Global Logistics For Dummies

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119212164
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Operations

Your one-stop reference for entering the global logistics environment

Global Logistics for Dummies is an operational-level reference and overview for those manufacturers, businesses, product distributors, providers of logistics services, humanitarian and disaster relief responders and logisticians on both ends of a global chain who are considering entry in or have recently embarked on entering the global logistics chain/market. Easy to follow and packed with tons of helpful information, it serves as a springboard to larger texts for more detailed information.

Beginning with an introduction to both the "whats" and "whys" of global logistics, the book sheds light on how global logistics demands the involvement of not only all elements of the logistics enterprise – e.g., design, logistics engineering, supply, storage/distribution, maintenance, transportation, returns/re-manufacturing, etc. – but also all elements of the business enterprise.In no time, it'll get you up to speed on the whole-enterprise logistics elements that should be considered in the decision to enter and excel in providing logistics end-items, goods, and services to a global customer.

• Deliver global disaster and relief logistics support
• Explore global manufacturing and distribution logistics
• Provide logistics services for foreign customers
• Adapt domestic logistics to foreign operating environments

Written by a team of SOLE – The International Society of Logistics credentialed practitioners and academicians, Global Logistics for Dummies makes it easier than ever to succeed in this ever-growing field.

Part 1

Taking Your First Global Steps

IN THIS PART …

Discover both the history and evolution of global logistics, as well as how SOLE – The International Society of Logistics defines the elements of the total logistics enterprise.

Understand not only the role of logistics in global manufacturing and sales, but also how geopolitical and social operating environments affect a company’s decision to “go global.”

Explore a framework for providing logistics services in a foreign environment as well as the types of companies that provide logistics services.

Gain a perspective on the critical need for global humanitarian and disaster relief logistics support, to include an appreciation of the costs and impacts of providing such support.

Chapter 1

Getting Started in Global Logistics

IN THIS CHAPTER

Exploring the history and emergence of global logistics

Introducing SOLE – The International Society of Logistics and its role in “global logistics”

Identifying the elements of the total logistics enterprise

Providing the framework for this overview of global logistics

“The line between order and disorder lies in logistics …”

This succinct observation about the importance of logistics was made over 2,500 years ago by Sun Tzu, the Chinese philosopher and general whose work on military strategy significantly influenced both Western and Eastern philosophy.

The requirements for large-scale manufacturing, purchasing, and distribution were mostly found in support of war campaigns, since an armed force without adequate supplies and transportation was doomed to fail. History’s great military leaders Hannibal, Alexander the Great, and the Duke of Wellington are considered to have been logistical geniuses. Alexander's military campaign from Greece to India (334–324 BC) benefited considerably from his meticulous (and occasionally ruthless) attention to the provisioning of his army. And, in 218 BC, Hannibal’s march of elephants from Spain to Italy over the Alps loaded with his troops and supplies might easily be considered to be history’s first recorded supply chain!

Understanding the Evolution of Global Logistics

As populations grew and trade routes were established and expanded beyond country borders, manufacturing started to ramp up. The British and American industrial revolutions (1760–1870 AD) brought about the capability to produce in larger volumes to meet the growing demand. Often the local repositories of raw materials had become inadequate or totally depleted, which forced manufacturers to expand their sourcing beyond national boundaries.

World Wars I and II significantly increased the need for commercial logistics in order to meet the heavy demands of the fighting forces. Following both wars many of the factories that used to manufacture combat items shifted production not only to meet the growing demand for consumer items but also (and probably more importantly) to remain in business.

As global distribution infrastructures matured, manufacturers realized that profit could be generated from sales beyond one’s own region and nation, and started marketing their products to a more global market. This marketing expansion was made possible both by the development of modern communication technologies and networks, and the deliberate political choice of many nations to open markets to international trade and finance.

The history of organized logistics support to international humanitarian and disaster relief operations is a fairly recent phenomenon. Until the 1970s humanitarian and disaster relief (H&DR) was the sole responsibility of the affected nation; any international support (if it occurred at all) was primarily financial. It has only been in the last 40 years that international manpower and logistics support to augment an affected country’s capabilities has become more prevalent.

