Integrated Supply Chain Management
When organizations tried to reduce their Logistics costs,their initial studies looked at the separate function--location of facilities,procurement,inventory control,warehousing and transport.But it soon became clear that the best approach was through integration--not looking at these functions sepa-rately,but considering the supply chain as a whole.This recognition has led to a continuing trend,as organizations stopped looking at transport and moved on study broader physical distribution, then Logis-tics and finally supply chain management.At each stage there has been more integration, with an in-creasing range of activities recognized as being part of the supply chain.
In practice,the terms"logistics"and"supply chain management"are now used interchangeably,so the Institule of Logistics can give the following definitions:
Logistics is the time related positioning of resources,or the strategic management of the total sup-ply chain.
The supply chain is a sequence of events intended to satisfy a customer.It can include procure-ment,manufacture,distribution and waste disposal,together with associated transport,storage and in-formation technology.
With this broad definition,logistics is inherently linked to other operations and can include--or at least affect - almost every function within an organization.This approach is consistent with the process focus adopted by many organizations,which no longer see themselves as supplying products, but as us-ing a process to satisfy customer demand.Logistics is a key part of this integrated process.