home · Planning · All definitions of logistics. Theoretical foundations of the company's logistics activities Logistics practical activities represent management

All definitions of logistics. Theoretical foundations of the company's logistics activities Logistics practical activities represent management

Most enterprises of various forms of doing business need to organize logistics, since this allows them to competently deliver various products and goods to the end consumer. Not everyone knows that properly organized work of the logistics department will significantly reduce the cost of manufactured products, avoid production downtime, and also minimize costs, which ultimately affects the increase in net profit.

What is logistics in simple words?

Logistics is a science that studies the rational transportation of various resources from the manufacturer to the final consumer at the lowest cost. It is an integral tool for running a profitable business for every company. Today, it is impossible to imagine the stable operation of most trading and manufacturing enterprises without logistics.

Logistics (as a practical activity) is a system of planned management of information, material and cash flows of any company. Let us examine in detail the definition of each of them.

Material flows are usually understood as raw materials, components and all kinds of materials that are used in production. For its smooth operation, the purchasing and supply department is obliged to purchase everything necessary in advance, and it is also important that the delivery of raw materials is carried out strictly within a certain time frame. This should also include intra-production transportation and movement of materials and equipment.

The distribution of money and its receipt into the company's accounts represent financial flows. Control over production costs, cash flows, bill payments and profits is carried out by the financial department of any company.

As for information flows, in simple words this can be explained as follows: logistics provides a system for distributing the necessary information in such a way as to establish relationships between the company’s departments and with the end consumer.

As a result, logistics determines the method of transportation (delivery) of the necessary products at the appointed time to the right place, while ensuring the optimal cost of services and the appropriate conditions for their provision. At an enterprise, the logistics department performs a number of important functions, which include:

  • selection of transport companies and suppliers, concluding cooperation agreements with them;
  • concluding contracts with supplier companies under certain conditions;
  • consumer segment analysis;
  • organizing work with government services and regulatory authorities (customs, traffic police, etc.);
  • concluding contracts for cooperation with buyers;
  • organizing the transportation of products and raw materials to the enterprise;
  • delivery of goods to the buyer.

The activities of the logistics department are aimed at improving the operation of the enterprise and increasing profits. It is important to understand that most companies invest profits in the efficient operation of logistics, and these costs are the most significant part of the expense item, which emphasizes the exceptional importance of work in this area.

Who are logisticians?

Logisticians are specialists who organize the delivery of products from the manufacturer to the end consumer, while ensuring minimal waste of time and financial resources.

The logistician necessarily takes into account the interests of the manufacturer, consumer and carriers, because the quality of the services provided and the company’s profit ultimately depend on this. This specialist also deals with:

  • management of the material base and technical means of the enterprise;
  • preparation of accompanying and customs documentation;
  • monitoring and organizing the work of warehouse activities;
  • organizing delivery and forwarding of transported goods;
  • searching for optimal solutions for marketing finished products.

In addition, the logistician manages a range of information and services related to his activities. One of the most important skills that a logistician must possess is the ability to foresee possible risks. For example, when collaborating with a supplier that is located a significant distance from the enterprise, the likelihood of failure to deliver raw materials increases. This means that road accidents and truck breakdowns are possible along the route. Therefore, to deliver the raw materials needed by the company as quickly as possible, the logistician will choose the supplier closest to the company in order to eliminate the risk of production downtime.

Important: the specifics of doing business, the features of production and its location, weather conditions, the distance of suppliers from the company and many other factors directly affect the development of the work of the logistics department. For this reason, there are no standard schemes for distributing funds, organizing delivery, optimizing routes and other important functions performed by logisticians. This leads to the fact that specialists, taking into account the specifics of the enterprise’s work, develop optimal logistics models of work, aimed primarily at minimizing costs and making a profit.

Objectives and goals of logistics

Speaking in simple words about the goals and objectives of logistics, it is necessary to understand that they are aimed at optimizing the movement of products from the manufacturer to the buyer. To achieve this, logistics department specialists take a comprehensive approach to solving all sorts of issues at the stage of goods production, storage, delivery and sales.

Manufacturing logistics is designed to ensure planning for the production of various products in accordance with consumer demand. Data on this and detailed market analysis are presented by specialists from the sales and marketing departments.

This should also include solving problems aimed at providing the necessary conditions for the smooth operation of the enterprise and the production of the required quantity of goods. This obliges logisticians to ensure the purchase of equipment and raw materials in the required volume required at all stages of production.

The main tasks of the logistics department should also include optimizing the operation of warehouse facilities and delivering products to the warehouses of the end consumer. Specialists are required to plan the volume of warehouse stocks and monitor the shelf life of goods.

Logisticians plan routes for trucks, aircraft and ships, which is necessary to minimize the cost of transporting goods. They also prepare the necessary documentation for transportation, including waybills and customs declarations.

Types of logistics services

Let's take a closer look at the types of logistics services.

Production

When considering the types of logistics services, it is necessary to start with production logistics, since it is designed to manage the flow of cash, raw materials and finished products directly within the company. In addition, this type of activity influences the development of the technological process.

Production logistics pursues the most important goal aimed at optimizing the costs of the enterprise. Specialists in this industry perform:

  • analysis of consumer demand;
  • production volume planning;
  • optimization of work and plans of all production departments;
  • monitoring the interaction of production departments with supply and sales departments of finished products.

Logisticians exercise control over the production process at the enterprise. If necessary, they can make adjustments aimed at optimizing work and increasing profitability.

Information

This type of logistics activity is aimed at competent management of information flows, which simultaneously accompany material flows. This is due to the fact that correct work with information (timely notification of employees about various delivery problems, changes in production activities, ensuring interaction between departments, etc.) is just as important as the competent management of financial resources.

Specialists in this area are engaged in the optimization of internal and external information flows, channels of their receipt and transmission, as well as the development of internal regulatory documentation.

Transport

These services are aimed at optimizing and developing routes used to deliver finished products, raw materials and equipment to a manufacturing plant. Transport logistics is the most relevant, since most of the transportation is carried out by trucks. One of the most important goals of this area is advice, which consists of delivering products to the end consumer strictly on the agreed date and time.

Customs

Regarding customs services in logistics, it is worth noting that this industry is one of the most important in companies engaged in the international transportation of various goods. Specialists bear enormous responsibility for their activities, since the timely delivery of cargo depends on the quality of their work.

Logisticians are responsible for accompanying products to the place of delivery, as well as the availability of all necessary documentation. In addition, specialists are savvy in many legal issues, which allows them to correctly prepare customs declarations and accompanying sheets. This makes it possible to avoid cargo delays, production downtime at the enterprise, and product loss.

Purchasing

Logistics services in the procurement sector are essentially the work of the supply department, since this industry deals with the management of material flows. This should include the purchase and distribution of components, equipment, raw materials and other components that are necessary for smoothly running production. Specialists in this area also perform the following functions:

  • organize the delivery of raw materials for production;
  • search for suppliers;
  • conclude cooperation agreements;
  • ensure proper storage of raw materials prior to their direct use in production units.

The responsibilities of logisticians also include optimizing the purchase of raw materials and auxiliary materials so that they are sufficient for all production cycles (including continuous ones) and there is no downtime. Specialists in this industry play an important role in the development of the company, since the amount of expenses and the cost of manufactured goods ultimately depends on the quality of their work.

Warehouse

This industry is necessary for managing warehouse processes. These include the reception and delivery of materials and raw materials from the equipment warehouse, their storage, as well as the shipment of finished products. Warehouse logistics specialists are directly involved in the selection of warehouses for the organization and construction, and the selection of special equipment.

Also, the responsibilities of the logistics department in this area include organizing the work of industrial warehouses, maintaining accounting activities and monitoring the processes of receiving and shipping products.

Inventory logistics

The effective operation of production at an enterprise directly depends on the organization of processes for managing inventories of finished products, raw materials and necessary supplies. This is what inventory logistics does. Department specialists calculate the required volume of stocks of raw materials and finished goods (products) for production as a whole and form them. The main task of this industry is to ensure the continuous operation of production processes at the enterprise.

Problems of logistics in Russia

As practice shows, the logistics system in the Russian Federation is much more complex and requires significant costs in comparison with other countries. This is due to certain reasons and the specifics of the state.

First of all, it should be noted that the country’s territory is vast, so enterprises that transport goods have to face the problem of covering significant distances. This leads to significant costs for the purchase of fuel and lubricants, spare parts, and repair work. It is easy to guess that even those logistics companies that carry out cargo transportation within their region incur significant costs due to the need for long distances.

The next most important problem for all logistics enterprises is the poor quality of road surfaces in Russia. Carrying out repair and maintenance work cannot but affect the final cost of transporting products.

Logisticians are also not pleased with harsh climatic conditions, because winter in most regions is quite long, which leads to significant fuel consumption and increased costs for storing products in warehouses. This is due to the fact that the cost of heating large areas is significant, and without ensuring the necessary temperature conditions, storing most goods is simply not possible.

Logistics problems also include shortcomings in the legislative framework of the Russian Federation. For example, companies are often faced with the impossibility of obtaining monetary compensation (of course, by decision of the courts) from suppliers or transport organizations responsible for the failure to deliver products or raw materials, as well as production downtime.

Important: due to some gaps in the legislation, the legal department of the enterprise is obliged to provide for possible force majeure circumstances and include a clause on penalties in the cooperation agreement with suppliers.

How to choose the right logistics company?

In order to choose the right company that can competently organize all logistics processes, enterprise management needs to take into account several important factors. These include:

  • reputation of the transport and logistics company;
  • the possibility of providing professional assistance in general logistics issues;
  • cost of services provided;
  • delivery time of goods;
  • condition of the applicant's car fleet;
  • professionalism of drivers and forwarders;
  • guarantees for the services provided.

When choosing a logistics company, you need to find out reviews about its work and quality of services. To do this, you can ask your colleagues or find user opinions on the Internet.

An important factor that must be taken into account is the timing and range of product delivery. Some companies carry it out only within the city, others, on the contrary, specialize in regional and international cargo transportation. It is very important at the initial stages of cooperation to discuss delivery times and nuances of the upcoming work.

It is important for every company to receive qualified assistance in solving various situations. For this reason, it is necessary to ask the applicant for cooperation whether there are specialists on staff who can quickly solve logistics problems of any complexity and provide assistance if any questions arise.

When searching for a transport and logistics company, you should pay attention to the cost of the services provided. This is an important factor because it directly affects the cost of the enterprise. It may make sense to turn your attention to organizations providing rail freight transportation services. As practice shows, such transportation is cost-effective, especially when it comes to delivering products or raw materials over long distances.

Pay attention to the condition of the applicant's vehicle fleet. A large number of trucks and special equipment that are in proper technical condition indicates the seriousness of the logistics company’s business.

It is also necessary to inquire about the quality of the drivers and the experience of the forwarders who will accompany the goods during transportation. If constant transportation of oversized items is required, it would be useful to find out about the skills and experience of the drivers.

Every businessman interested in cooperation with a transport company wants to receive guarantees for the services provided. They consist in the fact that the carrier undertakes to deliver the cargo while maintaining its integrity. This should also include the exact order completion time. It is not recommended to cooperate with logistics companies that cannot guarantee safe transportation.

