Logistics four drivers

We introduce here the concept of logistic drivers making the link between the company s strategic objectives and their operational translation in the supply chain. These drivers are in line with the aim of logistics as defined by James Hesket (1977) in these terms Respond to demand at a given level of service at the lowest cost and also cross-check with Martin Christopher s dictum. Four in total, they incorporate in addition the new environmental component. We quote ... 

Mastery of these four logistic drivers ensures optimum customer service without out-of-stocks or overstocks under the best economic, social and environmental terms. It requires a structure, an organization and a process to be set up plus an integrated cross-cutting information system as demonstrated in the Supply Chain Wheel (Figure 4.6). 

The idea behind the logistics scorecard is to produce a number of measures against each of the four broad aims. There should be no more than 20 measures in total since the aim is to focus on the major drivers of excellence in each area. Like any dashboard or cockpit, there is a need for simplicity and to focus on the mission critical measures. Figure 12.7 summarises this idea. 

It follows that the company needs to build a set of logistics capabilities to respond to the external and internal drivers, discussed above. As shown in Fig. 5.3, the four first tier capabilities are warehousing, transportation, packaging, and managing customers. The cluster of capabilities, labeled managing customers refers to external drivers, whereas the other three clusters labeled warehousing , transportation , and packaging , are related to the internal drivers. 

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