Technological development has made highly complex logistics systems a permanent element of our reality – they are among the main factors for the effective implementation of physical material flow processes in modern economic systems. They significantly influence the creation of properly integrated transport and storage chains. With regard to materials treated as raw materials and semi-finished products, as well as commercial goods formed into appropriate load units, the basic links of logistics chains building the infrastructure are: simple handling equipment – cranes, complex handling equipment – robots and manipulators, conveying equipment – conveyors, short-distance transport equipment – work vehicles, storage equipment – warehouses, equipment for computer-integrated storage and picking processes, automatic control equipment, automatic identification equipment (for goods and loads), and electronic data interchange equipment (for goods and loads).
Thus, the challenge of modern times has become maintaining logistics technical systems in an appropriate state of readiness – i.e., in a state ensuring the proper functioning of the entire supply chain within existing economic constraints.
From a technical perspective, the problems of maintaining a technical system in a state of readiness are the subject of interest for scientific disciplines such as reliability theory and operation theory.
In recent years, a new scientific discipline has also emerged, “logistics engineering,” which formulates the foundations for solving problems of logistics and the operation of machines and equipment. The achievements of logistics engineering are used in practice, e.g., in airlines, the United States Army, NASA agencies, and large industrial corporations. Logistics engineering is taught at universities in the United States and in European Union countries.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 2/2003.