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As you can see, logistics at an enterprise is the most important department, the scope of which is multifaceted. Not only the uninterrupted operation of production and timely delivery of products to the end consumer, but also the volume of profit depends on its operation.

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"The proposed material of the textbook is divided into 11 topics and is devoted to logistics - the science of managing flow processes in a market economy. The sequence of presentation of the material allows you to get an idea of ​​​​the main functional
areas of logistics, logistics methods of “consolidated” management of material flows.
In planning logistics systems, the main thing is the creation of new business opportunities that provide the possibility of an organization/enterprise taking into account the constant search for an optimal development strategy based on special mechanisms for its implementation.
Logistics objects - material, financial, information flows and service flows along the path of movement from the primary
source to the final consumer. The main objectives of the discipline: study of the conceptual apparatus; mastering the principles and methods of logistics knowledge of organizations/enterprises as complex artificial systems; consideration of possibilities
application of the theory and methodology of logistics in enterprises, etc.
Logistics as a discipline in the system of training economists and managers is associated with the following disciplines: philosophy,
economic theory, management, organization theory, development of management decisions, enterprise economics, marketing, statistics, computer science, etc."

1.1. Development of logistics as a science and its practical implementation.

Logistics (from the Greek word logistike) is the art of calculating and reasoning. The history of the emergence and development of logistics is a thing of the past. In the Roman Empire, there were servants who bore the title of “logistics” or “logistics”, who were involved in the distribution of food products.
There is an opinion that logistics has grown into a science thanks to military affairs, which includes such a wide range of issues as planning, management and supply, determining the location of troops, as well as the construction of bridges, roads, etc. Over time, under the influence of various factors, logistics began to move from the military field to the sphere of economic practice, taking shape as a theory of managing commodity and material resources in the sphere of circulation, and then production.
A logistics technology for the interaction of various modes of transport (within a transport hub) was developed, which formed the basis for the development of a unified European transport system of the countries of the European Union.

1.2. Logistics in economics

In economics, logistics refers to scientific and practical activities related to the organization, management and optimization of the movement of material (raw materials, goods, semi-finished products) and accompanying (information and financial) flows from the source of raw materials to the final consumer (Fig. 1.1).
To control the movement of a material flow, you need to know how to influence this flow:
choice of vehicle;
selection of the optimal transportation route;
determining the optimal level of inventory in warehouses; selection of the number and territorial location of warehouses
and wholesale centers;
determining the optimal packaging size of the finished product
products, etc.

The main goal of optimal control of the movement of material flow is to increase competitiveness through:
reducing costs for cargo promotion;
optimization of inventories along the entire route;
reducing the time it takes for goods to pass from the primary source to the consumer;
improving the quality of customer service.

The use of logistics is explained by a number of reasons, among which three can be distinguished.
1. Reaching the limit of production efficiency has necessitated the search for unconventional ways to create competitive
benefits. Entrepreneurs began to pay attention not only to the product itself, but also to the quality of its delivery. Money invested in distribution began to influence the supplier's position in the market. In logistically organized material supply chains, the cost of goods delivered to the final consumer turned out to be lower than the cost of the same goods passed along the traditional route.
2. The increase in energy costs forced us to look for methods to increase the efficiency of transportation; coordinated actions of all participants in the logistics process were required.
3. The use and development of logistics became possible thanks to the introduction of computer technologies, which made it possible to manage material flows at all stages of movement.
In modern economics, there are three stages in improving logistics as an economic discipline.

At the first stage of logistics development (Fig. 1.2) transport, transshipment terminal, warehouse began to work according to a single schedule, a single technology, for the final economic result.

The container in which the cargo is shipped is selected taking into account the transport, and the characteristics of the transported cargo determine the choice of transport
etc.

The second stage in the development of logistics characterized by its extension to the production process (Fig. 1.3). From the point of view of logistics development, it is characterized by:
centralization of physical distribution;
long-term planning in the field of logistics;
reduction of reserves in material supply chains;
determining distribution costs;
implementing measures to reduce the cost of promoting goods.

The use of logistics in production has made it possible to reduce inventories, improve the quality of service due to timely execution of orders, improve the use of equipment, etc.

Third stage characterized by complete integration of all elements of the logistics material flow (Fig. 1.4). An example of such integration is the development of transport and technological systems. This is due to the emergence of specialized vessels: container ships, timber carriers, package carriers, specialized transshipment complexes, warehouse equipment, etc. An important factor that made it possible to combine all stages of the material flow from raw materials to finished products and beyond was the development of communication technologies based on global computer networks, which in turn contributed to the development of industries engaged in the provision of logistics services.

1.3. Logistics. Macro and micro logistics

The definition of logistics is usually given in broad and narrow senses.
In a broad sense, logistics is the science of managing and optimizing material flows, service flows and related information and financial flows in a specific micro-, meso- or macroeconomic system to achieve its goals.
In a narrow sense (from a business perspective) logistics - is an integral management tool that contributes to the achievement of strategic, tactical or operational goals of a business organization through effective (in terms of reducing overall costs and meeting the requirements of end consumers for the quality of products and services) management of material and (or) service flows, as well as accompanying them flows of information and financial resources.

Logistics, like economics, is divided into macro and micro levels.
Macrologistics solves issues of managing material flows belonging to several industrial, commercial, and transport enterprises located in different regions or countries. Micrologistics addresses local issues within one enterprise.

Let us give examples that reflect both of these concepts: 10,000 tons of cargo per year pass through the warehouse of a wholesale trading base (micrologistics); the countries of the European Community are forming a single internal market (macrologistics); the annual cargo turnover of the European transport complex is up to 10 billion tons (macrologistics); The warehouse's cargo turnover is 15 times higher than the average stock (micrologistics).

1.4. Material flow and its meters

The main object of research, management and optimization in logistics is material flow. It is formed as a result of transportation, storage and other material operations with raw materials, semi-finished products and finished products - from the primary source of raw materials to the final consumer.

Material flows can flow between different enterprises or within one enterprise. The areas where material flows pass are shown in Fig. 1.5.

Material flows are divided according to the following main characteristics:

In relation to the enterprise: external (occurs in the environment external to the enterprise and is directly related to it), internal (formed as a result of an operation within the enterprise), input (comes from the external environment and can be determined by the sum of the magnitude of material flows when unloading cargo), output (comes from the enterprise to the external environment). If the enterprise maintains inventories at the same level, the input material flow will be equal to the output;
according to natural and material composition: single-assortment and multi-assortment - the construction of the logistics process depends on these parameters;
by quantity: mass, large, medium, small, etc.;
by degree of compatibility: compatible and incompatible, etc.

Material flow- these are cargoes, goods considered in the process of applying various operations to them and classified
to the time interval. Operations include unloading, transportation, sorting, storage, etc. Dimension
material flow is a fraction, the numerator of which indicates the unit of measurement of the cargo (pieces, tons, etc.),
and the denominator is the unit of time (day, month, year, etc.). For example, material flow of construction materials
is 4000 t/year; The material flow for loading by crane is 200 containers/day.
The qualitative composition of the flow changes as it moves along the chain. Initially between the source of raw materials and the first processor
As a rule, the enterprise moves massive homogeneous cargo: crude oil, iron ore, coal, raw sugar, grain, etc. At the end of the chain, the material flow is represented by goods ready for consumption: gasoline, flour, packaged sugar, etc. Between individual industries , workshops move various parts, blanks, and semi-finished products.

In order to manage the material flow, it is necessary to know its characteristics and dimensions. Material flow meters are:
weight of cargo or number of pieces, volume, type of cargo;
transportation distance (kilometers, miles);
direction of movement (place of departure, destination);
batching - the mass or number of pieces of cargo to be sent at a time, on one vehicle, in one direction;
travel time and parking time at transshipment points or inventory in production.
Material flows are formed as a result of the activities of various enterprises and organizations. At the same time, a key role in their management is played by:
* transport companies and forwarding companies;
* wholesale trade enterprises;
* intermediary organizations;
* manufacturing enterprises (warehouses of raw materials and finished products where various logistics operations are carried out).

1.5. Classification of material flows

Material flows can be classified according to various criteria.

In relation to the logistics system the material flow is divided into external, internal, input and output (Fig. 1.6).
The external flow occurs in the environment external to the enterprise.
This does not mean all flows, but only those that have some relation to a given organization. For example, the external flow will be the flow of raw materials for a processing enterprise until it is delivered to its warehouse. When it arrives at the warehouse and moves within the enterprise, it will be internal to this enterprise. Upon entering the enterprise, it will be called incoming, and after processing and delivery of finished products from the warehouse - outgoing.

By quantity material flows are divided into mass, large, medium and small. A flow is considered to be massive when it is transported by several vehicles, for example, a train, several dozen cars; large flows - several wagons, cars; medium - single carriages, cars; small - the amount of cargo is insufficient to load one vehicle.
By specific gravity material flows are divided into heavy and lightweight, with examples of the former being metals and ore, and the latter being timber cargo, tobacco products, etc.
According to cargo consistency material flows are divided into flows of bulk, liquid and general cargo.

The first include:
grain, raw sugar, timber, coal, etc., transported without containers;

the second - oil and oil products, liquefied gas, wine, etc.;

to the third - metals and equipment, as well as other goods transported in containers, containers, boxes.

1.6. Volume forecasting methodsmaterial flow

It is often necessary to determine the volume of material flow in the upcoming period in order to make a decision on expanding or curtailing activities, forecasting income or expenses. The simplest and most common method is the extrapolation of the volume of material flow. There are several extrapolation methods. The two most common are:
1) according to the average level of the dynamics series;
2) by the average growth rate of the series.

1.7. Functional areas of logistics

There are five main functional areas of logistics.
1. Transport logistics, solving issues of managing material flow in transport areas. Transport work performed in the process of bringing material flow from the primary source of raw materials to the final consumer.
Transport operations carried out by logistics can be divided into two large groups, performed:
special transport organizations (public transport);
transport owned by the manufacturer of finished products (non-transport enterprises).

Transport logistics has no clear boundaries. It can be used for any transportation.
2. Production logistics, which solves the problem of creating material goods or providing material services. The bulk of the work is carried out within the territory of one enterprise.
Participants in the production process interact as a result not of concluded contracts, but of decisions made
enterprise management system.
3. Information logistics, rationalizing the organization of flows. Information systems provide management of material flows, using microprocessor technology, information technology and other components of the informatization process, achieving effective management of information flows. Information logistics is closely intertwined with all functional areas of logistics.
4. Purchasing logistics, solving issues related to providing the enterprise with raw materials and supplies. An analysis is carried out among suppliers, contracts are concluded and their implementation is monitored. A mechanism is used to influence the supplier in case of violation of delivery conditions and prompt measures are taken to correct the current situation. The area of ​​interaction, which constitutes the main content of purchasing logistics, is determined by the terms of the contract with suppliers and the composition of the functions of the supply service within the enterprise.
5. Distribution logistics, solving the problems of selling finished products. To solve these problems, two options for promoting finished products are used: sales are carried out by the manufacturers themselves and by trading and intermediary enterprises.

1.8. Logistics functions

Among the logistics functions at the level of business organization, experts distinguish basic, key and supporting
functions.
TO basic logistics functions include: supply, production and sales. These three functions are performed by almost any commodity producer.
As key logistics functions experts highlight the following:
maintaining customer service standards;
procurement management;
transportation;
Inventory Management;
management of order procedures;
management of production procedures;
pricing;
physical distribution, etc.

Logistics solutions play a decisive role in the operations of delivering goods of the required quality at the specified time and place, as well as in bringing services to the consumer. Maintaining customer service standards, ensuring a given level of product quality, distribution of goods and after-sales service are the primary tasks of logistics management of any enterprise. The ideology of total quality management has spread widely, and mandatory certification of goods and services has been adopted using the ISO 9000 series of standards.
Much attention in logistics management is paid to the procedures for purchasing material resources to ensure
production goals. Organization and management of procurement include a set of tasks such as selecting suppliers of material
resources, planning the need for resources, determining rational timing and volumes of their supplies, organizing contractual work, choosing forms of supply and types of transport for delivering material resources to the production divisions of the enterprise, etc. The importance of procurement procedures is also explained by the fact that factors of time and location of suppliers, the quality of material resources have a great influence on the amount of logistics costs.

Without movement, there is virtually no material flow, so one of the key integrated logistics functions is related to transportation. At the same time, the transportation process itself is considered in a broader sense than the actual transportation of goods, namely as a set of processes of transportation, loading and unloading, forwarding and other related logistics operations. The importance of transportation is not least explained by the fact that its costs reach 2/3 of total logistics costs in some sectors of the economy. Transportation management usually involves solving such problems as choosing a carrier and forwarder, choosing a mode of transport, determining rational routes, selecting a vehicle
for a certain type of cargo, etc.
Inventory management of material resources and finished products is the process of creating, monitoring and regulating the level of inventories in the supply, production and marketing of products. If the location factor is decisive when transporting products, then the time factor is crucial when managing inventory. There is always a certain need for stocks of material resources and finished products, which play the role of a buffer between suppliers of material resources and production, on the one hand, and between production and consumers of finished products, on the other. While reducing the risk of shortages, inventories at the same time play a negative role, freezing financial resources in large volumes of inventory; In this regard, the most important task of logistics management is to optimize inventory levels in logistics chains and systems while ensuring the required level of customer service. The high costs of creating and maintaining inventory levels (accounting for 20 to 60% of total logistics costs) highlight the importance of this key logistics function.

The order procedure management function determines the order of receiving and processing orders, the time points for receiving finished products or providing services to the consumer, and also initiates the work of the corporate distribution network or logistics
intermediaries for the delivery and sale of products to consumers; Although the costs of this key logistics function are not as high as transportation or inventory management, its importance in modern business is very significant, since it directly determines the quality of customer service.

Manufacturing procedures management (or operations management) is also a key logistics function.
From the standpoint of logistics, the importance of operational management lies in the most effective (in terms of reducing costs and improving product quality) management of the flow of material resources and work in progress in the technological processes of production of finished products. At the same time, the logistics tasks of volumetric scheduling, minimizing the level of inventories of material resources and work in progress, forecasting the need for material resources, reducing the duration of the production cycle, etc. are of great importance. These and other tasks of operational management are solved, for example, by micrologistics intra-production systems such as “demands/resource planning”, “optimal production technologies”, CANVAN, etc.
One of the key logistics functions includes pricing. The pricing strategy is closely related to the marketing and logistics strategies of the product manufacturer. The logistics strategy sets the level of general logistics costs that form the basis for the price of finished products, and the planned level of profitability and the final selling price of finished products to the consumer, determined by market conditions, competitors’ price levels and demand forecasts, depend on the marketing strategy.

TO supporting logistics functions usually include:
warehousing;
cargo handling;
protective packaging;
ensuring the return of goods;
provision of spare parts and service;
collection of returnable waste;
information and computer support.

Warehousing is a logistics function for managing the spatial placement of inventories and involves
performing tasks such as determining the number, type and location of warehouses; volume (area) of storage of material
resources, finished products; inventory placement planning; designing areas for transportation, sorting, loading and unloading; selection of loading and unloading and other warehouse equipment, etc.
Cargo handling (cargo handling) is usually carried out in parallel with warehousing and also provides the function
maintaining stocks. Elementary logistics operations that make up the cargo handling process represent
involves the movement of material resources or finished products in a warehouse, placement of products on warehouse racks, etc. This complex logistics function is usually associated with the choice of technological equipment for organizing the movement of goods through the warehouse, loading and unloading equipment; organizing procedures for sorting, consolidating or picking cargo for order fulfillment and transportation; maintaining a rational volume of warehouse turnover, etc.
In the distribution processes of finished products, an important role is played by protective packaging, which ensures the safety of goods delivered to consumers by various modes of transport. In addition, packaging is of great importance in marketing, since consumer demand largely depends on its attractiveness. The use of standard standard size ranges of containers and packaging in physical distribution can significantly reduce logistics costs by matching the volumetric modules of containers and packaging with the cargo capacity of vehicles, as well as the technological parameters of warehouses and cargo processing equipment.

Logistics support functions also include various procedures for returning goods that for some reason do not satisfy customers or have not passed the warranty period. Along with organizing service, repairing equipment and providing consumers with spare parts, procedures for returning finished products to manufacturers form an after-sales service system, which is sometimes classified as a key logistics function.
In the processes of production and marketing of finished products, so-called secondary material resources arise, which consist of production waste (returnable and non-returnable) and waste from industrial and personal consumption.
Secondary material resources form specific material flows, the management of which is currently also considered an object of logistics research.
Modern logistics systems cannot function without information and computer support. In many ways, it was the electronic processing of information about material and financial flows, the automation of document flow when organizing goods distribution, planning, organization, regulation, accounting, control and analysis of material flows on computers in supply, production and sales that made it possible to implement the modern integrated concept of logistics. Information and computer support is used for almost all logistics activities, both at the micro- and macroeconomic level.
Logistics functions and operations are specified by initial conditions, environmental parameters, strategy alternatives,
characteristics of the target function. To determine the volume of logistics operations and functions of an enterprise, one should take into account external, inter-shop, inter-site, inter-operational, intra-warehouse and other flows, which depend on a number of factors, and primarily on the level of organization of production,

1.9. Logistics systems

A system is an interconnected organized set of elements that has the qualities
unusual for its individual constituent elements. Thus, a certain collection of objects will represent
is a system only if it has the following properties:
integrity and divisibility;
the presence of connections between elements;
organization;
integrativeness.
To represent an object as a system, a systems approach is used. In this case, a distinction is made between the internal and external environment of the system, as well as the input and output (Fig. 1.7).

The elements of the logistics system are: transport enterprises, warehouses, wholesale and retail trade enterprises,
reloading and transportation equipment, etc. Moreover, the elements of the logistics system can be considered at the macro and micro levels. Qualified personnel provide connections between individual elements. Thus, at the macro level, the basis of the connection is an agreement, and at the micro level, the elements are connected by intra-production relations. Relationships between elements
more or less ordered.
The logistics system has, firstly, the ability to deliver the right product at the right time and place, of the required quality at minimal cost, and secondly, the ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions.

Logistics system is an adaptive feedback system that performs certain logistics functions. As a rule, it consists of several subsystems and has developed connections with the external environment. The goal of the logistics system is the delivery of goods and products to the greatest possible extent prepared for production or personal consumption at a given level of costs, to a given location, in the required quantity and assortment. Logistics systems are divided into macro- and micrologistics.
Macrological system is a large material flow management system covering enterprises and industrial organizations, intermediary, trade and transport organizations of various departments located in different regions of the country or in different countries. This system represents a certain infrastructure of the economy of a region, country or group of countries. The formation of macro-logistics systems in interstate programs requires the creation of a single economic space, a single market without internal borders, customs barriers to the transportation of goods, capital, information, and labor resources.
Micrologistics systems are subsystems, structural components of macrologistics systems. These include various manufacturing and trading enterprises, territorial production complexes. These systems represent a class of intra-production logistics systems, which include technologically connected production units united by a single infrastructure.

The boundaries of the logistics system are determined by the production cycle, starting from the organization of production and ending
delivery of finished products to the consumer (Fig. 1.8). Logistics systems management is based on the involvement of individual interrelated elements in an integrated business process in order to prevent irrational
losses of material, financial and labor resources

There are four main properties of logistics systems.
1. Property of integrity and divisibility. A system is an integral set of elements interacting with each other. The decomposition of logistics systems into elements can be carried out in different ways. At the macro level, when a material flow passes from one enterprise to another, the enterprises themselves, as well as the transport connecting them, can be considered as elements. At the micro level, the logistics system can be presented in the form of the following main subsystems:
procurement - ensures the flow of material into the logistics system;
production management: - the subsystem receives the material flow from the procurement subsystem and manages it in the process of performing various technological operations that transform the subject of labor into a product of labor;
sales - ensures the disposal of material flow from the logistics system.
2. Communication property. There are significant connections between the elements of the logistics system. In macrologistics systems, the basis of the connection between elements is the contract. In micrologistics systems, elements are connected by intra-production relations.

The movement of material flow can occur according to the following schemes:
the material flow passes directly from the manufacturer of the product to its consumer, bypassing intermediaries;
on the path of the material flow there is at least one intermediary;
the movement of material flow can be carried out either directly or through intermediaries.
3. Property of the organization. The connections between the elements of the logistics system are ordered in a certain way, i.e. logistics
the system has an organization.
4. Integrative property. The logistics system has integrative qualities that are not characteristic of any of the elements separately. These qualities of the logistics system make it possible to purchase materials, pass them through production facilities and release them to the external environment, achieving predetermined goals.

Macrological systems are formed at the level of the state, interstate, interdistrict, interrepublican
connections. Micrologistics systems are created at the level of an enterprise, organization and serve as subsystems of macrologistics systems (matryoshka principle). At the same time, the optimization criteria for macro- and micrologistics systems are different. For an enterprise, the criteria for optimizing its functioning in a market environment are the minimum costs, maximum sales volume, winning the maximum market share, etc. In macro-logistics systems, the criteria are often environmental, social, and military goals, although the criterion of minimum costs is also used. Depending on the presence of intermediaries in the product promotion system, three types of logistics systems are distinguished (Fig. 1.9).

1. A system with direct connections, in which the material flow passes directly from the manufacturer to the consumer, bypassing intermediaries. Currently rare
2. A layered system with at least one intermediary.
3. Flexible logistics systems, where the movement of material flow from producer to consumer can be carried out either directly or through intermediaries.

1.10. Supply chain and logistics costs

An important concept in logistics is the concept of supply chain. Under supply chain understand the sequence of stages in the material flow from the source of raw materials to the consumption of finished products. The logistics chain consists of links. The main links of the logistics chain include: supply of raw materials, materials, semi-finished products; storage of raw materials and products; Production of goods; sending goods from finished product warehouses to consumers, etc.
Each operation to promote material flow corresponds to certain costs that are borne by specific links in the logistics chain - enterprises. Since these costs are related to the field of logistics, they are called logistics costs.
They include costs in the following areas:
loading and unloading operations;
transportation and freight forwarding;
cargo storage;
collection, storage and transmission of information about cargo;
settlements with suppliers and customers;
cargo insurance;
customs clearance of goods, etc.