Finally, with the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 — which replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) of 1948 — the many individual free-trade agreements that were negotiated between countries were governed under specific rules of international trade. It was through the negotiation and establishment of numerous multinational and regional trade treaties that the world’s “global supply chain” emerged.

Introducing SOLE – The International Society of Logistics

SOLE – The International Society of Logistics was founded in 1966 (originally as the Society of Logistics Engineers) as an international nonprofit professional association. Since then, SOLE has served academia, business and industry, and logistics professionals around the world through its certification and designation programs, training, forums, publications, and thought leadership.

Since its inception, SOLE has been regarded as a highly valued organization that serves the entire spectrum of logistics, focusing on the entire logistics enterprise. The association is perhaps best known for its certification and credentialing programs that recognize the professional expertise and accomplishments of logisticians within commerce, industry, defense, government agencies, academia, and private institutions. In addition to its certification and designation programs, SOLE has long provided other critical avenues for professional support, education, and advancement for logistics practitioners.

SOLE’s many accomplishments include the following:

• Recognition as ethical, objective, and expert consultants to the highest levels of government and industry. As such, SOLE has helped US federal agencies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) to plan, host, manage, and facilitate forums on topics ranging from human capital development, to emerging logistics technologies, to the impact of extreme space weather.
• Selection by the US Department of Labor (DOL) as the default commentator as regards expert assessments of the logistics services industry as a whole.
• The conferral of over 2,500 Certified Professional Logistician (CPL) and Certified Master Logistician (CML) credentials.
• The conferral of over 25,000 Designated Logistician program credentials since 2005.
• Development and delivery of unique educational programs in the United States and abroad, including logistics body-of-knowledge overview classes, local and regional professional development forums on an array of technical topics, and customized training programs and academic curricula for industry and higher education.
• Establishment of the SOLE Press, which has published four volumes on logistics principles, integrated logistics support, and quantitative measurements of logistics.
• Since its inception over 50 years ago, support of logisticians in over 50 countries around the world.

Getting Started: Some Basic Logistics Concepts

The term “logistics” has undergone numerous attempts to be defined and re-defined over the past 50 years. Today, there are literally thousands of companies around the world that have the word “logistics” in their name, in their logo, or in their description. For some, “logistics” is simply the movement of goods from one place to another. Others — when they use the term “logistics”— are actually only describing an element of the whole logistics enterprise, that aspect of the supply chain that includes the functions of procurement, storage, and distribution.

SOLE views logistics as an integrated, whole logistics enterprise that begins with the integration of logistics engineering and support considerations into a product’s design and use, and ends with the system or item’s disposition. Specifically, SOLE considers logistics to be “The art and science of management, engineering, and technical activities concerned with the requirements, design, and supplying and maintaining resources to support objectives, plans and operations.” It is a whole enterprise view, as depicted in Figure 1-1. This definition of logistics provides for an integration of the many elements of logistics that mirrors a product or service life cycle from start to finish (or, from “birth to death” — hence, the logistician’s use of the term “product life cycle”).

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 1-1: The logistics enterprise.

The world of logistics is, therefore, broad in scope but can generally be depicted by five functional domains, as shown in Figure 1-2.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 1-2: The functional domains of logistics.

Logisticians rarely work alone. Rather, they are critical players in the whole logistics enterprise that manages an integrated process that is defined for each product or service at its inception. The Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) Plan (as depicted in Figure 1-3) is a plan that’s developed by the logistics community, working closely with the product designers and systems engineers; and that provides a technical basis for integrating all support elements in order to maximize the product or system’s availability while optimizing the costs of logistics support throughout the life cycle.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 1-3: Elements of Integrated Logistics Support (ILS).

Life cycle support is viewed as the composite of all considerations necessary to assure the effective and economical support of a system throughout its programmed life cycle. It is an integral part of all aspects of system planning, design and development, test and evaluation, production or construction, consumer use, and system retirement. Over time, integrated logistics support planning has evolved to include the following major elements:

• Reliability and maintainability: The logistics engineering elements of reliability and maintainability impact all other product aspects because a life cycle support-centered design is one that minimizes the logisti...