Logistics and supply chain management: description, functions and features

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Work as a logistics manager is called by many the profession of the 21st century. What is it connected with? Who is a logistician and what functions does he perform? This will be discussed further.

Who is a logistician?

Delivery of the right products from one point to another according to the appointed time is a very important task. It is even more important to keep the goods safe and sound. It is such a specialist as a logistician who manages supply chains and controls the efficient transportation and delivery of the desired products. It should be noted right away that any profession in the field of logistics is considered very complex and difficult. So, in order to become a quality specialist in the field of supply management, you must have a very developed mindset, know foreign languages, and have excellent organizational skills. Tracking a large number of different kinds of goods is not so easy, but doing it with high quality is even more so.

Where should a person study to be able to work as a logistics and supply chain management? What are the responsibilities of the specialists in question? This will be discussed later.

Education required for work

In the sphereYou can work in logistics with both higher and secondary education. However, the number of duties, rights, as well as remuneration in this case will differ significantly.

A person with a secondary vocational education can only work as a logistics assistant or manager. To carry out full-fledged supply chain management for people who have not graduated from a university, if it succeeds, then with great difficulty. It is also worth noting that not everywhere there are jobs for people who do not have higher education. Due to the narrow focus, as well as due to a number of other factors, it will not be so easy for a person with only a secondary education to get a job in question.

Things are quite different with people who still have a higher education. Thus, people who graduated from economic universities in the relevant speci alty have every right to get any free job. Perhaps it is worth highlighting the main educational institutions where you can get the necessary education. These are the Higher School of Economics (in Moscow on Lubyanka), MIIT, MADI and the famous St. Petersburg State University. In any of these universities there is a speci alty called "Logistics and Supply Chain Management".

What should a logistician know?

As mentioned above, a logistics specialist must have a very extensive knowledge base. What disciplines should the employee in question know qualitatively? Here are just a few:

• Fundamentals of economic and mathematical methods.
• Basics of supply logistics,distribution, production, warehousing, etc.
• Logistics project management.
• Control over transportation, unloading and loading operations.
• Fundamentals of information systems and technologies.
• Fundamentals of Economics.
• Basics of supply planning.
• Risk management in logistics.
• Control over logistics systems and more.

The specialist who manages the supply chain must really know a lot of things. Moreover, an employee in the field of logistics is also obliged to constantly improve himself and supplement his knowledge. This is due to the fact that technologies are constantly being upgraded, and therefore it is unlikely that a logistician will be able to work for several decades with only university knowledge.

Skills required for the job

Of course, knowledge alone will not be enough for a logistician to carry out his work functions. A specialist whose tasks include the logistics management of supply chains must also have certain skills, abilities and character traits.

What exactly can be highlighted here?

• Knowledge of several foreign languages. It is quite obvious that in the work related to transportation, it is impossible to do without negotiations with foreign citizens; especially if the company is foreign.
• Communication skills. Knowing several languages is absolutely not enough, you also need to be able to correctly express your thoughts andrequirements. This also applies to the native language. A quality specialist is simply obliged to have a competent, clear and precise speech.
• Working with software equipment. In the age of computer technology, it is simply impossible to do without the ability to competently handle programs. This is especially true for employees whose functions are logistics management, supply chain management, transportation, etc.

It is also worth noting that a high-quality specialist must also have such character traits as stress resistance, high efficiency, organizational functions, etc.

Responsibilities of a logistician

As already mentioned, the scope of logistics is incredibly vast. It employs a large number of employees performing a variety of functions. However, it is still possible to single out the most generalized duties.

Thus, it is worth noting that in the considered professional environment, the following duties are assigned to employees:

• Working with all sorts of faces. This includes customers, suppliers, operators, etc.
• Documentation work.
• Planning orders and deliveries.
• Negotiations with customs.
• Inventory management in supply chains.
• Building routes and more.

The logistician really has a lot of functions. However, everything depends mainly on the available category and skill level.

Where can I work?

Almost no problems should arise for a graduate of an educational institutionmajoring in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Universities often offer the student options for vacancies. And due to the fact that the profession in question today is incredibly relevant and in demand, a person with a proper education will simply have a lot of different job opportunities.

And yet, where exactly can the specialist in question work? Can be distinguished:

• transport companies (Russian Railways, various airlines, etc.);
• shipping;
• customs services;
• industrial plants and many other places.

Supply management and logistics are needed in almost every manufacturing enterprise. And this is a huge advantage of this area: a person who wants to connect his life with the work in question will definitely not have problems with employment.

About a career in logistics

What can be said about the career of the specialist in question? As in any other field of work, advanced training can only be earned by accumulating proper experience and improving work skills.

However, in the field of supply chain management there is one important feature. In short, it lies in the fact that there are simply a lot of opportunities for so-called self-improvement. So, a specialist can intensively study new foreign languages, develop their ownspecialized programs, improve their communication skills, automatize work with documentation, etc. Thanks to all this, almost any specialist, even without a higher education and working as an assistant, will be able to reach professional heights.

About the rights and responsibility of the logistician

A logistics specialist, like any other employee, has certain professional rights. What exactly can be highlighted here? Here is what the special job description of the employee fixes:

• the right to all social guarantees and benefits established by the state;
• right to timely payment of salaries;
• the right to demand from the authorities all the necessary documentation for work;
• the right to offer management ideas and suggestions for improving the work of the organization;
• the right to refuse to perform work in case of obvious violations resulting in the lack of optimal working conditions;
• the right to improve their skills;
• the right to involve specialists from other professional areas to provide the necessary assistance (but subject to agreement with the authorities).

Thus, a fairly wide range of rights is assigned to a specialist who has the responsibility of supply chain management. At the enterprise, however, logisticians also have a large share of responsibility for all actions taken. In particular, it is worth highlighting that the employee is liable:

• for offensesor workplace crimes;
• for the complete failure or incorrect performance of their own duties;
• for being drunk at work;
• for violating established security rules.

Pros and cons of the profession

The profession of a logistician has both a number of advantages and a number of disadvantages. What are the benefits of working? This includes, of course:

• Demand and relevance of the profession.
• High income.
• A chance to practice speaking in a foreign language.
• Continuous improvement.

Perhaps the profession has other advantages. Above were named only the most basic advantages. And what are the shortcomings here?

• Quite a tight load, and as a result - stress.
• Working in an industrial area (of course, you can find work in a clean office; however, the very concept of supply chain management is built in such a way that the speci alty is almost inseparable from production).

The profession certainly has more advantages. And this is not at all surprising: logistics is a truly prestigious and important area.