The size of logistics costs depends on the field of activity:
^ in industry they account for 10-15% of the total costs of production and sales of products;
^ in trade - 25% and above.

The main task of logistics is to reduce the costs associated with bringing the material flow from the primary source of raw materials to the final consumer.

The system for accounting for production and distribution costs should highlight the costs that arise in the process of applying logistics functions, generate information about the most significant costs and the nature of their interaction. Logistics involves fixing
operational accounting of costs along the path of material flow.
All costs can be divided into two groups: transformation costs and interaction costs. Cost accounting associated with the process of promoting resources consists of many costs that arise at the stages:
accepting an order;
order processing;
paperwork;
order completion;
storage;
delivery;
transport and forwarding services;
invoicing, etc.
The costs of individual logistics components are closely interrelated.
When taking into account logistics costs along the path of material flow, a picture of the formation of costs associated with order fulfillment is obtained.

1.11. Organization of logistics at the enterprise

The use of a logistics system involves managing all operations as a single activity. To do this, it is necessary to organize a special logistics service that will manage the material flow, starting from the formation of contractual relations with supplies and ending with the delivery of finished products to the consumer:
planning and control—plating of finished products, planning of transport processes, planning of a warehouse network, budget control, information systems;
management of warehouses - in warehouses, in transport, in the process of servicing production processes;
inventory management - demand forecasting, management and control of raw materials inventories; semi-finished and finished products; selection of containers and packaging, etc.
The logistics service, represented by a department or one person, must perform the following functions:
operational scheduling with a detailed schedule for the release of finished products;
operational management of technological production processes;
general quality control, maintaining product quality standards and appropriate service;
strategic and operational planning of supplies of material resources;
organization of in-production warehouse facilities;
forecasting, planning and regulation of consumption in production;
organization of work of in-production technological transport;
control and management of inventories at all levels of the internal production warehouse system and in the production process;
intra-production physical distribution of material resources and finished products;
information and technological support for management processes of intra-production material flows;
automation and computerization of management of material (information, financial) flows in production.

The listed set of tasks should be solved within the framework of a proprietary logistics strategy for optimizing the management of material and related flows from the point of view of:
^ optimization (minimization) of the levels of all stocks inside
production and technological cycle and warehouse
systems;
reduction of production and technological time
cycle;
^ reducing all logistics costs in production;
^ optimization of the work of the in-house transport and warehouse complex.

The complexity of implementing a logistics concept in production largely depends on the existing technological specialization and, first of all, in the field of transport and movement work.
Cost accounting involves identifying all units involved in the production process; determining the change in costs caused by the failure of a given business process; Determining the costs that can be avoided if the product is not manufactured and delivered to the customer.
Material flow management should be end-to-end and coordinated from one center. All logistics operations
must be completely interconnected and interdependent.
They must constitute a single process for managing material, information and other types of flows that arise in the production process.

1.12. Interaction of logistics with other organizational processes

The implementation of logistics activities is closely intertwined with other activities in the enterprise. Often the logistics function is “pulled apart” across various services: one division of a manufacturing enterprise is responsible for
procurement of materials, another - maintaining inventories, the third - sales of finished products. At the same time, the goals of the departments may not coincide with the goals of the rational organization of the total material flow passing through the enterprise.

Logistics interact most closely with marketing. In terms of goals and tasks, logistics and marketing are essentially parts of a single process of meeting consumer needs. Marketing and logistics represent independent, closely interrelated areas of production and economic activity. Entrepreneurs can use the concepts of marketing and logistics independently to manage a business. At the same time, the best results can be obtained by skillfully using both concepts simultaneously.
The essence of marketing lies in production management, market promotion and profitable sale of products,
focused on existing demand.
One of the most important functions of logistics is related to the organization of material and technical support for consumers. Requirements
consumers are not only to satisfy the production needs for raw materials, materials and products of high
quality, but also in providing just in time, at competitive prices for logistics services at a minimum level of total costs. To fully fulfill these requirements and satisfy consumer motivations, active marketing activities are necessary.
The modern concept of marketing identifies four main complex functions:
1) development and planning of product range;
2) information flow management;
3) organization of product distribution and sales;
4) advertising and sales promotion.
The implementation of these functions can be fully and effectively implemented with the participation of the logistics service.

Let's look at each function in more detail.
Marketing predetermines the subject specialization and assortment structure of production, which influences the formation and further development of the logistics system. In turn, logistics can have the opposite effect on marketing, adjusting the management of flow processes of the product range, making adjustments to the assortment structure, production program, enterprise budget, as well as marketing strategy and tactics.
Making a marketing decision to release a new type of product in real conditions, as a rule, causes unforeseen costs for procurement, delivery, storage and preliminary processing of material and technical resources,
their further use in the production process, and then in the physical distribution, preparation and delivery of products
to consumers. The need for completely new resources arises. An insufficiently justified decision or change in assortment with a narrowly targeted marketing approach complicates the tasks facing not only production, but also logistics, especially in the field of inventory management, orders, transportation and information flow management within the information support system. All this negatively affects the reduction of total costs.

For example, a decision to change packaging material, made under the influence of marketing prerequisites, but not taking into account logistics requirements, can significantly complicate the promotion of a product to the market due to the lack of necessary
equipment that allows you to do this efficiently.
The second function sets the parameters for the logistics system and marketing strategy. Organization of effective management
information flows, the creation of a modern information support system are the most important manifestation of logistics. In addition, as a result of research into the complex of consumer motivations, a significant part is occupied by delivery conditions and related issues. .
The third function is most closely related to logistics. If acceptable freight forwarding services are not established
consumers and resellers, then all marketing research and further work of marketers to promote commercial products to the market, as well as production workers to manufacture them, may be in vain. Poor fulfillment of contractual supply obligations may entail a variety of penalties. Marketing helps to determine the scope and parameters of service, trace the structure and dynamics of consumer motivations and needs, predict the development of market conditions and demand, etc. Compliance with logistics principles at the stage of selling finished products increases the costs of logistics and the implementation of the third marketing function.
However, they quickly pay for themselves, bring good profits, and generally allow them to significantly strengthen the marketing position of an enterprise in the market and gain advantages in competition.
The fourth function also involves interaction with logistics. The stimulating role of logistics in marketing is further enhanced by the expansion of the range of logistics services. There is no better advertisement for a manufacturer than the image of a responsible and reliable supplier. The reliability of a business partner is always highly valued.

Thus, we can conclude that logistics and marketing are two equal concepts with a single field of functional application, common final goals, but different tools and subjects of interest.
The logistics service at the enterprise closely interacts with production planning.
Production depends on the timely delivery of raw materials, materials, and components in a certain quantity and of a certain quality. Accordingly, the enterprise logistics service, ensuring the passage of end-to-end material
flow (hence, organizing the supply of the enterprise), must participate in making decisions about launching products into production, since it will have to provide production with resources.
Logistics interacts with production in the process of organizing the sale of finished products. Managing material flows
During the implementation process and having comprehensive information about the sales market, the logistics service, naturally, should participate in the formation of schedules for the release of finished products.

The function of the logistics service is to deliver raw materials and components to workshops directly to workplaces and move finished products to storage areas. The weak relationship between production and logistics when implementing this function leads to an increase in inventories in various areas, creating an additional burden on production.
Determining the optimal level of quality, as well as monitoring its compliance, is another joint task of the enterprise logistics service and the production planning service.
Materials management activities in an enterprise are usually associated with high costs.
The activities of the logistics service are closely related to the activities of the finance service. When determining the optimal volumes of inventory, the logistics service will naturally proceed not only from economic calculations, but also from the real financial capabilities of the enterprise.

Joint decisions by logistics and finance services are also made when purchasing equipment to support logistics processes. Transport and warehouse costs are jointly monitored and managed.
The growing interest on the part of entrepreneurs in logistics is due to the potential opportunities to increase the efficiency of the functioning of material-conducting systems. Enterprises using logistics have achieved an advantage
ahead of competitors and significantly increased profits by reducing costs associated with reducing production
costs in the area of ​​resource potential.
The passage of goods through various technical operations of the production process takes about 90% of all time costs. The use of logistics can significantly reduce the time interval at all stages of the production cycle. Time reduction occurs primarily in the production process between the acquisition of raw materials and supplies and delivery of the finished product to the consumer.
The operating efficiency of an enterprise using logistics is achieved mainly due to a sharp reduction
cost of goods and increasing the reliability and quality of supplies.

The peculiarity of logistics lies in the systematic consideration of the totality of all links of the production process from the perspective of a single material production chain. The interaction of individual links in this chain is carried out at technical, technological, economic, financial, methodological and other levels of integration. Reducing resource costs and minimizing time costs is achieved by optimizing the end-to-end management of material and information flows. Information flows arise where there are material flows and serve as a characteristic of the latter. The use of the term “material flows” presupposes the presence of information flows, and management optimization affects both material and information flows. The use of logistics speeds up the process of obtaining information and increases the level of service of the production process.
The use of logistics involves close interaction with a partner (buyer), which is aimed at making commitments to reduce costs and strictly fulfilling one’s obligations to the partner. The basis for successful activities are principles that presuppose a high degree of consistency among participants in the distribution of goods in the field of technical equipment of cargo processing systems. When organizing logistics, the rules must be followed: the right product of the required quality in the required quantity must be delivered at the right time, to the right place with minimal costs.
If these rules are met, then the goal of the logistics activity is considered achieved.


To make it easier to study the material, we divide the article into topics:

— the sphere of transportation, or transport industry;

— the sphere of product storage, or warehousing;

- the sphere of product sales, or trade (wholesale and retail).

The presented combinations of substantive processes that make up the essence of delivery and the forms of their organization in their totality are classical components of the subject of logistics science.

However, the following important points should be noted:

Firstly, the “content”, or components, of the material and “value”, or exchange, processes themselves, filling the content of the holistic delivery process, are in practice very extensive and are in a process of constant change due to the technical and scientific process. The previous analysis for educational purposes (and in general as a scientific analysis) is based only on the most important essence of each meaningful process, abstracting from everything “secondary”, but in life there is usually hardly anything “secondary”. Therefore, each specific meaningful process included in the overall delivery process is a combination of many processes and operations, and therefore it is an object of independent (separate) study;

Secondly, the content of the delivery process itself does not remain unchanged:

- The modern world is the world of information technology. As a result, in the delivery process, they are increasingly isolated, which have their own material support (information communications, instruments, technical devices, information transmission media, communication satellites, etc.) and on the basis of this allow optimization (speed up, reduce the cost, etc. .) many product delivery processes;

- the “cost” delivery process, or the process of selling products on the market, is constantly becoming structurally more complex due to the complication of the market itself, which leads to the emergence of new commercial organizations that, at a professional level, help other market participants implement and improve (optimize) product delivery processes, but do this in the form of providing relevant market services, the number and variety of which are constantly increasing;

— the complication of market processes leads to the fact that there is a specialization of even the management methods and models themselves, in relation specifically to the processes of product delivery, on the basis of which there is a continuous process of improving these processes;

Thirdly, substantive processes are not only organizationally separate processes, but also components of a single delivery process, and therefore must be studied not only separately, but also in their unity.

