Logistica

Logistics anda distribuitions chain

Moving goods

logistics is the management of the transport and storageos goods. Marcus Bridgestone,the logistics manager for a plastic packaging company, it talking to a new assistant about the distribuition chain. Marcus: After completion, items get sent from the factory to the warehouse. We store them there untilwe are ready to shi, or deliver, tothe client. I say “ship” but we don´talways use a boat to do ir. The cheapest, but slowest, shipping method is by container ship, but is takes around five weeks to sail from Asia to Europe. Aometimes we need to move the shipments or freight much faster, só we use sir freight.However, it´s much more expensive, altholgh it depends on the weight of the load – the goods being carried. When the shipment gets to Europe we have a number of shipping, options, wich realy dependsn on whee the goods land – I mean, where they arrive – and where we have to deliver them Rail freight is chep but not Always reliable, depending on the country. Road haulage is more expensive but the advantage is that lorries can go right up to doors of chops or factories. Assistant: What about the man from the deliver service? Marcus: George, from Fedex? We try only to use deliver services when we need to send something small, or very urgently.

Direct distribution
This website extract describes how Dell, the computer manufacturer, distributes is products:

Michael Dell started Dell computers in 1984 with only $ 1,000. Dell has grown to be a company with average earnings of $40 milion. How did he do it? A new concept: eliminate the middlemen and sell directly to the consumer. Dell has been able to maintain complete control over stock levels - that is, how much stock is holds at one time – as well as ditribuition costs. Dell figured out a new way to sell computers to the consumer, whish was throungh direct distribuition. Dell was able to gain a competitive advantage for several reasons: