LOGISTICS

in business, the organized movement of materials and, sometimes, people. The term was first associated with the military but gradually spread to cover business activities. Logistics implies that a number of separate activities are coordinated. In 1991 the Council of Logistics Management, a trade organization based in the United States, defined logistics as: the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information from point of origin to point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements. The last few words limit the definition to business enterprises. Logistics also can be thought of as transportation after taking into account all the related activities that are considered in making decisions about moving materials. In some firms, all these activities are placed within a single logistics department; in others, they are shared among departments. The firm's logistics department also is responsible for logistics management, control, and planning. The firm may contract with an outside party to perform specific logistics services; this practice is referred to as third-party logistics. The phrase business logistics is often associated with firms that have large volumes of products to move, such as appliance manufacturers or retail chain stores. Service industries also have logistic concerns, however. Banks with automatic teller machines must keep them supplied with currency and paper forms and must collect deposits. Television networks operate many vehicles to help collect the news; and, at a major sports event, broadcasters may have several dozen vehicles present. Governments and nonprofit organizations also have logistics programs. Some of the most challenging logistics assignments have been associated with the military buildup in the dispute between the United Nations and Iraq in 199091 and in the famine relief efforts in Ethiopia and other African nations in the 1980s. in military science, all the activities of armed-force units in roles supporting combat units, including transport, supply, signal communication, medical aid, and the like. in military science, all the activities of armed-force units in roles supporting combat units, including transport, supply, signal communication, medical aid, and the like. The word logistics stems from the Greek word logistikos, skilled in calculating. Logista was the title of administrative officials in the Roman and Byzantine armies. A cognate French word, loger, means the billeting of soldiers, and in the late 17th century the French staff officer responsible for the quartering and movement of troops was the marchal des logis, or quartermaster general. His staff was linked with a branch of the French military engineers, the ingnieurs gographes, whose task was to make maps and draw up memoranda of operational areas for use in planning the movement and maintenance of armies. Henri, Baron de Jomini, an early 19th-century authority on Napoleonic warfare, in his book Prcis de l'art de la guerre (1836), defined logistics as the practical art of moving armies in which he included reconnaissance, engineer, and staff work. The purpose was to produce a logistical approach to battle and so to achieve strategic and tactical mobility and surprise. Jomini's logistic theories had little influence on military thought in Europe, and the term itself fell into disuse. It was revived in 1882 by then U.S. captain (later admiral) Alfred Thayer Mahan, who defined logistics as the support of armed forces by the economic and industrial mobilization of a nation. From 1918 the U.S. armed forces increasingly used logistics to describe the activities of the Ordnance Department and Quartermaster Corps, embracing a wide range of staff duties including supply, transportation, construction, and medical service. The term was seldom used elsewhere until World War II. In the British Royal Army, administration covered all activities connected with the interior economy of units in peace and their supply, movement, and maintenance in war. Neither logistics nor administration was used by European armies. The French intendance, management of supply, led to the title of intendant general for the officer in continental armies responsible for supply. With the complexity of modern war the term logistics has acquired a wider meaning. It is concerned not only with the movement and maintenance of forces and the evacuation and hospitalization of personnel but also with the design, development, acquisition, storage, and distribution of materialin other words, the procurement of weapons, their associated systems, and all other materials of war. The term administration is increasingly used to denote personnel management and the day-to-day handling of matters affecting pay, discipline, and morale. The complexity of modern war imposes many strains on the logistic planners who must recognize the speed and depth of operations, the vulnerability of lines of communication to air and ground attack, and the vast organization needed for the maintenance of modern forces. Also, the evolution of modern warfarewith its complicated vehicles, aircraft, naval vessels, communications systems, and weapons, combined with the ability to mobilize large populationshas escalated military demands for supplies, provisions, and products. The effort to supply the war machines of belligerent powers has taken over more and more of their national economies and required greater numbers of transport, service, and supply personnel under direct military authority. In World War II, for instance, it was estimated that only 3 out of 10 men in the U.S. Army served in a combat role. Additional reading Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (1977), is an insightful ground-breaking history of logistics. Classic studies of the subject include George Cyrus Thorpe, George C. Thorpe's Pure Logistics: The Science of War Preparation, new ed., with an introduction by Stanley L. Falk (1986); G.C. Shaw, Supply in Modern War (1938), mainly on subsistence; S.L.A. Marshall, The Soldier's Load and the Mobility of a Nation (1950, reprinted 1980); and Henry E. Eccles, Logistics in the National Defense (1959, reprinted 1981), with emphasis on theory.The 18th-century logistics systems are examined in Lee Kennett, The French Armies in the Seven Years' War: A Study in Military Organization and Administration (1967, reprinted 1986); and Erna Risch, Supplying Washington's Army (1981). The U.S. Army experience is surveyed in James A. Huston, The Sinews of War: Army Logistics 17751953 (1966, reprinted 1988); Edwin A. Pratt, The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 18331914 (1916), an old but still useful survey; Robert Greenhalgh Albion and Jennie Barnes Pope, Sea Lanes in Wartime: The American Experience 17751945, 2nd ed. (1968); and C.B.A. Behrens, Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War, rev. ed. (1978), on the overseas supply. Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies, 2 vol. (195359, reprinted 198587); and Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 2 vol. (195568), provide the U.S. Army's official history of logistics in World War II, in the European theatre and in the framework of coalition strategy, respectively. R. Elberton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization (1959, reprinted 1985), analyzes the U.S. Army's World War II economic mobilization.Charles J. Hitch and Roland N. McKean, The Economics of Defense in the Nuclear Age (1960, reissued 1978), is the bible of the managerial reforms in the U.S. Defense Department; and Neville Brown, Strategic Mobility (1963), explores a facet of post-World War II international strategy and logistics. Richard M. Leighton Additional reading Benjamin S. Blanchard, Logistics Engineering and Management, 4th ed. (1992), offers an engineering approach to controlling multiple details of systems operations. Analysis of logistic management concepts is available in Donald J. Bowersox, David J. Closs, and Omar K. Helferich, Logistical Management: A Systems Integration of Physical Distribution, Manufacturing Support, and Materials Procurement, 3rd ed. (1986). Ben Boyd, Getting It There: A Logistics Handbook for Relief and Development (1987), surveys the management of famine-relief efforts. Management of international freight transport is the subject of G.J. Davies and R. Gray, Purchasing International Freight Services (1985). Practices of physical distribution of goods are discussed in James C. Johnson and Donald F. Wood, Contemporary Logistics, 4th ed. (1990). Bernard J. La Londe et al., The Evolution, Status, and Future of the Corporate Transportation Function (1991), surveys traffic management since deregulation in the United States. Gerhardt Muller, Intermodal Freight Transportation, 2nd ed. (1989), treats rail-truck-vessel container interchange. Management of a firm's traffic is studied in John E. Tyworth, Joseph L. Cavinato, and C. John Langley, Jr., Traffic Management: Planning, Operations, and Control (1987); and management of inventories in Jan B. Young, Modern Inventory Operations: Methods for Accuracy and Productivity (1991). Donald F. Wood