Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation.

In
a general business sense, logistics is the management of the flow of things between the point
of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet requirements of customers or
corporations. The resources managed in logistics can include physical items such as food,
materials, animals, equipment, and liquids; as well as intangible items, such as time and
information. The logistics of physical items usually involves the integration of information
flow, materials handling, production, packaging, inventory, transportation, warehousing, and
often security.
In military science, logistics is concerned with maintaining army supply lines while disrupting
those of the enemy, since an armed force without resources and transportation is defenseless.
Military logistics was already practiced in the ancient world and as modern military have a
significant need for logistics solutions, advanced implementations have been developed. In
military logistics, logistics officers manage how and when to move resources to the places they
are needed.
Logistics management is the part of supply chain management that plans, implements,
and controls the efficient, effective forward, and reverse flow and storage of goods, services,
and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to
meet customer's requirements. The complexity of logistics can be modeled, analyzed,
visualized, and optimized by dedicated simulation software. The minimization of the use of
resources is a common motivation in all logistics fields. A professional working in the field of
logistics management is called a logistician.

Configuring and managing warehouses is a central concern for both business logistics and military
logistics.
 Logistics Specialist inventories supplies in a storeroom aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W.
Bush, where inventorying means making a report on stock availability. Every stock keeping unit has an
individual code and a code corresponding to a specific subclass from a given drawer.

Contents

 1Nomenclature
 2Definition
 3Logistics activities and fields
 4Military logistics
 5Business logistics
o 5.1Nodes of a distribution network
o 5.2Logistic families and metrics
o 5.3Handling and order processing
o 5.4Transportation
o 5.5Configuration and management
o 5.6Warehouse management and control
o 5.7Logistics outsourcing
o 5.8Horizontal alliances between logistics service providers
 6Logistics automation
 7Logistics: profession and organizations
o 7.1Logistics museums
 8See also
 9References
 10Further reading

Nomenclature[edit]
The term logistics is attested in English from 1846, and is from French: logistique, where it was
either coined or popularized by military officer and writer Antoine-Henri Jomini, who defined it
in his Summary of the Art of War(Précis de l'Art de la Guerre). The term appears in the 1830
edition, then titled Analytic Table (Tableau Analytique),[1] and Jomini explains that it is derived
from French: logis, lit. 'lodgings' (cognate to English lodge), in the terms French: maréchal des
logis, lit. 'marshall of lodgings' and French: major-général des logis, lit. 'major-general of
lodging':
Autrefois les officiers de l’état-major se nommaient: maréchal des logis, major-général des
logis; de là est venu le terme de logistique, qu’on emploie pour désigner ce qui se rapporte aux
marches d’une armée.
Formerly the officers of the general staff were named: marshall of lodgings, major-general of
lodgings; from there came the term of logistics [logistique], which we employ to designate
those who are in charge of the functionings of an army.
The term is credited to Jomini, and the term and its etymology criticized by Georges de
Chambray in 1832, writing:[2]
[Logistique: Ce mot me paraît être tout-à-fait nouveau, car je ne l'avais encore vu nulle part
dans la littérature militaire. … il paraît le faire dériver du mot logis, étymologie singulière
…] error: {{lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)
Logistic: This word appears to me to be completely new, as I have not yet see it anywhere in
military literature. … he appears to derive it from the word lodgings [logis], a peculiar etymology
…
Chambray also notes that the term logistique was present in the Dictionnaire de l'Académie
française as a synonym for algebra.
The French word: logistique is a homonym of the existing mathematical term, from Ancient
Greek: λογῐστῐκός, translit. logistikós, a traditional division of Greek mathematics; the
mathematical term is presumably the origin of the term logistic in logistic growth and related
terms. Some sources give this instead as the source of logistics,[3] either ignorant of Jomini's
statement that it was derived from logis, or dubious and instead believing it was in fact of
Greek origin, or influenced by the existing term of Greek origin.

Definition[edit]
Jomini original defined logistics thus:[1]
La logistique est l'art de bien ordonner les marches d'une armée, de bien combiner l'ordre des
troupes dans les colonnes, les tems [temps] de leur départ, leur itinéraire, les moyens de
communications nécessaires pour assurer leur arrivée à point nommé ...
Logistics is the art of well ordering the functionings of an army, of well combining the order of
troops in columns, the times of their departure, their itinerary, the means of communication
necessary to assure their arrival at a named point ...
The Oxford English Dictionary defines logistics as "the branch of military science relating to
procuring, maintaining and transporting material, personnel and facilities". However, the New
Oxford American Dictionary defines logistics as "the detailed coordination of a complex
operation involving many people, facilities, or supplies", and the Oxford Dictionary on-line
defines it as "the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation".[4] As such,
logistics is commonly seen as a branch of engineering that creates "people systems" rather
than "machine systems".
According to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (previously the Council of
Logistics Management)[5] logistics is the process of planning, implementing and controlling
procedures for the efficient and effective transportation and storage of goods including services
and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption for the purpose of
conforming to customer requirements and includes inbound, outbound, internal and external
movements. [6]
Academics and practitioners traditionally refer to the
terms operations or production management when referring to physical transformations taking
place in a single business location (factory, restaurant or even bank clerking) and reserve the
term logistics for activities related to distribution, that is, moving products on the territory.
Managing a distribution center is seen, therefore, as pertaining to the realm of logistics since,
while in theory the products made by a factory are ready for consumption they still need to be
moved along the distribution network according to some logic, and the distribution center
aggregates and processes orders coming from different areas of the territory. That being said,
from a modeling perspective, there are similarities between operations management and
logistics, and companies sometimes use hybrid professionals, with for ex. "Director of
Operations" or "Logistics Officer" working on similar problems. Furthermore, the term supply
chain management originally refers to, among other issues, having an integrated vision in of
both production and logistics from point of origin to point of production.[7] All these terms may
suffer from semantic change as a side effect of advertising.