Logistics can be considered as a tool for getting resources, like products, services, and people, where they are needed and when they are desired. It is difficult to accomplish any marketing or manufacturing without logistical support. It involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging. The operating responsibility of logistics is the geographical repositioning of raw materials, work in process, and finished inventories where required at the lowest cost possible.
The dictionary definition of logistics is: "The time related positioning of resources."
As such, logistics is commonly seen as a branch of engineering which creates "people systems" rather than "machine systems".
Logistics as its own concept in business evolved only in the 1950s. This was mainly due to the increasing complexity of supplying one's business with materials and shipping out products in an increasingly globalize supply chain, calling for experts in the field.
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