ABSTRACT
Historically, organizations put all their effort into making products, and gave little thought to the ways that these were passed on to customers. 'Supply chains' remained an abstract concept, and 'logistics' was not a term that was commonly used in business. When organizations tried to reduce their logistics costs, their initial studies looked at the separate functions–location of facilities, procurement, inventory control, warehousing and transport. The latest stage of integration in logistics is 'quick response' that evolved into 'efficient customer response'. This links the separate stages of supply chain, so that a customer buying a product from a retailer automatically sends a message back through the chain to trigger a response from the manufacturer and other suppliers. As organizations have taken a broader view of logistics, it has moved up from a largely operational function to having a wider strategic significance. Having recognized that logistics has a strategic importance, the next stage is to set about designing a strategy.
