The article contains statements by Dr. hab. Tomasz Nowakowski, Dr. hab. Danuta Kisperska-Moroń, and Dr. hab. Mariusz Jedliński.
Dr. hab. Tomasz Nowakowski:
I wonder whether it is possible/purposeful to consider the future state of such complex systems as a logistics system in the rather distant perspective of the year 2030.
On one hand, for economic management, it is necessary to forecast future events that may significantly affect the analyzed phenomena. Forecasting uses information regarding many factors and their impact on the studied phenomenon. Due to the nature of the forecasted phenomena, they can be divided into:
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quantitative (forecast result expressed numerically); point or interval,
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qualitative (forecast result expressed in words).
The question posed in the introduction only allows for the use of qualitative forecasting, which utilizes the knowledge of experts on the forecasted phenomena and processes. This is the nature of, for example, the forecasts formulated in the document “Poland 2030. Development Challenges,” which define the main challenges facing the Polish state over the next 20 years, including problems of the transport and logistics industry.
On the other hand, one should remember the forecasts of the Club of Rome and the very critical assessment of its activities made at the beginning of the 21st century. A number of catastrophic visions predicting the collapse of current civilization were ridiculed. Before our eyes, a revision of the “only politically correct” actions related to countering climate change is taking place. At the same time, it is impossible to overestimate the impact of these forecasts on changing the purely technocratic perception of social development.
Reasonable use of developed forecasts requires taking into account the degree of uncertainty of the estimated results. A standard procedure should be to conduct an uncertainty analysis. Various sources of uncertainty are known, e.g., uncertainty resulting from a lack of sufficient data, uncertainty resulting from a lack of knowledge about the nature of the phenomenon’s course, or uncertainty associated with an incomplete scope of the conducted analysis. Attempts to assess the degree of uncertainty of the obtained estimates increase the quality of published results.
The future state of logistics in Poland can be estimated by referring to the best, most advanced logistics solutions currently functioning in the world or in Europe, assuming that in the coming years we will model ourselves on the best examples, catching up on civilizational backwardness. The best companies in Poland use solutions similar to global ones, however, there is a very large spread between leading enterprises and average companies, not to mention the weakest ones. A point of reference can be solutions awarded for the best logistics solutions in individual European countries, and in particular the European Logistics Association (ELA) award – European Award for Logistics Excellence. In 2010, this award was received by MARS Deutschland for the AGENDA 2017 project.
The AGENDA 2017 project concerned the development of a platform supporting the cooperation of companies in the fast-moving consumer goods industry. The slogan was formulated: “we compete on the (store) shelves and not in logistics.” A number of solutions were developed and implemented to facilitate and reduce the costs of cooperation in 5 areas: manufacturer – manufacturer, manufacturer – retail, manufacturer – logistics partner, logistics partner – logistics partner, and logistics partner – retail. It is believed that by using classical methods, the MARS company would have been able to achieve a cost reduction of 3 – 5% by 2017 in the analyzed area of logistics activity. The implementation of the project has already resulted in a 10% reduction in distribution costs, and in the perspective of 2017, there is a chance to achieve the planned effect of a 25% reduction.
The example of this project, as well as other solutions submitted for the award (with very different scopes of impact, e.g., automotive, food, pharmaceutical industries, etc.), indicate possible and effective directions for the development of logistics systems.
A further perspective on the development of logistics is shown by various studies conducted in recent years. Very valuable seem to be the studies published and discussed at the Logistics Congress of the German Logistics Association in Berlin in 2008. Although the studies were carried out before the onset of the recent crisis in the global economy, current publications indicate the importance of the results obtained at that time.
The studies were conducted among several hundred enterprises (trading, industrial, transport) in Germany, China, and the United States. Regardless of the company’s area of activity (trade, production, transport), the most important property of the logistics process was considered to be, both currently and in the perspective of 2015, the reliability of the logistics process execution (ratings from 3.9 to 4.2 on a scale of 1 to 5).
Less importance is attached to costs, ability to react to changes, flexibility, or the ability to utilize resources. It should be emphasized that in the opinion of the respondents, the global importance of logistics for the effective functioning of a company will grow. Considering the missing methods and tools for increasing the reliability and security of the logistics system, procedures regarding the identification, assessment, and management of risk in the supply chain were at the top of the list. Among many valuable results of the analysis, it is also worth noting the importance of ensuring the security of logistics systems’ functioning. Actions leading to conflict, neutral actions, and actions complementary to the development of logistics were also distinguished. Entrepreneurs consider actions in the area of costs to be the most conflict-generating, problems of resource utilization are the most neutral, and actions increasing reliability were assessed as the most complementary. Such expectations formulated by entrepreneurs from all over the world constitute important information for those shaping the tasks facing logistics companies in Poland in an even longer time horizon.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 3/2010.