The Origin of the Concept of Logistics Research Paper

The Origin of the Concept of Logistics - Research Paper Example This research will begin with the statement that the origin of the concept, Logistics, was noticed before the birth of Christ and was employed by the Greek generals (Leon, the Wise and Alexander, the Great) to procure food, ammunition, and clothing for their army. It has been noticed that for years, the concept of logistics had been an issue of war affairs. History has recorded which shows that what people wanted were not available or produced in the place of its consumption. These goods were not accessible even when they had the urge to consume them. The food and the commodities were dispersed widely and were also available in abundance, during certain times of the year. Earlier, people had the tendency to consume their choice of food or commodity at the location or after moving the goods to a preferred site and hoarding them for later use. However, the absence of well-developed storage and transportation systems had brought in difficulty for them to consume these goods. As a result , the movement of the goods was limited to an individual depending on how he/she moves it. The main problem that was faced by them was the perishable nature of the goods, which forced them to gather the needful frequently. The restrictions faced by the people in storage and transportation had made them live in places closer to the source of production in order to facilitate easy consumption (Ferrell and Hartline, 2010). Thus, the concept of logistics was not prominent and proficient in those days because of its cost. The cost of logistics was quite high which therefore restricted the traders and the business to transport the goods and commodities from one place to another. It was a big problem for the mass to stay close to the source of the production since the traders or the business did not provide them with the facility of transportation of the goods to their homes. The concept of logistics would have eliminated these problems if it had been introduced and properly utilized then. The goals of the traders were to acquire higher productivity and earn good profits from their business and thus, they did not emphasize much on logistics (Dess, Lumpkin and Eisner, 2009). However today, with the passage of time, logistics have become the heart and the success of every business. It is used as the most important strategic weapon by the companies for transporting their goods from one part of the world to another so that every person has the right to use or consume it. However, it can be noticed that today, in a few areas, the production and consumption take place in the same geographic region. So that marks for an exception. There are striking examples that can be observed in different parts of the worlds like, South America, Australia, Asia, and Africa. Here, the population resides in small, self-sufficient villages and most of the goods that are used by them are acquired or produced in close proximity. Few essential goods are imported from other areas and thus, the production efficiency of the companies is low and the economic standards of living are not even noteworthy. In this type of an economy, a well-developed logistics system can bring positive changes to the exchange of goods among several countries (Dooley, et al., 2006). Logistics – Defined Logistics can be defined as the management of the flow of resources, which exists between the point of consumption and point of origin, for meeting the requirements of the corporations or the consumers. The resources that are managed in the logistics include materials, food, equipment, liquids, and staffs as well as the abstract items like, information, particles, time and energy. The logistics of the items usually take into account the integration of flow of information, production, packaging, material handling, inventory, warehousing, transportation and also, security (Clifton, 2012).