Logistics vs Supply Chain Management
Logistics and Supply chain Management are two areas that are often felt that they could overlap. It is possible that different companies define them differently. Logistics deals with strategy and coordination between marketing and production.
On the other hand supply chain management focuses more on purchasing and procurement. This is one of the main differences between logistics and supply chain management.
It is interesting to note that supply chain management can include factors relating to inventory, materials and production planning too in its concept. On the other hand logistics includes factors relating to demand management and forecasting in its concept. This is also an interesting difference between logistics and supply chain management.
Experts argue that logistics management is a part of the supply chain management that plans and implements the flow and storage of goods, services in order to meet the demands of the consumers. This is indeed an important study made by the experts.
On the other hand supply chain management encompasses the management of all activities involved in the procurement and conversion. In addition to these activities the supply chain management takes care of all the logistics management activities. It is important to note that supply chain management involves all movements and storage of raw materials.
In short it can be said that supply chain management takes care of the design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the sole objective of creating net value and leveraging worldwide logistics.
On the other hand logistics can be simply defined as the management of the flow of goods and the services between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet the requirements of customers. It is interesting to note that logistics is a business concept that was introduced for the first time in the year 1953. Business logistics is nothing but having the right item in the right quantity at the right time at the right place for the right price in right condition to the right customer.
It is also interesting to note that logistics management is known by many names such as materials management, channel management, distribution, business or logistics management, business or logistics management and supply chain management. This only shows that supply chain management can be called the subset of logistics but the converse is not true. There is a thin line of difference between the two.