A holistic approach to logistics includes the following aspects:

- one of the forms of expression of this approach is that, as a subject of logistics science, there are supply and sales, in each of which material and exchange delivery operations are immediately considered in unity;

— we should not forget that supply and sales themselves are parts of the overall delivery process, and therefore they should be considered (in scientific and practical terms) as a certain unity that is achieved through intra-production delivery;

- finally, a general market approach to the integrity of the delivery process is also possible, which means that optimization of costs and profits is achieved not only in relation to an individual market participant, but also in relation to some of their groups, as far as this is generally possible under the dominance of private property. In this case, this approach to product delivery seems most relevant for all kinds of government organizations and from them to the population and other organizations.

Components of logistics as a science.

Taking into account the above, the main components of the subject of logistics science usually include:

1. Types of logistics activities of a market participant:

Supply activities, or supply logistics (purchase logistics);

Sales activities, or sales logistics (sales logistics);

Intra-production logistics.

2. Product delivery or logistics industries:

Transport facilities, or transport logistics;

Warehousing, or warehouse logistics;

Trade activities, or trade logistics.

3. Related areas of logistics are subjects of logistics science that study either processes or methods of management and analysis that take place (applied) simultaneously in all (or many) types and branches of logistics activity, which therefore can be considered as independent objects of research and practical application.

Such related areas of logistics, in particular, include: inventory management, packaging management, information logistics, logistics operations planning, logistics modeling, etc.

In the given names of the subjects of logistics science, the word “logistics” is a redundant concept, since both the concept of logistics itself and each of its subjects are essentially the same. For example, both logistics and supply (sales, transportation, etc.) in their concept are always the process of delivering products, but only in general (if it is logistics) or some aspect of it (if it is a private subject of logistics).

This redundancy of the name does not harm the understanding of the essence of the individual subject of logistics, if “logistics” in this case is understood as a certain science. As a result, the term “supply logistics” can be understood as the science of supply as part of a unified logistics science, “sales logistics” as the science of sales within the same science, etc.

In some cases, the use of the term “logistics” can be significant if the same name of a subject can mean different sciences (processes). For example, transport activity is the subject of logistics as a process of product delivery, but if desired, it can also be understood as some technical processes associated with the transportation process itself and with its vehicles, for example, processes of movement on rails or on a highway, refueling processes fuel or repair of these means, and all this as independent (separate) items for consideration. From the point of view of the delivery process, i.e. logistics, costs (time, coordination, etc.) for movement, refueling and repairs are important, but the technology of these processes itself is the subject of study of the relevant technical sciences, and not of transport logistics.

Logistics as a science and as a practical activity of a market participant. Since logistics is a practical science, there is often a confusion between its understanding as a science and its application in practice in the form of logistics activities of a market participant. There is nothing “scary” about this, since science must necessarily be translated into practical, i.e., in this case, logistics, activities of a market participant.

However, logistics as a science and as a practical logistics activity are not the same thing.

There is still a difference between them for the following reasons::

Firstly, a market participant usually uses in his practice the techniques and methods of logistics activities that are studied in logistics as a science. A market participant usually cannot develop them on his own, but must take advantage of the knowledge already available in this area. Science transfers knowledge into practice;

Secondly, logistics as a science generalizes the existing practical experience of many market participants. An individual market participant usually cannot do this, that is, replace science, since he does not have sufficient time, information, staff, etc. for this. Science generalizes practice, and practice is “material” for science;

Thirdly, practice, in this case logistics activities, can be carried out without any logistics science, while science cannot exist without practice. Therefore, the logistics activities of a market participant are not always the application of logistics science. In this sense, it is even more impossible to identify any practical logistics with scientific one. A market participant who bases his practical activities in the field of product delivery on the achievements of scientific logistics has a much greater chance of achieving market success than one who does not know the basics of logistics science. The goal of any science is to transfer the knowledge already accumulated by people, that is, so that each new member of society does not “reinvent the wheel”, but uses the knowledge that is already known in order to achieve their own goals on their basis and at the same time gain new knowledge that will be passed on to subsequent generations.

Logistics concepts

Logistics concepts can be divided into concepts of cost minimization and concepts of organizing logistics activities.

The concepts of cost minimization are divided into the concept of minimizing each (individual) logistics operation and the concept of minimizing overall logistics costs. The most progressive is the second concept, which is aimed at the final, rather than the intermediate result of minimizing logistics costs.

Concepts for organizing logistics activities are divided into the concept of reengineering, the concept of integration and the concept of supply chain management.

Concept concept. The concept of logistics is usually understood as either some kind of system of views that makes it possible to understand the delivery processes that take place in the economy, or some kind of leading thought (plan, general approach) that determines the entire set of actions of a market participant related to the delivery of products.

In this textbook, the concepts of logistics are presented only in their latest understanding, i.e. as a certain leading thought and a general approach to considering logistics processes from the side of a market participant based on it.

The main logistics concepts that have been formed to date can be divided into two groups: the concept of minimizing logistics costs and the concept of organizing logistics activities.

The convention of this division is that ultimately the second group of concepts still has as its ultimate goal the minimization of logistics costs, but they focus on significant organizational methods of achieving this goal, while in the first group of concepts the methods of achieving cost minimization are not limited to one group (side).

Concepts for minimizing logistics costs.

These include:

The concept of minimizing costs for a separate logistics process;

The concept of minimizing overall logistics costs. The concept of minimizing costs for a separate logistics

process. A market participant usually carries out many different logistics activities. According to the approach of this concept, its main task is to minimize the costs of each logistics process.

Minimizing costs is the goal of any market participant, since it is the main method of increasing its profits. By reducing the cost of delivering products, he thereby, ceteris paribus, increases the total profit from the sale of these products on the market.

The concept of minimizing total logistics costs. The essence of the concept is that the logistics processes carried out by a market participant are no longer considered separately, as was the case in the previous concept, but in their entirety.

In accordance with this concept, a market participant seeks to minimize delivery costs not only and not so much in each link of this process, but in relation to its final result (product).

For example, a market participant must carry out several delivery processes in relation to its final product. He may aim to ensure that each delivery process is carried out at minimal cost, but if these logistics processes are interconnected, then it is important that the total cost of them is minimal. Usually this can be achieved in such a way that when the costs of some individual processes increase, the costs of other processes decrease to a much greater extent than they could be reduced if considered separately. As a result, the overall cost minimization only increases.

Concepts for organizing logistics activities of a market participant.

This includes concepts:

Reengineering;

Integration;

Supply chain management.

The concept of reengineering in logistics. The idea of ​​the approach proclaimed by this concept is that for the purpose associated with the delivery of products that a market participant sets for himself, a single process is developed in which all functional links of the enterprise are linked. In the event that such a link with existing organizational units fails (or is ineffective), changes are made in the relevant organizational units (unnecessary ones are removed, new ones are created, existing ones are restructured, etc.), or organizational reengineering is carried out.

The problem is that:

firstly, the need for organizational changes (organizational reengineering) may arise whenever the logistics goal of a market participant changes significantly,

secondly, logistics goals are not the only goals that a manufacturer or other market participant faces.

Integration concept. This concept is based on the fact that all components of the product delivery process that are carried out by a given market participant must be interconnected (integrated) with each other. Thus, logistics processes (logistics activities) in the company (supply, internal production processes, sales, etc.) are carried out not separately from each other, but as a single complex aimed at reducing delivery costs, timely delivery of products, and establishing sustainable market connections with suppliers and consumers of products, etc.

Supply chain management concept. This approach consists in the best organization of the entire process of delivering a specific product from its starting point (manufacturer, supplier) to the final consumer.

This concept is based on linking the actions of the entire product delivery chain from manufacturer to consumer, which consists of different market participants. If all parts of this delivery chain are in some kind of organic connection with each other, for example, they have a close (identical) composition of owners, then in this case they can find a “cross-cutting” economic interest (minimizing costs or increasing profits), which will be maximum if they will act in the market as a single entity, and not as isolated owners whose interests are opposed.

Supply activities, or supply logistics

The supply process takes place for any market participant, regardless of what it produces or what services it provides. The process of supplying a product manufacturer is called logistics.

If the subject of supply can be any product, then the subject of material and technical supply are only items of labor that are necessary for the production of new products.

The supply process consists not only of various types of procedures through which purchasing, transportation and warehousing operations are carried out, but it also includes a number of preliminary actions:

Selecting the type(s) of products purchased;

Selecting a supply method (in transit or through a warehouse);

Establishment of supply criteria;

Creation of supply bodies;

Ensuring supply coordination with other logistics processes.

The trading function in the supply process is its initial function, but it plays a central role, since it is as a result of its implementation that the product becomes the property of the buyer.

After completing the trading procedures, the buyer carries out the process of transporting the products to his warehouse.

The transport function of supply means the movement of products from its supplier to the buyer.

Transportation of products can be carried out by the buyer himself (pickup) or by a transport organization, but regardless of who carries out this transportation, all transport costs are ultimately still paid by the buyer of the products.

Transport functions in supply include:

Selecting a mode of transport;

Selecting a transport organization;

Concluding a contract for the carriage of goods;

Loading products onto a vehicle;

Implementation and/or control of the transportation process of purchased products.

The transport function smoothly transitions into the warehouse supply function, which completes the supply process, but at the same time gives rise to the next process - the process of using purchased products.

The warehouse function includes the following sequential operations:

Unloading the vehicle at the buyer’s premises;

Acceptance of products;

Placement (warehousing) of purchased products. Warehouse operations as opposed to trade and transport operations

almost entirely produced by the efforts and resources of the buyer himself.

The total costs of supply procedures include the costs of purchasing products, their transportation and warehousing (storage).

General supply issues

The supply process takes place for absolutely any market participant: a manufacturer of goods or services, a trader or simply a consumer, no matter who he is in the market. The supply process that takes place at the product manufacturer is usually called logistics.

Potentially, the subject of supply can be any product, but due to the specifics of the process of material production, the subject of material and technical supply is predominantly only items of labor that are necessary for the production of new products.

The supply process has a rather complex internal structure, covering operations for the purchase, transportation and warehousing of products. However, he has a whole series of preliminary actions that seem to precede this process itself.

Such "pre-procurement" activities typically include:

Selecting the type(s) of purchased products, establishing their qualitative and quantitative characteristics;

Choice of supply method: will the product be delivered directly from its manufacturer (in transit) or will it come from the appropriate warehouse, i.e., from a reseller;

Establishment of supply criteria, i.e. indicators on the basis of which enterprise management bodies can control all or all supply processes;

Planning and regulation of supply processes;

Creation of supply bodies, i.e. organization of bodies for managing supply operations;

Ensuring that supply is linked to all functional activities of a market participant with its other logistics processes, and with the logistics operations of other interested market participants.

Concepts of supply and logistics.

The general definition of supply, which is often given in the literature, is that it is generally the acquisition of products necessary to ensure the uninterrupted functional activities of any business organization or any market participant.

In relation to a product manufacturer, supply is usually also called logistics, which should ensure the uninterrupted production process of the product being created.

Indeed, for example, in order to produce a new product, it is necessary to bring the required raw materials in a given quantity to its storage location, as close as possible to the place of direct production. Only then can a smooth process of creating new products be possible.

In other words, the concept of “provision” in the above understanding of supply acts as a combination of many actions that must be performed so that a market participant (manufacturer or trader) can carry out his market activities on conditions that would “guarantee” him a profit in the future.

