Economic entities for which logistics is not the core of their operations are increasingly using specialized logistics companies to significantly improve the flow of both goods and information. Enterprises such as logistics centers can better apply solutions designed to improve their clients’ logistics systems by utilizing logistics services. Due to growing demand, the value of services offered by logistics providers is also increasing, and as a result, they are subject to continuous development. This is why logistics services are becoming so important in the rapidly developing global market, including in the case of food products, which require special transport and storage conditions to be met.
The importance of logistics centers in the flow of food products
The activities offered by logistics companies significantly facilitate the functioning of entities in the agri-food sector. In this context, the concept of agrologistics has been defined as an “integrated system covering the processes of planning, implementation, and control of the flows of materials, raw materials, and agri-food products, as well as the information accompanying these flows, from the places of their production through storage, processing, and trade links to the final recipient, in order to offer the client uninterrupted deliveries of safe food products and those intended for other purposes, at minimal costs and in an environmentally friendly manner”. The importance of logistics in agri-food enterprises is significant because this sector is characterized by:
– “low transport and storage susceptibility of many agricultural products (e.g., milk, meat)
– numerous and independent intermediary links throughout the supply chain, which causes strong exposure to disruptions in the flow of information and, consequently, excessive stocks accumulating up the supply chain
– significant temporal imbalance between supply and demand for agricultural products”.
Due to the specificity of food products, which concerns seasonality and appropriate storage conditions, enterprises in the agri-food sector use, among others, logistics centers, understood by I. Fechner as “spatial objects with their own organization and infrastructure enabling various independent enterprises to perform activities on goods in connection with their storage and movement between the sender and the recipient, as well as to perform activities on the resources used for this purpose”. The wide range of services offered by logistics centers, including: their proper adaptation to the needs of a given good, a high level of logistics services provided, and the optimization of inventory and warehouse management processes, make them of great importance in supporting the flow of food products.
By using systemic logistics solutions in logistics centers, it is possible to:
– reduce inventory levels in the trade of food products
– improve the quality and timeliness of deliveries
– better manage information
– increase the safety of transported food products
– reduce the physical costs of food flows
– increase the level of customer service and innovation
– pay special attention to environmental protection
– improve the productivity of economic entities cooperating with the logistics center
– possess appropriate operating cost structures (e.g., insurance) resulting from the scale effect.
Logistics centers carry out the appropriate flow of food products, thanks to which it is possible to reliably deliver goods to their final customers while minimizing costs and accumulating stocks, as well as maintaining safety conditions. Such activities can take place through the use of modern technologies in logistics centers, such as IT systems. It is these that support the appropriate flow of information necessary for the efficient transfer of food products. The tasks performed by logistics centers make it possible to determine the scope of IT support for the flow of food products in individual areas, among which are distinguished:
– warehouse operations
– activities related to orders and packaging
– terminal operations
– activities related to auxiliary services.
In the first mentioned area, warehousing, IT support should particularly concern warehouse management, the performance of functions such as picking, the selection of storage methods, storage and transshipment, and additionally the recognition and analysis of inventory levels.
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Source: Logistyka Magazine