Functional areas of logistics. What does the logistics department do?

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

Logistics is the theoretical, practical aspects of movement, transportation, distribution of resources. The term is used in the business world, relevant for any modern enterprise. There is a logistics of raw materials, labor, money, other production resources, tangible, intangible. It is supposed to move the object from the seller to the buyer, from the customer to the client, from the source to the consumer. The person who optimizes this process is called a logistics specialist.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow

Logistics of a manufacturing enterprise has existed since the moment when a relationship of providing services, selling goods arose between people. In our time, it is customary to perceive logistics as an independent area, although a few decades ago it was considered as several practically unrelated parts. Nowadays, logistics in an enterprise combines the supply department, warehouse and employees responsible for transporting goods. Previously, all this was divided into three divisions allocated in the structure of the enterprise.

What does the logistics department do? His area of responsibility is tangible, intangibleflows represented at the enterprise by an interconnected complex. Information systems in logistics are used to more accurately control flows and eliminate queues and delays. This helps streamline your workflow and reduce downtime losses.

All responsibility is on the employee

The task of the logistics manager is to plan and control all stages of manufacturing and marketing of goods. He is engaged in the supply of raw materials, checks the quality, compares the nomenclature, monitors the time frame, the volume of supplied and necessary, keeps the cost under control and negotiates with suppliers if there are disputes.

Integrity implies that logistics in an enterprise can be reflected through the connection of supplies that give the enterprise everything necessary for the production of goods, the provision of services to the end customer. That is, in fact, logistics is a method of ensuring that a company fulfills its obligations to consumers within a given time frame.

Logistics: subjects, objects

Material flow is an object that focuses the attention of a logistics manager. In fact, the flow is end-to-end, but each block has unique features, specific parameters that you need to know in order to reduce costs. Focusing on the generally accepted formulation of logistics functionality, areas are distinguished:

• Purchases.
• Production.
• Distribution.
• Transportation.
• Information.

What does the department dologistics? All issues in general, but it seems reasonable to distribute tasks among specialists in the calculation of one person or one group of workers for each aspect.

Logistics: we buy

Specialists responsible for providing the production process with raw materials are involved in purchasing logistics. This area assumes control over all material flows present in the system. A smart, streamlined organization ensures that the plant has the right materials to keep production running without downtime or waste.

For procurement, from the point of view of logistics, the systematization of the workflow, that is, the combination of all material flows into a coherent, logical system, comes first. In the logistics department, the allocation of purchases to an independent area justifies itself in both manufacturing and trading companies, since everywhere there is a need for employees responsible for the purchase, delivery. In their area of responsibility are not only raw materials, but also consumer goods, semi-finished products.

Division into levels

It is customary to single out three functional aspects of the procurement:

• connection with the goals of the enterprise, adjustment of functioning taking into account macro interests;
• communication of the logistics department with a specific unit, which requires taking into account the goals of this structural formation;
• full independent structured system with elements and goals.

Purchasers: Targets

The functional areas of logistics responsible for supply, first of all, form links withsuppliers. This means that they are working on issues of economic policy, methodology, technical and technological support. The specialists who are entrusted with the management of procurement logistics work closely with suppliers, the sales department, and contractors providing transport services. In fact, it is precisely due to the procurement system that the logistics department is tightly integrated into the workflow of the enterprise.

The main idea of such a system is to ensure profit through a reasonable distribution of tasks and responsibilities, goods and time. This means that all specialists in the department must be aware that their goals are not the only significant ones. Each employee must be aware that the tasks of the enterprise are paramount, and only for the sake of their achievement are set and fulfill the goals of the logistics department. Procurement workers work for the company in ways that improve the productivity of the enterprise as a whole. This also works in the opposite direction: if the position of the company becomes more stable, stronger, this has a positive effect on the logistics department, strengthening its position (and at the same time helping to develop other departments of the company).

Relationship and tasks

The tasks of transport logistics are not outlined only by the goals of the enterprise. The department must interact with other structures in order to achieve saturation, volumetric material flow, interacting with the sequence of the supply-manufacturing-realization workflow. In the context of this chain, the main area of \u200b\u200blogistics is to ensure a clear interactionproduction shops and suppliers.