In its most enlarged form, supply includes three groups of actions, simultaneously forming three successive stages of the supply process:

1) purchase of products;

2) transport delivery to the buyer;

3) placing purchased and delivered products into storage, or storing them with the buyer.

So, if in a functional sense supply is the unity of purchase (purchase), transportation and storage (warehousing) of purchased products, then in relation to the manufacturer of products, logistics supply is the supply of objects of labor, or it is the unity of purchase (purchase), transport delivery and storage (storage) of labor items necessary for the production of new products.

Supply and logistics facilities. Supply results in the emergence of incoming stocks of products, which from the manufacturer, as already mentioned, have the material form of objects of labor.

Objects of labor are material objects that serve as the starting material for the production of new products.

Objects of labor are opposed to means of labor, the main element of which is instruments of labor, that is, such material objects with the help of which new products or new material goods are produced from objects of labor.

Subjects of labor include: mineral and agricultural raw materials, fuel, energy, semi-finished products, etc.

In practice, incoming stocks may also include stocks of some tools (equipment), but in a normal case, tools should be in the process of their functioning (use), and not stored, for example, in a warehouse. Tools of labor, unlike objects of labor, serve for a long time, usually for several years, while objects of labor are completely consumed in one cycle of the process of producing new products.

The stock of objects of labor aims to ensure the continuity of the functioning of the instruments (means) of labor, while the stock of instruments of labor does not have any objective purpose arising from the very material process of their use, and therefore, in the general case, is not a necessary and socially useful type of stock. We can say that the supply of tools is a supply that in the general case should not exist at all. Therefore, the manufacturer's incoming stock is usually only a stock of objects of labor, but not a stock of tools.

At the same time, if we are talking about the incoming stock of any other market participant or the supply of a market participant who is not a manufacturer, then this is always a stock of finished products simply purchased by him, regardless of its material type. For example, the supply of a market trader includes the purchase (in the process of his trading and intermediary activities) of any product that may functionally further relate to both previously extracted raw materials and manufactured products, including equipment (tools of labor) that must be transferred (supplied) ) into the production process of the relevant market participant.

So, the object of material and technical supply are objects of labor, and the object of supply of market participants in the general case is simply finished goods as products that either do not change during the transition from incoming stock to outgoing stock, or cease to exist as a result of its personal or joint consumption .

Procurement procedures. Supply is the unity of procurement (purchase), transportation and warehousing, and each of these functions usually includes a whole complex of a wide variety of procedures, depending on the type of products purchased, the scale of the enterprise, the nature of the production process (), industry, location of the enterprise, etc.

However, at the most preliminary level, procurement procedures are based on solving a number of the most general supply issues, which may include:

Creation of bodies responsible for supply activities;

Selecting the type of product purchased;

Choosing a method (form) of supply;

Establishment of “boundary” (optimal) supply conditions (criteria);

Management of the supply process through its planning and regulation;

Organizing the interaction of supply with other logistics processes of a given market participant.

Creation of management bodies responsible for supply processes. Each market participant usually has certain structural links that are responsible for supply processes. If we are talking about a small market participant, then it usually creates a supply department that is in charge of all supply issues in this organization.

However, in large trading and especially manufacturing organizations, supply authorities may have a rather complex structure, adapted for the normal supply activities of a given market participant.

This structure usually consists of a cargo delivery (transportation) department, a purchasing department, a department in charge of warehousing, etc.

Selection of purchased products. The starting point of the supply process is to determine what should be purchased in order to ensure the functioning of a given market participant. Typically, the composition and size of batches of purchased products are determined by the needs of the functional activities of a market participant.

Depending on the type of organization (market participant), the products purchased by it are conditionally divided into two groups:

1) for products that are necessary for the production process and sale of products;

2) for products that are necessary to ensure the functioning of the organization itself.

If the organization is a direct manufacturer of products, then, based on the range and volumes of products produced by it, the supply authorities of this organization calculate what types of raw materials, in what sizes and in what time frame must be purchased, regardless of which products go into the production process and which for the needs of the enterprise itself.

If this is a trading organization, then it quite clearly distinguishes between the purchases of those goods that it sells on the market and the purchases of those products that it personally needs to carry out its trading activities.

If this is some kind of public or state organization, then only those products are purchased that are necessary for this organization to perform its public functions in the state.

The types of products purchased by a market participant remain unchanged for some time, however, due to changes in the production process and in the types of products produced, changes occur from time to time in the types of products purchased.

These changes can also take place when market conditions require it, for example, due to rising prices for some commonly purchased type of raw material, a manufacturer may be forced to switch to a cheaper alternative type.

Choosing a method (form) of supply.

Depending on how the connection is established between the manufacturer and the buyer of the product on the market, there are two possible ways of supplying the product, or two forms of supply:

1) transit is a method of delivering products from the manufacturer directly to the buyer;

2) warehouse is a method of delivering products from the manufacturer to the buyer through a distribution warehouse or through an intermediary (trade dealer).

In practice, of course, there is often some combination of these forms of supply, in which some of the products are purchased directly from manufacturers, and the other part from resellers.

The transit form of supply is usually used if, on the one hand, the supply of products is carried out in quantities that allow the delivery vehicle to be sufficiently filled, and on the other hand, if direct connections have been established between the manufacturer and the consumer of the product and they do not need a reseller.

This delivery method is especially suitable for the delivery of large quantities of products that do not require special operations to prepare them for use in production or consumption.

The transit method of delivery allows you to sell products bypassing commercial warehouses, and thereby reduce the overall delivery time, reduce the costs of delivering products to the consumer, loading (reloading) and unloading, etc.

All other things being equal, the transit method of delivering products is always cheaper than its delivery through a reseller, by the amount of the fee for trade intermediary services.

For most types of supplied products, a warehouse form of supply is usually used, in which the manufacturer delivers its products first to a distribution (central) warehouse owned by the reseller, from which it is supplied to customers as required. The warehouse (reseller-dealer) acts as an additional stopping point (i.e., inventory) on the path of product movement from manufacturer to consumer.

The economic feasibility of the warehouse form of supply stems from the fact that the manufacturer usually sells its products in large quantities, and consumers need it in smaller quantities, but of different assortments. Hence, the main task of the distribution warehouse, as an intermediary in supply, is to transform large batches of manufactured products into batches that are needed by numerous consumers.

The warehouse form of supply is essentially the most important for small consumers who need quantitative quantities of products that are less than the vehicle loading standards. This problem is solved by the fact that the warehouse completes a transport batch addressed to one buyer from a whole set of products he needs. As a result, the buyer has the opportunity to order different products from one warehouse at once, but in regular transport batches, which allows him to reduce his overall transport costs.

The warehouse form of supply makes it possible to organize the delivery of products within a time frame that is as close as possible to the process of its production consumption, and thereby significantly reduce the warehouse costs of the manufacturer itself and its need for storage capacity as a consumer of the relevant items of labor or finished products.

In general, the criterion for choosing one or another form of supply is the total costs of the buyer for the delivery of purchased products.

Determination of supply criteria. Like any process that is significant for a market participant, supply must have its own criteria on the basis of which it would be possible to monitor how successfully (effectively) this process is carried out.

Such criteria, or supply indicators, usually include:

Level and structure of supply costs (including in the context of individual supply processes);

Timing and reliability of cargo deliveries;

Level of safety and loss of delivered goods;

Storage capacity of the enterprise;

Comparative prices for similar purchased products;

The presence (number) of claims from the enterprise services to its supply authorities;

Amounts of fines received from cargo suppliers and fines paid by them, etc.

Planning and regulation of the supply process. Like any human productive activity, supply is managed through planning and rationing.

Planning involves the development of specific supply objectives that must be achieved over a specified period of time in the future, usually a month, a quarter, a half-year and a year. In turn, these tasks arise from production plans, i.e., from what products and in what quantities need to be produced during the planned period.

Planning is impossible without rationing, that is, without establishing technologically and economically sound standards for the consumption of objects of labor (and working time, or labor costs) for the production of a particular unit of production.

Based on the norms of costs of objects of labor per unit of manufactured products and information about the quantity of products that need to be produced, it is possible to determine the quantity of each type of objects of labor that the enterprise should purchase for the production of finished products.

Control over the supply process. Control is an integral part of any management process.

In this case, it includes two interrelated parties:

Internal supply control, i.e. control exercised by supply department employees over the processes for which they are responsible. Based on the results of this control, operational decisions are made regarding supply operations (acceleration, cancellation, replacement, etc. management actions);

External supply control, which is carried out by the organization’s management and its control bodies. Based on the results of this type of control, decisions are made regarding the management of supply units, supply policies, etc.

In the supply process itself, control is necessary, first of all, over compliance with all established conditions for the delivery of purchased products. In this case, the type and quality of the supplied products are monitored, and most importantly, their delivery time.

If delivery times extend beyond the normative limits, the buyer (manufacturer) is forced to use up his safety stocks of the relevant products, and if they are exhausted, his commercial activities may stop and he will suffer large losses.

Control over the delivery of products allows you to timely identify bottlenecks in the current order and take the necessary decisions in advance, designed to prevent any significant disruptions in the production of products, for example, buy the required products from another supplier (from another warehouse) or replace an undelivered product an object of labor (product) of some other type, which can also be used in a given production process.

Interaction (connection) of supply with other logistics processes in the enterprise. The supply process does not exist on its own, but is an integral part of the entire logistics activity of a market participant. To a certain extent, supply has its own goals and objectives, which are implemented in the processes of purchasing products, their transport delivery and warehousing, but it is obvious that all this is done in the interests of the entire enterprise, and not as an end in itself.

Indeed, the types and quantities of purchased products are assigned to supply authorities based on the types of finished products that are produced at the enterprise or that are necessary for the functioning of a market participant. The organization of transportation of purchased products is carried out based on the time frame during which it must enter the production process. The placement and storage of these products should be organized in such a way as not to incur unnecessary storage costs, since they are completely unproductive, and therefore are minimized by all reasonable and available means.

Trading supply function

The selection of a supplier (seller) of products, which is carried out from the standpoint of minimizing the total costs of purchasing and transporting these products;

Conclusion of a supply agreement as a certain legal action performed by the buyer in execution of his decision to purchase products;

. execution of the supply contract, which includes two points:

firstly, the transfer of ownership rights to the purchased products after payment and,

secondly, obtaining (executing) the necessary documents evidencing ownership of the product. Only after completion of trading procedures can the buyer begin to carry out the process of material delivery (transportation) of products to his warehouse, or this delivery process becomes a process related to the supply activities of this market participant as a buyer of products.

Place of the trade supply function. The trading function of the supply activity of any market participant consists in organizing the conclusion of relevant contracts for the purchase of products required by the market participant, while their practical (material) execution is carried out in the form of transportation of purchased products and their subsequent placement in the buyer’s warehouses.

The trading function of supply is the purchase of products by a market participant based on the conclusion of the corresponding agreement, payment for these products (usually in money) and execution of documents indicating ownership of them.

The place of the trading function is dual:

It occupies an initial place in the overall supply chain, that is, it is its first stage among other supply processes;

It plays a major role among all stages of supply, since it is the execution of this function that means the emergence (transition) of ownership rights to the purchased products by a market participant.

