The Development History of Logistics Management

The development of logistics management has gone through three levels: distribution management, logistics management, and supply chain management. Logistics management originated from the storage and transportation mode and technology developed by the military in transporting materials and equipment during World War II. After the war, these technologies were widely applied in the industry and greatly improved the operational efficiency of enterprises, winning more customers for them. At that time, logistics management mainly focused on the distribution part of enterprises, that is, how to quickly and efficiently deliver products to customers through the distribution center after the finished products are produced, and maintain the minimum inventory as much as possible. The American Logistics Management Association was then called the Physical Distribution Management Association, while the Canadian Supply Chain and Logistics Management Association was called the Canadian Physical Distribution Management Association. In this initial stage, logistics management only passively caters to customer needs after a predetermined number of finished products are produced, transports products to designated locations, and optimizes the use of resources in the transportation field, reasonably setting inventory levels in each distribution center. To be precise, logistics management has not really emerged at this stage, only transportation management, warehousing management, and inventory management. The position of logistics manager did not exist at the time, only transportation manager or warehouse manager.