Information system and transport logistics

The evolution of transport. – Over the past twenty years, the transport industry has evolved considerably. Among the many factors behind this evolution, the development of logistics in industrial and commercial companies, coupled with deregulation and deregulation of the transport sector, is probably one of the most significant.

Transport, an industry in its own right, is one of the many operations that make up the logistics chains organized by companies that ship, transfer and receive products.

The choice of transport modes, and the organization and pace of exchanges, are therefore, for them, the result of a global conception of physical circulation. In fact, transport cannot be separated from logistics, nor can "traction" (or transport itself) be separated from "related" operations (handling, storage, etc.).

On the one hand, the transport offer (in particular through factors such as price, availability, speed, reliability, flexibility and operating constraints) encourages the construction of certain logistics systems, and in particular has an impact on the number of industrial and logistics sites, their location, stock levels and restocking frequencies.

On the other hand, the practices and principles of logistics suggest, and even demand, that transport evolve to better meet the "demand" of companies and their customers.

The relationship between logistics and transport. – To study the relationship between logistics and transport information systems, we feel it is important to present the main trends in logistics, particularly in the field of information systems. While logistics, understood as the "technology" (combining techniques, knowledge and organizational practices) of "flow management", is primarily concerned with physical flows (i.e., the flow of goods: from raw materials and packaging to waste, in-process goods, finished products, spare parts, POS (point-of-sale advertising) products and products for recycling), it is thanks to information flows that it is able to "manage" physical flows.

The information and communication system (hereinafter referred to as ICS) thus becomes the central element of the logistics system. As logistics chains are, by their very nature, multi-actor and multi-site, the main role of the ICS is to ensure the coherence of these complex sets of operations that companies seek to synchronize. It is involved at all stages of the decision-making process: forecasting and planning activities, initiating traffic, monitoring and steering movements, controlling and evaluating operations and organization.

ICS and ICT. – The development of information and communication technologies (also known as ICT) has had a profound...