The traditional literature on logistics indicates the functions of supply, operations and distribution as the most important of the logistics activity in companies. Most of the revised academic production focuses on the initial and final functions, leaving a gap between them by not dealing with the operations function from the logistical point of view, a role that operations management has fulfilled in a certain way.
The objective of this article is to provide the bases for the conceptualization and definition of the central elements of what has been called operations logistics, production logistics or internal logistics, as well as their role and importance in the performance of the organization.
Abstract
Traditional Literature about logistics indicates the functions of supplying, operations and distribution like most important of the logistics activity in the companies.
Most of the reviewed academic production focuses to the initial and final functions, leaving a breach among them when not taking care of the function of operations from the logistic point of view, paper that of certain way has fulfilled the operations management.
The objective of the present article, is to give the bases for the definition of the central elements of which it has occurred in calling logistic of operations, logistic of production or internal logistics, as well as of its paper and importance in the performance of the organization.
Development
The definition of logistics has evolved and acquires different nuances, as numerous as the number of authors who have addressed this subject; the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) defines logistics management as “the part of supply chain management that plans, implements and controls the efficiency and effectiveness of the flow, flow of return and storage of goods and services, and related information, between the point of origin and the point of consumption, with the purpose of satisfying consumer requirements ”. (6)
Another definition refers to logistics as “the action of the labor collective aimed at guaranteeing the activities of design and direction of material, informational and financial flows, from their sources of origin to their final destinations, which must be executed in a rational and coordinated manner. with the aim of providing the customer with products and services in the quantity, quality, deadlines and place demanded, with high competitiveness and guaranteeing the preservation of the environment ”. (16)
It can be noted how both authors include reverse logistics, referring to the first to reverse flows and the second to the preservation of the environment, both authors also consider logistics as an administrative process, and both also take into account the consumer requirements, the second more explicitly than the first, however, the main difference consists in the explicit consideration of financial flow in the second definition, which is why it will be adopted for this article.
In general terms, the cited concepts are representative of all the others consulted (1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 12), since they indicate the objectives and fundamental components of logistics, in addition to indicating trends and criteria for their exercise.
To meet the objective indicated in the definitions, logistics is responsible for some basic activities, again here there are a diversity of approaches, some of which are summarized in table 1.
Table 1. Logistics activities.
| Author | Logistics activities |
| Arbones M., Eduardo1999 | Warehouse management Material handling
· Inventory management Demand forecast Organization of transport · Location and dimensioning of production and storage facilities · Wait management |
| Ballou, Ronald2004 | Keys: · Definition of service standards
Transportation · Inventory management Order processing Of support: · Storage · Material handling · Purchases Packing Cooperation with production and operations Information maintenance |
| Bowersox, D. and Cross, D. 1996 | · Transport · Inventories
Manufacturing supports Distribution |
| CSCMP2005 | · Internal and external transport administration · Freight administration
· Material handling · Storage · Order completion · Design of logistics networks · Inventory management Supply / demand planning · Administration of logistics service providers |
| Pau Cos, Jordi and Navascués, Ricardo
2001 |
Forecasts Order management
· Shipment of products from warehouses to the consumer · Stock management of finished products Maintenance of distribution tanks Transport from factory to warehouses · Conditioning and packaging Manufacturing scheduling Factory warehouses Control of work in progress Line supply and inter-factory transport Raw material warehouses Transportation of raw materials · Stock management of raw materials. Calculation of needs Provisioning |
Prepared by the authors, based on the bibliographic review.
As can be seen in this summary, there is a coincidence in the positions of the authors in most of the activities that are part of the logistics process, and even more coincidence when it comes to grouping into functions, since these are clearly divided into three main themes; sourcing, production / operations and distribution.
The most traditional field and with which logistics is commonly identified is distribution, not surprisingly, a review in Google shows 47,300 records referring to distribution logistics, while only 712 records for supply logistics and 248 in operations logistics.
A closer look at this last field shows how the most widespread academic production has identified the logistics of operations with warehouse and inventory management (2, 14), transportation and material handling (3, 7, 8, 12) and management of production (1, 11). A more comprehensive view of the logistics of operations is the one exposed by Bowersox (1996), when referring to the logistics activity to support manufacturing, which he defines as “The area that concentrates on the management of work in process as the flow between the different stages of manufacturing… (Includes) Activities related to planning, scheduling and supporting manufacturing operations.
Starting from the master program, it develops the storage, handling and transportation of product in process; it includes responsibility for storage at the manufacturing sites and maximum flexibility in coordinating shipments and postponements between final assembly operations and dispatch to customers ”(3).
Based on this definition, the movement and storage of materials, components and intermediate products throughout the production process can be identified as basic activities of operations logistics. Obviously, the design and execution of these activities is a process dependent on many other factors of the same production system.
According to the authors, and from the review of other sources of information (3, 8), the determining factors of the logistics strategy of operations are: the nature of the process, the production configuration, the management philosophy adopted by the company and the production environment. These elements are briefly developed below:
- The nature of the process: Production processes have traditionally been classified according to their nature into chemical and physical, and within these general classifications there is a whole taxonomy that defines and specifies them to cover the broad spectrum of industrial activity.
It is easy to imagine how the handling of materials, the flow between workstations and warehouses have completely different conditions in a chemical process and in a physical one, in the former very surely due to the very nature of these companies, generally highly intensive in scale, These activities are incorporated into the process in the form of machinery and equipment, while in physical processes, these are complementary activities, for which it is necessary to obtain different equipment and must be planned separately but dependently, always seeking the highest efficiency, being processes that do not add real value.
