La integrated logistics it is a flexible and global organizational system that can make a difference for the competitiveness of your company in modern times. Let's explore its features together.
In the comprehensive logistics model, an organization gets rid of everything that is expendable to boost the connections between what is useful.
What is integrated logistics?
La integrated logistics It can be defined as a system to understand and organize the supply chain of a company in a global and coordinated way with respect to all the departments involved. This can be understood in stark contrast to the traditional behavior of a company, much more sectorized, without much connection between the components of the thread.
This type of flexible logistics is the daughter of its time. We are talking about a moment in history when users from very diverse places can buy a couple of items, of different sizes and packaging, with one click and wait impatiently for shipment for less than 24 hours, ready to file a claim.
In a world in which everything, including the market, seems to have accelerated without any prospect of stopping, it is inevitable to think about a radical optimization of processes to stay afloat, a true paradigm shift with agility, flexibility and lower costs. in its essential center.
Advantages of comprehensive logistics
The new coordination proposed by this type of logistics, minimalist, horizontal and light, entails certain advantages for the company that applies it. First of all, the competitiveness within the business world it is enhanced, since the organization will be better disposed to meet the particularities of the demand, revolutionized by the new sales technology.
Other companies will be left behind for not knowing how to get rid of work concepts that were expensive, but that the situation has ended up turning into a ballast.
Second, the costs are reduce inevitably in an optimization crusade. Suddenly managers discover, as they often do in times of crisis, how many things were irrelevant in the total supply process and miraculously achieve higher performance by investing much less in logistics cost.
Third, a flexibility complete business is guaranteed. With fine-tuned coordination between sectors, the company can stand much more firmly in the quicksand that the sales and supply environment has become, with a more pragmatic and adaptive perspective.
From this follows the fourth advantage, which has to do with the efficiency of a new well managed inventory, freed from cloistered massifications already in disuse and sectorized data. By sharing information between departments, it is much easier to build a smaller and more functional inventory, to meet a demand of infinite variability and dizzying speed.
Speaking of speed, there we have our last great advantage. Clearly, if unnecessary hurdles are removed from the production process to the inventory organization, the entire organization ends up exuding agility. In this way, specific needs of buyers and unforeseen damages can be met with much more speed.
In the following and very complete video, the concept that concerns us is explained to us from the definitions of logistics and integrity. We invite you to see it.
Implementation of our comprehensive logistics
Una integrated logistics it must concern itself in its early stages with getting all the workers in every department on board. Make them understand the new system and make them aware of their work within it. Remember that it is a more horizontal system, in which each of them must have the ability to evaluate the pace and effectiveness of the new processes.
Now, step by step, the entire structure of the company must be reviewed to make a general assessment of its operation and see what needs to be corrected. A good start would be to delve into the communication between departments. How fluid, regular and productive is the exchange between different sectors of the same company? If the answer is "little" in all three items, the link between departments should be thoroughly reviewed.
It could be continued immediately with an assessment of the state of the store. It would be necessary to observe the current use of the space and the arrangement of the merchandise with its packaging to evaluate how functional its state is with respect to the supply chain that you want to implement. A rigorously organized warehouse will greatly assist the agile movement of modern commerce, eliminating crucial delays and making the presence of each requested product evident, facilitating its mobilization.
Speaking of product itself, this should also be examined in light of the new quality requirements that the new logistics seeks to establish. The company will wonder if there is not a waste of resources in production that is not later justified by a high result. If the answer is yes, they will try to find a way to also optimize the product creation process, the core of their business.
If we talk about commercial activity, it is time that we also evaluate the Services and product distribution in the company, from its methods to the time spent on each delivery. A slow and haphazard distribution network does not create a good sign for the eyes of new customers. On the other hand, exhibiting promptness and agility in the way you deal with the product guarantees new sales.
And speaking of sales, it will also correspond to us, in our new journey through the integrated logistics, consider how we deal with constant demand. The traditional strategy of waiting for the customer's request to mobilize all the distribution machinery may be obsolete.
In the contemporary world it is perhaps more productive to analyze the client's behavior as a consumer in advance and jump ahead, having the entire system ready for your signal. This guarantees the speed of delivery and the satisfaction of the client, who feels properly read by his trusted supplier.
Likewise, it would be sensible to periodically assess whether a significant disparity between our production and market demand has begun to exist. In this way, productions that no longer find their audience could be cut, expenses that are not contributing anything to general income, in order to redirect those resources towards paths that are currently more fruitful.
Having largely exposed all the sectors on which our implementation of the new integral logistics will act, it is time to describe the four levels of integration to be considered in the system.
functional integration
Under a regime of functional integration, the individualism and sectorialization of the processes is definitively left behind as something of the past. The total coordination between all the departments is the north that is sought. In this sense, we will see that a series of dependency links are organized between one and the other.
For example, the manufacture of the product is determined by the sales strategy proposed by the marketing department, which has already evaluated the market and the volume of merchandise that could be sold in it at a given time. But this marketing department is also determined by the production policies dictated by another department, according to the business objectives to be met for that particular year.
Thus, through networks of mutual support and impulse, collective work is unified, avoiding individualistic entanglements and high-level conflicts.
