The intensity and scope of the practical implementation of the logistics management concept in an enterprise are conditioned by many diverse factors and limitations, resulting, among other things, from the specificity and scope of the business activity conducted, the type of products in the enterprise’s offer, the dynamics of the sales market, and the requirements of customers. The popularity and interest of numerous publicists in the concept of logistics management have caused a layering of many concepts and a pile-up of a terminological “thicket” that is difficult to organize. Despite the agreement of authors regarding the basic assumptions of the concept, the essence of logistics management is still defined and interpreted in very different ways. The article is an attempt to review and comprehensively capture the basic categories related to the issues of logistics management.
Logistics management as an orientation in enterprise management
The concept of logistics management stems from the tendency to integrate and coordinate activities (processes and operations) related to the flow of materials, semi-finished products, and final products from their places of origin to their places of consumption. Management can be defined as a type of direction in which the title to exert influence on the hierarchy and value systems, interests and aspirations, as well as the attitudes and organizational behaviors of those being managed, results mainly –
although not exclusively –
from the manager’s possession or the fact of having at their disposal material-
energy and information resources of particular importance to the organization, or from the very conviction of those being managed that the manager has the ability to obtain these resources. Another definition of management is provided by J. Rokita, according to whom management is a collection of activities consisting of planning and decision-making, organizing, leading people, and controlling, carried out to achieve the goals of the enterprise, performed in conditions of a dynamically changing environment, the sense of which lies in the efficient, effective, and value-creating use of limited material, financial, human, and information resources. The goal of management is to ensure the expected results resulting from the activities of a given institution. The management process must begin with defining these effects and ensuring the resources necessary to achieve them. Management is, as it were, a tool that is to provide the institution (…) with the ability to achieve intended results in the external environment in which it operates. Logistics management is not a separate element of the enterprise management system, but its component, subject to applicable rules and procedures. These can be rules concerning, for example, the construction and modification of plans, the shaping of the formal organizational structure, or management decision-making procedures, technological and technological-organizational procedures, or organizational ones. However, the specificity of logistics and the principles of its philosophy must be taken into account. According to M. Sołtysik, The current achievements of logistics theory and practice indicate that logistics management is not a new management method, such as system management by objectives or strategic management, although logistics uses these methods. It is also not a separate management concept using specific management tools (instruments, rules, procedures) characteristic only of logistics, such as, for example, the concept of management as the exercise of power or the administrative concept. After all, logistics management uses procedures and instruments applied in known classical management concepts. This thesis is confirmed by Z. Sarjusz-Wolski, according to whom When talking about logistics management in an enterprise, we are not thinking about a new element of the management system, but about a new look at the sequence of logistics activities accompanying material supply as well as the production and distribution of products. This opinion is also shared by D. Kisperska-Moroń, who claims that Logistics management is not a new, separate management method or concept. It can be assumed that it is a specific orientation in management, based on a specific way of thinking and a different philosophy of conduct. Logistics management is therefore a specific orientation in enterprise management.
Logistics orientation in management consists of coordinating physical flow, treated in a systemic way, starting from individual activities and ending with a broader, strategic perception of the entire flow. Logistics orientation therefore has a flow character. It means that enterprises are guided in their behaviors by important values, factors, and processes of a logistical nature, to ensure the smooth and efficient flow of materials, semi-finished products, and final products within the enterprise and in logistics chains and supply chains.
The article comes from the journal “Logistyka”, No. 3/2006.