The trading function represents the beginning of the supply process, since the purchased products will be at the buyer’s disposal only after they are delivered to him, which usually means moving them by some kind of transport to the buyer’s warehouse.

The trading function occupies a central place in the overall supply process, since the product becomes the property of the buyer immediately after he pays for it (exchanges it for money), which, in turn, usually precedes the start of the process of moving the product to the buyer's warehouse.

To put it another way, legally the product becomes the property of the buyer before he “physically” owns it, because the latter becomes possible only after the material delivery of this product to him.

The transportation process in this case becomes necessary only if the products become the property of the buyer. Until he bought it, he has nothing to transport. (Although, of course, in practice there are exceptions, for example, situations in which the product has already been delivered to the buyer, but ownership of it has not yet transferred.)

The foregoing does not mean that the products cannot be in the process of transportation or in the warehouse until they are sold to the buyer. In fact, the market process of its circulation can be carried out in such a way that, for example, its manufacturer can transport the manufactured product to the merchant’s warehouse and from there it will already be sold. As for the trade in household goods, in the old days there were generally forms of trade in which the trader went around the houses of potential buyers and offered to buy goods from him, that is, he actually delivered them to the buyer himself.

However, no matter how the sale of a product is organized, it usually must first become the legal property of the buyer, only then can it be “physically” transferred to him. Otherwise, the seller runs a high risk of being left without proper payment for his goods.

Schematically, the supply process is seen as a unity of sequentially performed delivery operations and as a unity of material and “cost” operations.

The trading function performed by the buyer during the supply process usually includes the following main processes (actions) that sequentially follow from each other:

Selecting a supplier (seller) of products;

Conclusion of a supply agreement;

Execution of the supply agreement (transfer of money as payment for the products and receipt of the necessary documents for the products).

The selection of suppliers is usually carried out taking into account:

Quality - the required quality of the purchased products, which must best meet the buyer’s needs in terms of standards and specifications, chemical composition, and other quality characteristics;

Quantities - the possibility of purchasing the required quantity of products from a given supplier;

The time frame within which the purchased products can (or should) be delivered;

Reliability of the supplier’s fulfillment of its obligations to the buyer;

Cost (price) of a unit of supplied products. Naturally, other things being equal, the buyer is interested in choosing a supplier who will offer the cheapest product per unit;

Distance from the buyer, because the total costs of transporting the purchased products will depend on this.

The listed factors, in turn, are specified into more detailed ones depending on the specific conditions in which the buyer finds himself in the market and in the production sector.

In practice, product manufacturers usually have a more or less stable mix of suppliers, which is adjusted from time to time, but generally remains the same for as long as the relevant products are produced. The transition to the production of new products often requires the supply of other raw materials and materials, and therefore requires the replacement of some suppliers with others.

Organization of concluding a supply agreement. The conclusion of a supply contract is preceded by a lot of preparatory work, which consists of justifying its conclusion and performing the necessary procedures related to its conclusion and execution.

The justification for the need to conclude a contract is based on appropriate market analysis and economic calculations, which make it possible to select the best supplier in terms of price and quality of the supplied products, transportation costs, delivery times and reliability of supplies, etc.

Supply contract. The central place in the trading function of supply is the conclusion and execution of a supply contract.

A supply agreement is a type of purchase and sale agreement, which is characterized by two characteristics::

1) the contract is concluded between the seller and the buyer, but the seller is necessarily a market participant carrying out entrepreneurial (commercial) activities;

2) the subject of this agreement are only goods used for business activities or for other purposes not related to personal, family, household or other similar use.

The supply agreement provides for all the necessary conditions for the supply process:

Description of the goods supplied (type, quality, etc.);

The quantity of goods supplied in its natural measures, i.e. in units of weight, volume, pieces, etc.;

The price of a natural unit of goods and the total cost of the supplied batch of goods (the product of the price and the quantity of goods);

The payment procedure, i.e. the procedure for transferring money for purchased products (form of payment, payment terms, etc.);

Terms and methods of delivery of purchased goods. Typically, dates (periods) are indicated when the buyer can independently pick up the products from the warehouse (manufacturer or trader) or when these products must be delivered to the buyer’s warehouse;

Other necessary conditions. These may include the obligations of one of the parties to the contract for the delivered products, the warranty obligations of the parties, penalties, the procedure for resolving disputes between the parties to the contract, etc.

The supply contract usually also stipulates such points:

The contract may be concluded for the supply of goods in one consignment or in separate consignments;

The terms for which the contract was concluded. Often these types of contracts are of a fairly long-term nature, that is, they are concluded for periods calculated in years;

The type of transport that the seller will use to ship the products to the buyer;

The procedure for accepting goods by the buyer (inspection, checking quantity and quality, etc.);

The procedure for returning reusable packaging, if any;

In addition to the considered type of purchase and sale agreement, supply activities may be associated with the conclusion of other existing types of legal agreements related to the purchase of products, these include, in particular: an agreement for the supply of goods for, (supply of agricultural products), an energy supply agreement (supply of electricity ), which reflect the specific features of the supply of relevant types of products.

Payment for purchased products. Payment for purchased products is an action that means that the products become the property of the buyer. Usually payment is made in cash, i.e. by transferring money from the buyer to the bank account of the seller of the products.

If the buyer does not have the required amount at the time of payment, he can take out a loan from a bank or write out a security, which represents an obligation to pay the required amount to its bearer after an agreed period.

Typically, the buyer receives documents to own the product only after full payment.

Types of documents indicating ownership of products. Such documents usually include warehouse and certificates, and other documents of title.

Documents certifying ownership of the purchased product are necessary not only to pick up the purchased product from its seller or warehouse, but also for the internal buyer. These documents contain all the primary information about the purchased products (quantity, quality, price, etc.), which is necessary in order to keep track of the costs of production or other commercial or non-commercial activities of the buyer.

Transport supply function

Transportation of purchased products can be carried out either by the buyer himself, or by its seller (supplier), or by a specialized transport organization.

In all of the above options, this is the transport function of this buyer, because in any case, all the costs of transporting the products are paid only by him and, accordingly, he makes the choice of transportation method in such a way as to minimize his costs.

The existing supply process usually includes the following main transport functions:

Selecting the type of transport and type of vehicle;

Selecting a carrier's transport organization;

The actual process of transportation to the buyer’s warehouse and/or control over it.

Place of transport function. This function of the supply process includes the organization of the entire delivery process as a process of moving products purchased, usually under a supply agreement, to the buyer’s warehouse or to another place of storage required by him.

The transport function always takes place in the supply process due to the fact that the seller and buyer are different market participants with different locations.

Delivery of purchased products is carried out by one or another type of transport, owned either by the manufacturer (seller), or the merchant (reseller), or a specialized transport organization, or the buyer (consumer) himself.

Market forms of existence of the transport function, or methods of transport delivery of products.

The buyer’s transport function can have two market forms of manifestation, or be carried out in two ways:

1) the buyer’s own transport activities;

2) payment for third-party transport services for transport services of the seller or services of a transport organization.

Even if the buyer himself does not deliver the products he has purchased, the process of moving them as part of his own supply activities still takes place, but only in the form of transport services paid for by him, and not in the form of his own transport costs.

The difference between the indicated methods of delivery of purchased products, or market forms of existence of the transport function in the supply activities of the buyer, is that, in their composition, transportation costs by paying for transport services exceed their own similar costs by the amount of profit that is included in the price of the transport service.

However, this does not mean that your own transportation costs are necessarily lower than the payment for transport services. When transporting over significant distances, usually the costs of paying for transport services are lower than the costs of transportation carried out by the buyer himself, due to the more efficient use of transport by specialized transport organizations.

Selecting a delivery method. Initially, the buyer must make one or another choice between two methods of delivering the purchased products: with his own resources and resources or by involving other market participants in this process, primarily specialized transport organizations.

In general, he makes a decision about who will carry out the process of transporting the purchased products, based on two reasons:

1) the comparative level of costs for transporting purchased products using the specified methods;

2) the ability to deliver purchased products on our own.

In the first case, if it is cheaper for the buyer to bring the product himself than to hire a transport organization, then it is natural that he will deliver it himself. Otherwise, hire a specialized carrier for this purpose.

However, very often the buyer does not have the necessary vehicles to deliver all the products he purchases, especially since they can be very diverse and require different types of vehicles for delivery. Therefore, he is already forced (must) to use hired transport and pay for it at the prices (transport tariffs) that have prevailed in the market.

As a result, in the process of its supply activities, the buyer usually chooses not so much between the specified delivery methods, but rather between different carriers (transport organizations).

Basic transport functions of supply.

The enlarged supply process consistently includes the following main transport functions:

Selecting a vehicle;

Selecting a carrier;

Concluding a contract for the carriage of goods and obtaining shipping documents;

Loading products onto a vehicle;

The process of transportation to the buyer's warehouse.

Selecting a vehicle. Selecting a vehicle means choosing between different modes of transport used to deliver cargo, and within a mode of transport - choosing a vehicle, if necessary.

Usually the buyer has some kind of vehicles, but in some cases he may also have his own fleet of wagons, ships and even airplanes. Therefore, he chooses his vehicle, which, on the one hand, will require the least transportation costs, and on the other hand, can (capable) transport the purchased cargo.

But even if the cargo is delivered by third-party transport, the buyer often has a choice of which mode of transport is best for him to deliver the cargo. Usually the choice is made between, for example, rail and road delivery of cargo.

Delivery of cargo by rail itself is cheaper than by truck, but if additional transportation from the railway station to the buyer’s warehouse is then required, costs immediately increase, and under certain conditions it turns out to be more profitable to transport the products directly by truck to the buyer’s warehouse than reload it from transport to transport, which requires new costs, additional time, there is a risk of losing part of the cargo, etc.

The choice of mode of transport is determined by the type of product transported, transportation distance, location of the supplier and buyer, transport tariffs, etc.

Selecting a carrier. Typically, the choice of a carrier for purchased products consists of choosing one of the available transport organizations that transport goods by the selected mode of transport.

The choice of a transport organization is made when the choice in favor of the appropriate mode of transport has already been made. In this case, the buyer seeks to find a carrier on the market that better satisfies him in terms of prices, terms, reliability and other conditions that are important to him.

Contract for the carriage of goods. When the buyer has decided on a transport organization, he enters into an agreement with it for the transportation of the purchased products. The processes of purchasing products and concluding an agreement for their transportation should be carried out more or less in parallel, since it is advisable to immediately export the purchased products, since they are necessary for the process of using them, or you will have to pay for their storage to the supplier, etc.

This situation of coordinating the processes of purchasing products and organizing their transportation is often simplified if the buyer has a more or less long-term relationship (connections) with both the seller and the transport organization. In this case, supply and transportation contracts are concluded once for a period of time, for example, for a year, and within this period all supply actions are executed promptly and within the time limits agreed upon in advance.

A contract for the carriage of goods is the main legal document that formalizes the relationship between a market participant (sender of goods) and a transport organization (carrier) regarding the transportation of goods.

In this agreement, the carrier undertakes to deliver the cargo entrusted to him by the sender to the point designated by him and to deliver this cargo to the recipient. The sender must pay the carrier a specified fee for this.

