The questions from readers and the answers provided by Professor Mirosław Chaberek in issue 5/2001 of “Logistyka” inspired me to reflect and attempt to provide my own answers to these questions. I began sharing these reflections with readers in the previous issue.
So far, I have devoted the most attention to the issue of “is logistics a science, and if not, does it have a chance to become one?” In this part of my reflections, I would like to address the next problem in a bit more detail. It is (quoting the reader’s question) “Why is the concept of logistics, both in the colloquial sense and in analytical approaches, so strongly relativized?”
In my opinion, there are at least two reasons for this situation. I will discuss both of them below, starting with the one I consider easier to explain.
The first reason for the relativization of the meaning of the term “logistics” lies in the fact that this concept has become popular and has entered colloquial language. And as we know, popularity has its price. The term “logistics” has shared the fate of other management terms, such as “profit” or “investment”. The transition from scientific language to colloquial language is always accompanied by a loss of precision and a blurring of the original meaning of a given term. An additional effect of such a transition is often the emergence of a specific trend of using a given term.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 2002/1.