Principles of Logistics and Supply Chain Management - Essay Example

IMPORTANCE OF MANAGERIAL ACTIVITIES TO LOGISTIC SYSTEMS (Student’s name) (Institution affiliation) Introduction Managers have various critical roles to play in an organization. They contribute much to the organizational performance either failure. Their behavior and actions affects how the others operate. The various activities performed by the management are very important to logistic systems. Logistic is the way an organization implements multifaceted operations in the business activities (Drucker & Maciariello, 2008, Pg. 104). The main components of logistics are; order processing, inventory management and freight transportation. Logistics encompasses various managerial activities. Such activities are; delegation, performance evaluation, planning, employee development and employee motivation. In this work, I am going to discuss the various managerial activities and their importance to logistic systems (Hand, 2006, Pg. 98). The key components of logistics activities As earlier mentioned, there are three main components of logistic systems; order processing, inventory management and freight control. Order processing Order processing is made up of various processes which are concerned with the flow of information in the logistics systems. The first activity in order processing is a request from a customer concerning demand for a certain product in a form of an order. After receiving such a request from the customer, business or company goes on and transmit the order and also check for completeness and accuracy. After the transmission and checking of the order, the next step is the verification of the request and the customer’s credit status (Montana & Charnov, 2000, Pg, 109). The business has to confirm if really this customer requested for this order and if she or he can be able to settle the debt without delaying. After being sure that this customer ordered for the item or product, the company goes ahead and retrieves it from the stock for deliverance to the specified customer (Robbins & Coulter, 2005, Pg. 201). Inventory management The main aim for inventory management is to control all levels of stock in order to minimize the aggregate operating cost so as to satisfy customer services. Inventory management includes, improving the quality of services provided, reducing the total costs of logistics. Making items available throughout and overcoming the challenges in management of the logistic system (Zsolnai & Tencati, 2009, Pg. 115) Freight transportation Freight transportation enables the production and consumption processes to take place at various places far from each other. This is so important especially in the current economy where producers are sometimes located far from the consumers. Freight transportation has a major impact on the quality of customer service. There are three alternatives of transportation in which a manufacturer can opt to use. The three are; contract transportation, private transportation and public transportation. However, the main forms of transportation used by logistics system are rail, ship, air, truck and pipelines (Schermerhorn, 2005, Pg. 119). Managerial activities and there importance to logistic systems Delegation Delegation is an activity that is performed at all managerial levels. The top manager directs the supervisors on what to do. The supervisors delegate the work from the top management to the branch and departmental managers. These managers also delegate the duties and responsibility to the non management employees. It is their responsibility to ensure that the delegated work to the non management employees is done in the right way and within the specified time form the top management (Mosekilde & Mailstrenko, 2002, Pg. 206). This activity is very important in order processing, a component of logistics. The management needs to delegate some duties to various employees to ensure that orders are processed in the right way as instructed by the customer. The management also needs to delegates the employee subordinates to ensure orders are checked and the customer credit status examined before delivering the commodities to the customer (Hand, 2006, Pg. 301). Performance evaluation The management is also responsible to evaluate the employees’ performance and provide them with some feedback. Through evaluation, employees get to understand their strengths and weaknesses which help them to improve their performance. In many organizations, performance is normally done annually where the management and employees sit together discussing about issues of the organization, how it has performed and the reasons of the good or poor performance (Bierwirth, 2000, Pg. 186). During the discussion, management also involves employees to contribute their ideas towards setting goals and objectives that will direct the organization to success. Performance evaluation is also important in inventory management. Performance evaluation will determine whether employees are working towards improving the product quality and reducing the total cost. By providing feedback to the employees, it enables them to understand their strengths and weaknesses of which they can use to improve the product quality. By determining cost subjected with production, the company can know whether it is reducing the total expenditure or not. Through these results, the company can know how to improve its production and minimize the total cost (Schermerhorn, 2005, Pg. 216). Planning It is the responsibility of the top management to set the overall plan for the organization. The plan is then left to the senior management for execution where further planning is done on how to implement it. This done by the departmental manager responsible for the planned plan to set some strategies that directs achievement of the set plan. For example, the top management may develop a plan of increasing annual sales by 15%. The sales manager therefore goes ahead and thinks on how the sales volume can be raised by 15%. In doing so, the sales manager also comes up with a plan to be followed by all sales representatives so as to achieve the planned goal by the top management (Hand, 2006, Pg. 181). Planning is very important in order processing. Proper planning leads to success. Proper planning enables a company to process the requested order in the right way as required by the customer. Lack of planning may result confusion in time of processing the requested product resulting to loss and hence rising the total cost (Bierwirth, 2000, Pg. 157). Employee development Another activity performed by the management is to develop their employees in terms of skills, how to deal with customers and the overall business operations. This can be done by the management developing some employee training programs where employees get to gain more skills and become more productive to the company. At the same time, employees’ benefits personally from the skills obtained from those trainings (Hand, 2006, Pg. 320). Employee development is a very critical activity in freight transportation. Producing goods and services for consumers who are at a far distance requires enough knowledge and skills so as produce to produce the appropriate product and in the required quality and quantity. Employee development equips employees with the right skills required in transportation freight (Zsolnai & Tencati, 2009, Pg. 156). Employee motivation Motivating employees is another activity performed by the management. Employees need to motivate so as to work more productive in the company. The management can motivate employee by; providing bonuses, some bonus time where employees are just allowed to rest, some rewards incase one works so hard, praising them for their good work, providing feedback concerning their strengths and weaknesses among others. Employee motivation is a very important activity to be performed by the management. If employees are motivated, they feel honored and respected by the company and hence work towards achieving the best results and not the minimum required results (Hand, 2006, Pg. 112). In inventory management where the product quality is aimed at being improved, employee motivation plays a very role. Employees are the ones involved in production. Motivation encourages them and has the desire to achieve much better results so as to receive more prizes and bonus from the management which leads to improving the product quality (Bierwirth, 2000, Pg. 99). Conclusion In conclusion, managerial have various roles in logistic systems and should be implemented effectively for achieving business success. Managers should perform their duties effectively and ensure that all their activities are performed appropriately so as to enhance good operation in the logistic systems; order processing, inventory management and freight transportation. References Bierwirth, C. (2000). Adaptive Search and the Management of Logistic Systems Base Models for Learning Agents. Boston, MA: Springer US. Drucker, P. F., & Maciariello, J. A. (2008). Management (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: Collins. Hand, C. (2006). Waste management the new legislative climate. London: Thorogood. Montana, P. J., & Charnov, B. H. (2000). Management (3rd ed.). Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barron's. Mosekilde, E., & Maĭstrenko, I. L. (2002). Chaotic synchronization applications to living systems. Singapore: World Scientific. Robbins, S. P., & Coulter, M. K. (2005). Management (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Schermerhorn, J. R. (2005). Management (8th ed.). New York: J. Wiley. Zsolnai, L., & Tencati, A. (2009). The future international manager: a vision of the roles and duties of management. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Read More