The logistics of operations is then completely different in each of these situations.
- The productive configuration: The authors (5,10) have recognized the existence of 4 types of productive configurations that are: configuration oriented to the process or functional (job-shop), configuration oriented to the product (flow-shop), project configuration and hybrid configurations. Each of them has characteristics of continuity, volume and frequency that define different characteristics for the logistics of operations, since depending on the case, a greater or lesser number of warehouses in process, equipment and material handling operations, etc. will be required. of production: This refers to the way in which the company relates to its market, and the impact that it has on the programming of its activity.
According to Vollman et al. (2005), these are fundamentally four: make to stock, make to order, assemble to order and design to order.
Normally, the production environment defines somewhere the productive configuration of the company, generally the manufacturing for inventory is related to product-oriented configurations, while the process-oriented or hybrid configurations generally correspond to manufacturing or assembly production environments to the Customer order, from this point of view, the production environment affects the logistics of operations as seen in the previous point.
However, the production environment also defines characteristics such as volume of final and intermediate storages, degree of flexibility of the production route, management and control units (referring to product units or complete orders) that impose particular requirements on the logistics of operations. in terms of managing the physical and information flows that are required.
- The production management philosophy: The importance acquired by the production function and its relationship with competitive business performance after the Second World War, has allowed the emergence of different management philosophies, some of the most representative are Just in Time (JIT), Manufacturing Requirements Planning (MRP) and Theory of Constraints (TOC).
The general approaches of these three philosophies point to the efficiency and effectiveness of the productive activity, in terms of the reduction of the productive cycle, its interruptions and the adequate disposition of the resources that guarantee it. However, each of these philosophies establishes very particular characteristics about the basic activities of operational logistics, some of them are summarized in table 2.
Table 2. Logistic implications of the MRP, JIT, TOC philosophies.
| Logistics activity | MRP | HIT | OCD |
| Raw material inventory management | The MRP is associated with the master production schedule and defines the raw material requirements for periods coinciding with the scheduling and considering the supplier's supply times | Where possible nonexistent based on a continuous supply plan adjusted to the needs of the production line in short periods | It is not explicit in this regard |
| Transit of materials throughout the process | The MRP coordinates the quantity and date requirements for each of the operations or activity centers of the process, therefore, it establishes moments of the supply but does not intervene in the way in which it should be carried out. | Under a pull approach, aided by an information system called KANBAN | According to the TOC, the flow of the production process is guaranteed from an element called ROPE, which, under a pull approach, communicates the needs of one job to the previous one and triggers the movement of materials |
| Intermediate storages | It is not explicit in this regard | According to the definition of the KANBAN system, buffers are restricted to the depletion of containers whose number and capacity is defined as a portion of scheduled production | Within this philosophy we speak of the BUFFER or buffer, which is nothing more than an inventory used to guarantee the full use of the bottleneck resource and is, from this point of view, the only storage in process required and allowed |
| Management of associated information flows | (MRP systems) "enable the creation of a centralized and computerized database and the coordination of the different activities of the firm" | The information associated with the supply, movement and temporary storage of materials is regulated by the KANBAN system | The ROPE is to TOC what KANBAN to JIT, since it serves as an information system within the process informing the need for supplies and controlling the cadence of the production line. |
Prepared by the authors from (5, 9, 15, 17).
As can be seen, each of the logistics activities are approached differently by the selected management philosophies; Each of these approaches, in turn, will define particular characteristics of the internal logistics in each company, to support their approaches.
The defined factors are also related to each other, and not only independently with internal logistics; As noted, the production environment, the production configuration, and the type of process are highly interdependent and largely govern the selection of the applicable management philosophy.
Additionally, the literature (9, 11, 17) presents evidence that these factors or at least some of them are related to the strategic formulation and competitive performance of companies, specifically in the stage related to the selection of the so-called priorities competitive or manufacturing targets.
According to Domínguez Machuca, competitive priorities are at the base of the strategic formulation of a company, including the strategic aspects of plant distribution, location, supply, programming and control of production and capacity, this then puts into direct contact to the competitive priorities with the factors that have been indicated as determinants of the internal logistics of the companies, and therefore, it raises a relation between this and the business competitiveness.
Nothing is achieved just by trying to reduce inventories, or waste, or to maintain the production rate without interruptions and with the adequate supply of the required resources, if that purpose cannot be operationalized. Operations logistics, understood as a process for managing the flow of materials and information throughout the production process, in whatever scenario occurs, is nothing more and nothing less than the tool that makes it possible to obtain these results, therefore, the timely delivery of an order, the adequate supply of a distribution channel or criteria as everyday as the order of the plant, depend on how well the logistics tasks already mentioned have been planned, designed and executed.
conclusion
According to the above, the logistics of operations (or internal or production), can be understood as that activity of logistics that is responsible for the movement and storage of materials, components and intermediate products throughout the production process in order to allow the fulfillment of objectives of continuity, order and cadence of the productive function, which will necessarily result in more effective results compared to corporate objectives.
In this way, the logistics of operations is at the base of the productive activity of the company, making it possible, facilitating its efficient execution and adjusted to the proposed objectives and therefore, bringing it closer to the goal of business competitiveness.
If it is accepted as true that the productive function is the key to business competitiveness, since it is responsible for satisfying competitive priorities, then it must be accepted that the necessary bridge is that of operations logistics, and that this is unique for Each company is therefore defined by the characteristics of its production configuration, its relationship with the market and the philosophy it has adopted for its own management.
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