The contract usually specifies the delivery time of the goods.

The conclusion of this contract of carriage is confirmed by the issuance of a special document to the sender of the cargo - a waybill.

Loading of shipped products. Depending on the delivery method, loading of products onto a vehicle can be carried out either by the buyer himself, for example, when the products are transported “pickup”, or only by the shipper. This is usually specified in the contract of carriage, and the costs of loading (and unloading, if required) are included in the buyer's (as consignee) transport charges.

Transportation process. If the buyer himself transports the purchased products, he himself bears responsibility for them in terms of timing, safety, etc.

If transportation is carried out by the appropriate transport organization, it is responsible for delivery times, and for the safety of products, etc. The actions of the buyer of products in this case are reduced mainly to monitoring the process of transportation of products and ensuring the necessary conditions for their subsequent unloading and acceptance.

Transportation is the most time-consuming supply process, and therefore it is the one that requires the closest attention, since current inventories of products are usually maintained at a relatively minimal level in order to save warehouse costs, and therefore the production process is highly dependent on the rhythm and timeliness of product deliveries.

Warehouse supply function

This function usually consists of the following procedures:

Unloading the vehicle at the buyer’s premises;

Acceptance of products by the buyer from the carrier;

Placing (warehousing) products for storage (in a warehouse) at the buyer.

These operations are almost always carried out by the buyer himself, and the associated costs increase the total cost (price) of the purchased products.

Place of warehouse function. With regard to the delivery of purchased products to the territory of the buyer (or to another place that suits him), the warehouse function, or storage function, plays the final role, since the delivered cargo is placed where it should be from the point of view of the process of its further use.

The supply process ends with the placement of purchased products usually in the appropriate (“acceptance”) warehouse of the buyer, from which they will then be sent for production or other economic use.

Warehousing of delivered products is an independent and quite responsible operation, if only because this product will soon be “needed”, and therefore access to it must be ensured, it should not be “overwhelmed” by other batches of products. Accordingly, it should not suffer from loading and unloading operations performed with it, from the method of its storage, etc.

Depending on the adopted method of organizing the production (or trading) process, the buyer must have one or another storage capacity and product reserves that allow him to uninterruptedly carry out his own commercial activities.

Since the warehouse activities and inventories of a market participant in relation to the process of producing profit are exclusively costs and therefore are a factor that reduces this profit, there is always an interest in reducing warehousing and reducing the current inventories of necessary products.

Therefore, we can say that the organization and management of supply should be aimed at the maximum possible reduction of incoming stocks of a market participant.

Basic warehouse operations with delivered (purchased) products.

In the most general terms, we can say that the products delivered by the buyer must be properly placed (stored), i.e., the following sequential procedures (operations) must be carried out):

Unloading a vehicle with delivered products;

Acceptance of products to the warehouse (verification against sales documents and actual delivery, unpacking, etc.);

Placing (warehousing) products for storage (in a warehouse), including its movement within the warehouse and other necessary operations.

Unloading products. The purchased products delivered to the buyer are unloaded from the vehicle, usually by the forces and means of the buyer himself, directly at the place intended for unloading operations.

As a rule, the place where bulk cargo is unloaded is as close as possible to the place where these products must be stored for some time. This place is always distinguished by the fact that the relevant machines and mechanisms (conveyors, cranes, etc.) necessary for unloading fairly heavy cargo or cargo of large dimensions are concentrated there.

Small loads can be unloaded at any suitable location on the buyer's premises and are usually carried out by labor stevedores.

Acceptance of products. This operation is very responsible, since it is necessary to make sure that the arrived products are exactly the ones that should be delivered. Its quantity, integrity of packaging or appearance, completeness, etc. are checked.

Documents for products are compared with their actual delivery, with the terms of the supply agreement, etc.

The results of acceptance are formalized accordingly by the person accepting the product and the person who delivered it. Documents on acceptance of delivered products are transferred to the buyer’s accounting department and other services that need them for their work.

Placement of delivered products. Depending on what the delivered product is, it is either placed in a place or room (warehouse) specially designed for its storage, or immediately transferred to those functional units for which it is intended. For example, if office supplies are purchased, they are often immediately transferred to those departments of the organization for which they are intended. If we are talking about objects of labor necessary for the production process, some of them can immediately enter the production cycle (into a production unit, workshop), and some of them can be sent to a warehouse, from which they will be released for production as needed.

The total cost of purchased products, or total supply costs. In accordance with the supply (purchase and sale) agreement, the buyer first pays the market price of the purchased products. Then, since its transportation is usually carried out by a transport organization, it also bears the cost of paying for transport services. Finally, when the products arrive on his territory, he bears the costs of unloading, warehousing and storing them.

Consequently, the total cost of purchased products consists of the indicated three groups of expenses, which in one form or another are borne by the buyer of the products.

The specificity of accounting for these supply costs is that payments for products and their transportation (delivery) to other market participants are taken into account in full, and the buyer’s own expenses for purchased products are often not directly taken into account, but are hidden in general (general business) items of its current expenses.


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Logistics is the science and practical activity of efficient

effective management of the totality of material,

financial, information, human and other resources

in the sphere of production and circulation.

The etymology of the word “logistics” in the Russian language is varied.

significant: the term “logistics” can have roots as ancient

non-Greek (logos - mind; log - thinking; logismos -

calculation, thought, plan; logo - think, reason;

logistea - the art of practical calculations),

so do the French (loger - to wait). Last

interpretation is explained by the fact that the emergence and development

practical logistics is associated with military affairs.

In ancient science, logistics was understood as the total

the number of computational tools known at that time (in arithmetic)

and measuring (in geometry) algorithms. In ancient Africa

there was a state institution called logistics,

where the financial reports of Athenian officials were audited

persons “And if logisticians convict someone of theft, then

they find him guilty of theft, and the amount discovered

wife theft is paid tenfold.

If logisticians determine that someone accepted gifts,

and the judges find him guilty, then they determine him simply

still like bribery; paid tenfold for this

nom size. If logisticians find someone guilty

in wrong actions, judges determine its crime

as abuse, and the damage caused is compensated by

in its true value"

Since then, many definitions of the concept have emerged

logistics. This is largely due to the fact that logistics

includes many directions, and an emphasis on

mania on one of them significantly changes the meaning and content

the definition itself.

The American Society of Logistics Engineers

laid down the following definition: logistics is an art

Aristotle. Athenian polity / Ancient democracy in the testimony of contemporaries. M.: Ladomir, 1996. P. 72.

Introduction


and science of management, technology and technical activity,

which include planning, supply and

changing means of transportation to implement the planned

operations in order to achieve the set goal. Frenchman-

Chinese experts interpret logistics as a set of

various types of activities in order to obtain the most

lower costs of the required quantity of products

at the appointed time and in the appointed place, in which

there is a specific need for this product.

In German science, logistics means pro-

process of planning, implementing and monitoring effective


and cost-effective transportation and storage

understanding of materials, semi-finished and finished products,

as well as related information on the supply of goods

from the place of production to the place of consumption in accordance

with the requirements of the clientele,

An interesting interpretation of the concept of logistics is given by D. Waters,

defining it as a function. He writes: “Logistics is

function responsible for the material flow going

from suppliers to the organization, passing through operations

within the organization and then out to consumers."

Experts from the Institute of Logistics give their definition

and transport (Institute of Logistics and Transport) - leading

UK professional body in this

sphere: “Logistics is a time-dependent location

resource management, or strategic management of the entire chain

supplies". Thus, despite the fact that logistics

ku is defined both in the narrow and broad sense of this

concepts, in foreign publications the emphasis is still on

on the practical side of logistics activities.

In the domestic economic literature, when determining

The concept of logistics emphasizes scientific aspects

term. One of the most concise and succinct, in our opinion,

definitions states: “Logistics is a scientific discipline

on flow control in systems". Despite

for brevity, this definition is still too

wide, since it does not specify what exactly

currents, in what systems and for what purpose is it carried out

management process,

We propose the following definition: logistics -

scientific and practical direction of activity in in-

integration of control of motion processes by a set

material, informational, financial, labor

and legal flows in economic systems.

To maintain high competitiveness of an enterprise, the logistics chain must constantly develop and improve. To do this, you need to have a way to determine the following points:

    how well the supply chain currently performs;

    in what direction it should be improved;

    How successful is the process of transformation of the supply chain in the chosen direction?

Answers to these questions can be obtained by analyzing the indicators of logistics activities, because they reflect in a concise form the state of logistics functioning. Indicators can be direct or indirect, absolute or relative. Indirect indicators are often related to finance, such as profitability or payback period. On the one hand, financial indicators:

    easily identified;

    look convincing;

    allow for comparison of the results obtained;

    give a general picture of the current state of the logistics system;

    are popular.

But at the same time they have a number of significant disadvantages:

    they reflect past performance;

    respond slowly to changes;

    depend on a number of accounting techniques;

    do not take into account important aspects of logistics;

    do not show specific problems and ways to solve them.

Direct indicators are more suitable for analyzing the causes of the current situation and finding management solutions. These include: the weight of delivered goods, the speed of inventory turnover, the distance of cargo transportation, the number of unfulfilled orders, the number of violations of delivery conditions, etc.

Absolute indicators include single (for example, sales volume or availability) and total (balance sheet indicators, income and expense figures). Relative indicators are divided into specific (ratios of parameter values ​​to the total number of any objects), interrelated (ratios of different quantities with each other), indices (ratios of homogeneous quantities with each other, the denominator is the base quantity).

The most common indicators of supply chain performance include indicators characterizing supply chain capacity and productivity.

LC power is not a given constant value, as it might seem at first glance, but actually shows the efficiency of organizing the use of resources. The fact is that power, firstly, depends on the way resources are used, and secondly, it changes over time. For example, the professionalism or unprofessionalism of managers can respectively increase or decrease the throughput of an enterprise with the same available resources. In addition, during the workday, employee productivity decreases, which leads to a decrease in power. In this regard, as mentioned earlier, design, effective and actual power are distinguished.

In addition to the absolute value of power, to analyze the efficiency of logistics activities, the capacity utilization factor is used, showing the share of the designed capacity actually used. For example, if a fleet of vehicles is designed to deliver 100 tons of materials per week, but actually delivers only 60 tons, then its capacity utilization rate is 60%.

Performance– one of the most widely used indicators. There are several types of performance:

    Overall Performance– the ratio of the total throughput to the total amount of resources used.

    Logistics costs (costs)– the sum of all costs associated with the implementation of logistics operations, as well as the costs of personnel, equipment, premises, warehouse stocks, and the transfer of data on orders, inventories, and deliveries.

Direct costs can be directly attributed to a product, service, order, or other specific medium. Indirect costs can be directly attributed to the carrier only by performing auxiliary calculations.

    Regulated costs- costs that can be controlled at the division level. Unregulated costs are costs that cannot be influenced at the division level, since these costs are regulated at the level of the company as a whole or in an external link in the supply chain (at another enterprise).

    Productive costs- costs of work aimed at creating added value that the consumer wants to have and for which he is willing to pay. The costs of maintaining logistics activities do not in themselves create value, but they are necessary, for example, the costs of transportation, placing orders, checking the work of employees, and maintaining product records. Control costs are the costs of activities aimed at preventing undesirable results of customer service.