The observed dynamic development of logistics services is a response to the expectations of numerous clients related to delivering necessary products to them at the right time, at the right price, while ensuring a high quality level of service. Meeting these expectations requires that the logistics service be organized and provided by a specialized company, preferably by an appropriate logistics service center. This results, among other things, from the definition of a logistics service, which I allow myself to quote below using the collective work titled “Compendium of knowledge about logistics…”. It reads as follows: “a logistics service is the transporting and warehousing of logistics products organized by an external company, along with full formal and legal handling, including customs”. The duties of these companies primarily include the integration of three types of flows, i.e., information, products, and cash. This ensures an increase in the economic efficiency of the provided logistics services, from which all participants in the logistics process benefit. In a comprehensive logistics service, four basic components can be distinguished, i.e.:
• warehousing and inventory management,
• transport and cargo handling,
• market research and creation of a marketing information system,
• transaction financing, banking services, and contract insurance.
Each of the listed elements includes many important studies, as illustrated in Table 1. Their implementation has a huge impact on the quality and efficiency of the services provided and the logistics process.
The listed elements of logistics services – in practice – can occur both in an isolated and integrated manner. This results from the great diversity of forms of logistics flow management, which is presented schematically in Figure 1. The presented variants of logistics handling of cargo, information, and cash flows have existed for a long time and will undoubtedly continue to exist, although a tendency is observed to provide comprehensive services covering integrated supply chains. This is due to the fact that many business entities, especially large ones, have realized that their market success depends on the efficiency of the entire supply chain, of which they are one element. This trend was pointed out by, among others, K. Rutkowski in his paper for the III International Conference Logistics’96, stating that the nineties are characterized by the development of logistics management of integrated supply chains as a condition for meeting emerging global competition.
Abstracting from the degree of integration of logistics process management, it must be remembered that in every case, the general principles of rational material production must be observed. This is because the logistics process bears all the features of a production process (see Fig. 2). It should therefore be carried out using a strictly defined technology. Due to the fact that the logistics process generally takes place under different conditions, i.e., for different senders and recipients, using different means of labor and work teams as well as objects of labor – it bears the features of a unit production process. This means the necessity of individual technology design for a specific logistics process. This, in turn, requires many prior organizational and administrative measures aimed at coordinating production factors in the individual phases of its implementation. This requirement applies to all logistics processes regardless of whether they are carried out by a commissioned system or an economic system, and refers both to the entire logistics chain and to individual links. Of course, in each case, the size and structure of production factors are different. This results mainly from the differences in the scale of the logistics task and boundary conditions. It is worth emphasizing that the scope of organizational work related to the effective course of a complex logistics process depends on the degree of integration of the given process. It has been proven that in the case of implementing the entire such logistics process by a single contractor, the workload of organizational work is much lower than in the case of its implementation by various participants in this process, in which these works are multiplied. Therefore, only full integration of the logistics process guarantees the final recipient the delivery of goods or services of high quality, at the right time, and at appropriately low prices. This simultaneously constitutes an argument for the expediency of creating logistics centers.