Logistics services are responsible for the actual transportation of goods (packages, furniture, supplies, equipments, etc), from one location to another. Movement of people (e.g., car rentals and travel services) is not considered here and is a separate industry (travel services). In general, this business functional area involves the following business processes:
Fulfillment Management, as mentioned previously, tracks all goods transportation activities, from order management to logistics execution, transportation, and billing on behalf of the client. There are different types of fulfillment systems based on:
Additional information about fulfillment services can be obtained from the Fulfillment Management Association (www.fmanational.org).
Many software packages are commercially available for fulfillment services. An example is the PeopleSoft Enterprise Inventory and Fulfillment Management software. PeopleSoft Inventory is part of Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Supply Chain Management family of applications. Dydacomp (dydacomp.com) also provides a wide range of order fulfillment software packages.
Additional Information:
Transportation Services concentrate on the physical goods movement from one location to another. This includes provision of or arrangement for routing of goods through various points between buyers and sellers.
Examples of goods transportation services include Postal Services, UPS, FedEx and other providers. Trucks, trains, airplanes and ships are used to actually transport the goods.
Transportation services are closely related to order fulfillment services including shipping, receiving, returns and stock control. Transportation of goods are typically integrated with customer care, accounting and analysis reporting systems.
It is important to provide fast, accurate, and cost effective shipment processing plus inventory reporting. Customers should receive accurate status of the order fulfillment process regarding shipment status and estimated time of arrival.
A large number of software packages are commercially available to support transportation logistics and tracking. These packages support transportation based on trucks, trains, airplanes and ships. These packages increasingly support GPS software for positioning and tracking purposes. One of the best known systems is from Prophesy Software (www.prophesylogistics.com). A list of software is contained in the “Open Software Directory” (http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Transportation_and_Logistics/Trucking/Software/).
Additional Information:
Mark H. Rose, “The Best Transportation System in the World: Railroads, Trucks, Airlines, and American Public Policy in the Twentieth Century”, Ohio State University Press, Oct. 2006
Warehousing and inventory systems play a key role in transportation systems (see Figure). The most important part is the inventory management system that keeps track of the goods (items) being shipped. The inventory management and warehousing system for transportation is typically a simple system that keeps track of items in a database.
Data about each item in inventory, such as the number of units depleted because of a shipment or procurement are either scanned or keyed into the inventory system. The inventory system provides information about the number of items available in inventory to support the procurement and supply chain activities.