight transportation with its geography of distribution, namely intermodal transport systems. As such, the fundamental question does not necessarily reside in the nature, origins, and destinations of freight movements, but how this freight is moving. New modes of production are concomitant with new modes of distribution, which brings forward the realm of logistics; the science of physical distribution.

The application of logistics enables greater efficiency of movements with an appropriate choice of modes, terminals, routes, and scheduling. The implied purpose of logistics is to make available goods, raw materials, and commodities, fulfilling four major requirements related to order, delivery, quality, and cost fulfillment. Logistics is thus a multidimensional value-added activity, including production, location, time, and control of elements of the supply chain. It thus enables a better managerial level of space-time relations and as such, an important aspect of transport geography. Logistics acts as the material and organizational support of globalization, requiring a complex set of decisions to be made concerning an array of issues such as the location of suppliers, the transport modes to be used, where the freight will be stored, and the timing and sequencing of deliveries.

The distinction between logistics and supply chain management can be subject to contention since the terms are often used interchangeably. Previously, logistics tended to focus on transportation and warehousing aspects, while supply chain management would consider sourcing as well as final distribution. In recent years the meaning of both has converged. Thus, logistics and supply chain management can be considered as similar and interchangeable terms, but the term supply chain management is usually considered to be more comprehensive since it also considers the competitive aspects of distribution. Activities comprising logistics include physical distribution; the derived transport segment, and materials management; the induced transport segment.

Physical distribution is the range of activities involved in the movement of goods from points of production to final points of sale and consumption. It must ensure that the mobility requirements of supply chains are entirely met. Physical distribution includes all the functions of movement and handling of goods, particularly transportation services, transshipment and warehousing services, trade, wholesale, and, in principle, retail. Conventionally, all these activities were assumed to be derived from materials management demands.

Materials management considers all the activities involved in the manufacturing of commodities in all their stages of production along a supply chain. It includes production and marketing activities such as production planning, demand forecasting, purchasing, and inventory management. Materials management must ensure that the requirements of supply chains are met by dealing with a wide array of parts for assembly and raw materials, including packaging (for transport and retailing) and, ultimately, recycling and reusing discarded goods and commodities. All these activities are assumed to be inducing physical distribution demands.

Logistics is commonly represented as a sequence of activities (also referred to as a supply chain) from suppliers, manufacturers, distributors to retailers, each synchronized by cycles such as customer order, replenishment, manufacturing, and procuremen