A series of deregulation actions regarding trucking service tariff and cabotage and other aspects, following the integration of the EU in 1993, as well as the liberalization of East European economies made the logistics industry of Europe competitive. The introduction of Euro, the new currency, in 1999 created a greater chance for shippers to reorganize their production and logistics systems and to hire contracted logistics services. The equal partnership developed between shippers and logistics service operators in Europe may be even called alliance. This relation often is based on the mutual credit grown through long and close transactions between them, and is different from the contract-oriented third party logistics found in the U.S.

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One of the major objectives of introducing a new logistics system is generally considered to be shortening the lead time of its supply chain. The purposes of this paper are : 1) to clarify how lead time is made up, 2) to introduce a concept of target lead time or standard lead time as a measure of a logistics system and its performance, and 3) to propose how to set the standard lead time. For setting standard lead time, a method of “pull scheduling” is adopted in which the activities of all the processes can be pulled out according to the customers' demands.

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The necessity of applying Activity-Based Costing (ABC) in logistics process is urged for Supply-Chain Management. However, in Japan, firms, which apply ABC in logistics, are still very few. We assume that Japanese logistics peculiarities are not suitable for applying ordinal cost model of ABC. In this study, we propose logistics ABC cost model and analysis frame that are designed for Japanese logistics phenomena. Using these, not only to improve logistics system but also to promote third party logistics are expected in Japanese firm.

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The purpose of this paper is to verify the effectiveness of building a logistics system by utilizing information technology The research showed some problems through the case study.
As the result, it concluded that building a logistics system for customer satisfaction by utilizing information technology is effective. In the future, to be successful logistics system for customer satisfaction, we must build an environmentally harmonious logistics system by utilizing information technology.

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Due to unreasonable demands of consumers such as time-designated and restricted frequency of deliveries, physical distribution activities in urban areas have become more complicated and congested as before. In order to meet this demand, it is important that the time of goods from ordering to receiving be reduced. By reducing the time, the travel time of commercial vehicles may be shortened which may result to the lessening of traffic and environmental problems. Thus, this paper aims to clarify the role of introducing information systems in reducing this time. It also seeks to understand the effects of introducing information systems in the various physical distribution activities.

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This paper is a part of the research aimed at the establishment of a supply chain network concept as a base to make the argument of SCM smooth. An object in this paper is limited to refer to an activities network to compose a side of the networks. It explains the cause which sets of activities turn to the network with a concept of “transvection” that Alderson advocated. Furthermore, the general idea of decoupling points and the principle of the postponement-speculation are applied, and the impact on supply chain network such as the economy, market risk and the client's patronage is discussed.

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Reuse and recycling of products and materials have been drawing attentions recently. We focus on rental products, which provide a form of product reuse, and considers a firm operating rental business with rental depots scattered around the country.The paper analyzes forms of product transshipment among depots to reduce cost increase service rate. Two forms of transshipment are studied : 1) an area partition method, which does not allow transshipment across boundaries of areas, and 2) a flexible method, which allows transshipment between two depots if they are within the distance of each other. A problem of finding an optimal area partition for the area partition method is formulated as the set-partitioning problem. Analysis reveals that 1) not-trivial cost reduction and service level improvement might be expected through product transshipment among depots, 2) decisions regarding whether to transship or not should not be made only with short-term cost consideration, and the flexible method yields the higher service level than the area partition method, among others.

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Logistics, composed of production, circulation and consumption, has been one of the primary sources of environmental problems such as exhausts from trucks and factories, and wastes from container packages, etc. However, the extent in which the environment has been affected by the production, circulation, and consumption processes has not been clarified yet preventing the producer, transport service provider, and consumer to find suitable countermeasures to improve logistics activities.
In this study, the amount of pollutant discharge and wastes due to logistics are calculated from three viewpoints : the area unit, the individual products, and the private enterprises.

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The Port of Hitachinaka is being constructed to improve the distribution system efficiency and to reduce the environmental disturbance in the Tokyo Metropolitan Region. While this newly-opened port is blessed with high location and timely potentialities for becoming an international core port of the region, it needs to be better prepared to have a necessary volume of cargo shifted from the Ports of Yokohama and Tokyo, which are now of intensive use. We analyze the flows of cargo in and out of the northern part of the region, and propose specific schemes to acquire an increased and well-balanced amount of import and export container cargo.

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This study is intended to review Logistics Cost Accounting Standards (LACS) between Korea and Japan. It reviews the establishing process, framework, contents and etc. of LACS theoretically, and analyses those comparatively. The results of this study are as follows : 1) KPC and KCCI's standards of Korea is similar to MOT and MITI's of Japan respectively. 2) Korean standards is established a close relationship with Japanese standards, and the originality of MOCT's of Korea is weak compared to Japanese.

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