Much of the model integrated logistics It is based on the careful review of structures, warehouses, deposits, ways of communicating and routes that we took for granted for years without questioning.
strategic integration
Speaking of business goals, the second must-have integration is strategic integration. Simply, that we all know what we are here for, what is the higher objective of our logistics cause. What is it that differentiates us from the competition? What value is the one that surpasses all values and towards which we all lean to work every day?
Each company has its most important value, be it the speed of service, the diversity of its delivery, the vastness of its domain or the level of its quality. Although it is a cliché, the workers in full of the company must choose their flag and march together with it.
business integration
When we say together, it really means together. Here is the enterprise integration to demand it of us. This is based on making sure that our planning process includes each of the figures that supports even a small link in the supply chain. In this way we will have in-depth knowledge of all the variables of the marketing process, from the evaluation of the level of demand to the time and punctuality of deliveries.
spatial integration
This level of integration is simply based on knowing where everyone is. The geographical location of customers, suppliers and partners can determine our own location as managers, in order to develop logistics standing from a crossroads between all these fundamental figures for the company.
Objectives of integral logistics
So far we have talked quite a bit about the advantages of integrated logistics, its implementation and its levels of integration. Now it corresponds, although it is related to some things, of its objectives.
Increase quality
Logistics will consist of scrutinizing with a magnifying glass all the stages of the product's manufacture, from the very design to the packaging, seeking the greatest possible perfection. Brands are built or reinforced from this meticulous attention to excellence. It is something that cannot be forgotten.
Develop a quick reaction
The rapid reaction must be understood in business terms according to two aspects: on the one hand, the ruthlessly pragmatic and fast discarding of everything that is left over in the production system and, on the other, the attentive reaction of a butler to the input of a client, who wants to express any doubt or express any specific requirement.
In a company with poor logistics, customer feedback would surely be lost in a cloud of communicative confusion, without moving from the first department to the next. When finally the client reacts exasperated choosing other alternatives, there would be no quick response capacity either.
That is why we insist so much on the interconnection between factors and business sectors. A company must be a living organism, which raises its ear when its tail is pulled. Each part of his body is part of a sentient whole, which protects itself and advances with greatness.
Reduce inventory
It is not about completely removing the inventory, it is not such a radical and absurd logistics. It is a matter of conserving this important instance of deposit within the production chain, but pruning it of objects that generate expenses without bearing any fruit in turn. Once freed from this burden, the inventory will fulfill its role as a resource sampler more effectively.
Reduce costs
Integrated logistics is particularly appreciated by many companies precisely for this point. But the reduction in costs is nothing more than the natural consequence of the entire process of optimizing work and communications, which make production more efficient and reduce the previously necessary investment.
Support technologies for comprehensive logistics
It would be impossible to undertake a decisive restructuring within our organization without incorporating some help software, called in this case management tools. These tools accumulate the necessary data to provide both the merchandise documentation and the formats of the different common projects. Among these there are different types, described below.
Tools of identification
Identification tools are those created with the purpose of automatically recognizing each product by simply passing the label through an optical reader or by radio frequency product identification (RFID). This greatly simplifies the inventory and supply chain review process.
transportation tools
Transportation tools take care of automating a large part of the transfer and distribution process, planning the best routes that our trucks or ships will take to facilitate their journey and return. Even the topic of fuel type is covered by these tools, preferring alternative fuels in one example called green logisticsof environmental sensitivity.
If we allow ourselves the comment in the margin as a complement, la Green Logistics It is a very interesting effort to combine mass economy with ecological activism, considering that it is urgent to reduce the environmental impact of the marketing industries to continue making everyone's business sustainable. The green transport described here is a good example of what this model wants to achieve.
Administration tools
The management tools, on the other hand, are project organization software, such as PPM, that take the members of the company from the abstract strategy to the gradual realization. They are developers of our own effectiveness in customer service, communications, and internal thinking, while being very helpful in ditching the frills.
Having seen everything related to the integral logistics of companies, we can lead to a conclusion where we will summarize, so as not to leave the reader bloated, the basic attitudes that have been implicit in this model of organizational agility.
First, we have learned that the global perspective is the look that takes the entrepreneur to the top, but not alone, but accompanied by the immense team that shared their goals, work ethic and aspirations. Let's try not to return to closed eyes within our small sector, unskillful when it comes to trying to configure a network of common sense. The collective project is the one that lasts.
Second, let us maintain an air of an English butler with respect to the client, a calm but quick reaction butler, who always anticipates the wishes of his contractor and also the inconveniences that may arise in the way of commercially satisfying those wishes.
Third, let's maintain unbeatable relationships with suppliers and customers, the two opposite poles of your supply chain, the opening and closing of the turbulent middle. With a constant conversation between supplier and customer about their changing needs, we will know how effective we have been or how many supply failures we can correct. Without a hand stretched out to each of these poles, we will not reach any business goal.
Fourth, let's make sure that everyone involved in the supply chain communicates efficiently with each other and is easily contactable at all times. Let us not allow misunderstandings, deviations or opacity that may diminish our well-constructed logistics development
If you have been interested in this article on every detail of the model of integrated logistics, you may be curious about this other article on our website dedicated to the function of the a company's supply chain. It probably serves to expand what is expressed here and link differences between a traditional model and a more contemporary one. Follow the link!