The most modern approach to the implementation of this task involves the use of the most modern technological solutions. Logisticians are responsible for consistency, the ability to quickly adjust the planned, including the volumes brought by suppliers. They must monitor changes in the production process in real time and adjust the volumes bought from outside and sold to consumers.

Modern approach

The relationship of supply, production process, sales of finished goods is based on marketing concepts developed recently. It is assumed that, first, the features of the sale of products are thought out, on the basis of which production volumes are planned, and from this a decision is made on the amount of purchases. The marketing department only sets the general task, but other structural divisions deal with the details. So, something becomes the task of transport logistics, supply.

Marketing is more of a science than practical tools, so the task of a marketer is to agree on the technique, manufacturability, goals, available methods, formulate the objectives of the enterprise and give other departments basic information for work. Marketing is not concerned with the systematization of the work process, and even more so does not consider how and where inventories move within the company. These are the functional areas of logistics, indispensable for any modern enterprise. Logistics develops the filedmarketers an idea, applying well-known techniques, expanding concepts and turning them into reality.

Efficiency: result

If the supply service is organized wisely, it will function effectively, the logistics system of the enterprise will show high efficiency. At the same time, you need to understand that procurement logistics is primarily contracts with suppliers and work with inventory within the enterprise.

Production logistics

Speaking about the functional areas of logistics, one cannot ignore the production, responsible for controlling the material flow, that is, monitoring the creation of we alth, the provision of services.

The logistics production functional area is responsible for warehousing, structuring, distribution, weight measurement, packaging, storage. Mostly the facilities managed by production logistics are territorially compact. Experts call them islands. The people involved in the workflow are connected by intra-production relationships, which categorically distinguishes production logistics at the level of structural divisions from interaction at the level of enterprises that pay each other in money and goods.

Level after level: deeper and deeper

Production logistics considers complex systems, decomposed, if necessary, into simpler levels with a smaller area of responsibility. Intra-production logistics systems forexamples:

• cargo hubs;
• wholesale companies' warehouses;
• industrial firms;
• node ports.

It's not that easy

These systems are studied at macro and micro levels. Macro assumes that the logistics system is included in the macro object that sets the rhythm for the receipt of inventories. Logistics must adapt to these conditions. How successful this will be depends on the ability to adjust the parameters of the output stream: volume, quality. That is, the most adaptable - a system in which logisticians can effectively and quickly change the quantity, range of items produced.

The microlevel assumes that logistics systems are part of the enterprise and interact with each other, forming a single whole. Usually these are systems responsible for storage, acquisition, sale, formation of stocks, their transportation. In addition, logistics is responsible for the awareness of the state of stocks at the enterprise - it conveys data to other departments, and also identifies problems and, if necessary, initiates a discussion of the difficulties that have arisen. Production logistics is closely related to the acquisition of materials and distribution of the company's products, but focuses primarily on providing everything necessary for the production process.

Logistics: distribution

Distribution logistics are needed to efficiently deliver manufactured products to consumers. The specifics of the work of the logistics authority are somewhat different,responsible for distribution, in trading, manufacturing enterprises and in intermediary firms. Distribution has a strong impact on the economic situation of the enterprise, so this area of logistics especially attracts the attention of the authorities in any company, whether it is a very small organization or a large international community.

If the distribution system was organized not optimally, poorly, with low efficiency, then not only the company, but also the consumer can suffer. So, if a certain company in the region does not have a strong competitor and produces, for example, food, a poorly designed distribution system can leave people without food.

Everything is under control

In fact, the material flow is under the control of the logistics division involved in distribution, already at the stage of passing through the production shop. At the same time, it is important to think over aspects in advance: product packaging, cost, batch volumes, availability and type of containers. These issues are the responsibility of distribution logistics.

Distribution logistics is not selling, marketing in the traditional sense of these terms. The differences are that the system is in clear interaction with the marketing department and corresponds to the strategy developed by it, at the same time it is closely integrated into the logistics of the enterprise as a whole and is associated with the distribution processes of acquiring materials and manufacturing goods. That is, the management of all material flows is organized centrally andorganized.