What are the definitions and main role of logistics

Definition 1: The People's Republic of China national standard "logistics terminology" will be defined as "goods from the supply to the receiving end of the physical flow process. According to the actual needs of transportation, storage, handling, packaging, circulation processing, distribution, information processing and other basic functions to implement the organic combination."

Definition 2: According to the "Logistics Handbook" of the Transportation Research Institute of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan, "logistics is the physical movement of goods from the supplier to the demander, and it consists of a series of economic activities that create the value of time and space, including a number of basic activities, such as transportation, storage, distribution, packaging, loading and unloading, circulation processing, and logistics information processing. "

Definition 3: According to the American Logistics Association, "Logistics is the process of the flow of materials, services, and information from the place of production to the place of sale that occurs in order to conform to the needs of the customer, as well as the planning, implementation, and control of the behavior engaged in in order to enable the custody to be carried out efficiently and at low cost." Logistics management is a part of supply chain management that plans, implements, and controls the efficient and effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information, both forward and reverse, between the place of origin and the place of consumption to meet customer requirements.

Definition 4: According to the Japanese scholar, "logistics is an economic activity that overcomes time and space intervals and connects the supply and demand bodies, including the physical movement of all materials, including waste and restoration. Specifically, there are transportation, storage, packaging, handling and other material flow activities and information activities related to them".

Definition 5: the United Nations Logistics Council in 1999 made a new definition of logistics, it pointed out that "logistics" is to meet the needs of consumers from the beginning to the end of the raw materials, intermediate process inventory, final products and related information effective flow and storage planning, realization and control of the management process.

Thus, logistics refers to the whole process of planning, implementation and management of raw materials, semi-finished products, finished products and related information from the place of origin of commodities to the place of consumption of commodities in order to meet the needs of customers at the lowest possible cost through transportation, storage, distribution and other means. Logistics generally consists of transportation, storage, packaging, handling, distribution and processing of commodities, as well as related logistics information and other aspects of the composition, and the various aspects of the optimal system formed after the synthesis and composite. The management of logistics is how to time, quality, quantity, and the lowest cost of the system to the required materials, goods transported to the production and circulation of any one of the required place to meet the needs of people on the goods in space and time.

The role of logistics in the national economy has the following main aspects:

(i) Logistics is the material basis for ensuring the smooth flow of commerce and realizing the value of commodities and the value of use.

(ii) logistics is the material basis for the development of the market, determining the breadth of the development of the market, scale, direction.

(iii) logistics directly constraints on the factors of social productivity can be reasonable flow, directly constraints on the degree of utilization of social resources and the level of utilization, affecting the allocation of social resources.

(iv) logistics situation, but also on the macroeconomic efficiency and microeconomic efficiency has a direct constraint.

In short, logistics in the national economy occupies an important position, better play the function of logistics, to accelerate our modernization has an important role.