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Logistics is the art of managing the supply chain and science of managing and controlling the flow of goods, energy, information and other resources like products, services and people from the source of production to the marketplace. It is difficult or nearly impossible to accomplish any international trading, global export/import processes, international repositioning of raw materials/products and manufacturing without a professional logistical support. It involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging. The operating responsibility of logistics is the geographical repositioning of raw materials, work in process and finished inventories where required at the lowest cost possible.
The word of logistics originates from the ancient Greek logos (λόγος), which means “ratio, word, calculation, reason, speech, oration”.
Liquid Logistics is a special category of logistics that relates to liquid products, and is utilized extensively in the "Supply Chain for Liquids" discipline.
Standard logistics techniques are generally used for discrete or unit products. Liquid products have logistics characteristics that distinguish them from discrete products. Some of the major characteristics of liquid products that impact their logistics handling are:
- Liquids flowing from a higher level to a lower level provide the ability to move the liquids without mechanical propulsion or manual intervention
- Liquids’ adaptation to the shape of the container they are in provides a great deal of flexibility in the design of storage systems and the use of “dead” space for storage
- The level of a liquid as it has settled in a tank may be used to automatically and continuously know the quantity of liquid in the tank
- Liquids provide indications through changes in their characteristics that may be sensed and translated into measures of the quality of the liquid
- Many security and safety risks are significantly reduced or eliminated utilizing liquid logistics techniques
- Liquids may in some cases be “processed” well downstream from the original production facility and thus offer the opportunity for improved efficiencies throughout the supply stream together with more flexibility as to the nature of the product at the point of final usage.
Each of these points represents a differentiation of liquid logistics from logistics techniques used for discrete items. When properly planned for and handled these points of differentiation may lead to business advantages for companies that produce, process, move, or use liquid products.
Reverse logistics is the logistics process of removing new or used products from their initial point in a supply chain, such as returns from consumers, over stocked inventory, or outdated merchandise and redistributing them using disposition management rules that will result in maximized value at the end of the items' original useful life. A reverse logistics operation is considerably different from forward logistics. It must establish convenient collection points to receive the used goods from the final customer or remove assets from the supply chain so that more efficient use of inventory / material overall can be achieved. It requires packaging and storage systems that will ensure that most of the value still remaining in the used good is not lost due to careless handling. It often requires the development of a transportation mode that is compatible with existing forward logistic system. Disposition can include returning assets into inventory pools or warehouses for storage, returning goods to the original manufacturer for reimbursement, selling goods on a secondary market, recycling assets, or a combination that will yield maximum value for the assets in question.
For example, T-Shirts with minor flaws like improper logo print of the manufacturer or unnoticeable stitching flaws are often sold at discounted prices by specialized retailers. The collection of the flawed clothes from the various stores and reselling them at the discount shop is an example of reverse logistics.
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