A lots of things are talked and discussed about the changes in businesses and industries. These are re-structuring, flatter organization, cost reduction, competitive edge, customer satisfaction, business process reengineering, virtual corporation, etc. Behind those phenomena, the transition of the age from industrial society to information and knowledge society is recognized.
Various sciences take up these problmes with their own viwes and approaches respectively. What would be the differenecs and similarities in solution among those sciences such as economics, bunsiness administration, accounting, engineering, etc. Since logistics is inhererently interrelated with those sciences, it is necessarily relevant to these subjects.
Selected are four subjects such as Organization Structure, Ccmpetitive Edge, Cost and Alliance which could be common for those sciences.
1 Organization Structure
What should be developed is flexibility to comply with changing world and demanding customers' requirements. A hierarchy scheme which has worked well for contorlling organization is faced with internal conflicts among multi-functions and mulit-business units. Logistics originates an integral concept to solve the trade-off existing among different functions.
A solution can be made with study from both human behavior attitude in business administration and formation of integral logistic structures.
2 Competitive edge as value
Value has shifted from supply side to consumers as indivisuals. Company resources have become information and knowledge instead of energies. Competetive edge has become a capability to make an innovation in business as well as technology. Relationship between companies has changed to coexistence from hostility.
3 Cost
ABC (Activity Based Costing), which started in manufacuturing, is now in use in physical distribution and service industries. Logistics focuses on total cost approcach to aviod sub -optimization. Two examples shown here illustrate how to identify simplified and correct cost drivers and how to make a profitability analyses on products and customers and conseqently to make improvements in processes.
4 Alliance
A concept of virtual corporation is disucussed in terms of flexible unity of arm's length entities, virtual products as mass-cutomized products and outsourcing. In logistics, alliance is dealt with from the view point of virtical and horizontal integration.
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