To the majority of modern people, logistics mean transportation, that is many big trucks traveling fast even on narrow roads, and warehousing – that is, large grey buildings making panoramas quite obscene.

This view is correct, but the conventional view of logistics does not dig deeper into what logistic processes are, should be, and are intended to be.

We’ve been educated to JIT/Just-In-Time production, but without JIT delivery our customers’ warehouses would be hungry for components and without JIT supply our plants would be hungry for raw materials.

A cargo aircraft takes about the same time to be loaded as the flight time.  And, an ocean-going ship may take more than one day to slow down to enter a port before unloading her cargo.

The very big Russian Antonov aircrafts can transport even power station components, but they have to land and take off every so many hours before arriving at destination.  All in all, the flight time equals the stand-by time.

It was told that a NASA launch was delayed many days because birds made holes in the missile.

And there are very many stories about apparently small events having a significant logistical relevance.

THE LOGISTICS CHALLENGE
Logistics is not – cannot be – only forwarding, carrying, warehousing – though warehousing has meant a significant step forward in logistics service philosophy to their customers.

Logistics is also feeding the people who work, and making them rest as necessary.  It’s also lodging them and providing them the necessary sources of energy – people need to wash, too.

The power of logistics can now be understood.  In short, ineffective logistics processes are doomed to result in ineffective production processes.

Quite curiously, while detailed people-oriented logistics processes are found in military films and literature, western industrial management manuals are rather poor when addressing this issue.

Are we to blindly rely on computer processes like MRP, ERP, and so on, to monitor and guide our production and warehouses?  If so, let’s be prepared to undergo the failures that these systems may incur in, when we push hard on the accelerator pedal.

If we read ISO 9001 between the lines, logistics is no Cinderella process instead it’s a key process.

This brings us to the following considerations:

• One: we have to be more careful when we read – and interpret – standards including ISO 9001.
• Two: application of standards cannot – must not be only based on reading their words but understanding that common sense and real world experience have their place in the manufacturing game.

TRANSPORTATIONS IMPORTANCE
More of our economy’s industrial processes are based on transport: on-board whale-processing ships, ships on which metal-working machines are assembled; ships carrying a gas-liquification plant from Spain to Norway; and so on.

We might call it ‘economIc-technological-logistics’, but it’s a fact that ‘logistics’ is making itself being heard louder and louder throughout the world.

An analytical history of logistics and its impact on all of us has not been written – yet.   Nonetheless, logistics has had a profound significance in all human affairs – including its relationships with the environment we humans live in.