Poland’s accession to the EU brings hopes for economic revitalization, among other things, thanks to the expansion of sales markets for domestic producers’ goods, as well as the possibility of broad access to raw materials, materials, and products from Western manufacturers. However, the fundamental condition for utilizing these new opportunities in terms of acquiring new sales markets for domestic producers’ goods will be meeting the standards applicable in the EU regarding: functionality, operational reliability, durability, warranty and post-warranty service, as well as safety standards and certificates for use. At the same time, the ability to offer domestic products to Western markets for retail and wholesale sale will require meeting the systems and standards applicable in European trade. These relate, among other things, to: the necessity of using standardized product packaging, introducing logistics units with standardized transport and storage parameters into trade, systems for labeling goods and logistics units with standard electronic symbols and codes enabling their automatic identification by all trading partners, and especially at checkout points in supermarkets. This also applies to the use of telecommunications systems, as well as modern IT tools and the Internet for transmitting information and documents in the form of standard electronic messages. Global distribution networks operating in open markets (European and global) carry out the flow of goods within logistics supply chains, controlled by IT systems that allow supply chain participants to control and monitor the flow of goods via the Internet.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 2003/4.