Some of the major aspects and differences between the three time horizons can be summarized as follows:

Strategic:

• a medium- to long-term horizon• one to five years (plus) time span• overall 'structural' decisions are made, generally

balancing and trading off between company functions or other organizations• corporate financial plans and policies provide the

financial basis for strategic planning• policy decisions are developed into a strategic plan;

tacticalo a short- to medium-term horizono six months to one year (plus) time spano decisions that involve sub-systems only - generally not expected to impose on other logistics componentso annual budgets provide the financial/cost basiso the detail of the strategic plan is being put into effect;

Operational

o this is really day-to-day decision makingo operations are controlled against expected standards and ruleso weekly and monthly reports are provided for control purposeso this concerns the implementation of the detail of regular operations.

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

There are four distinct differences claimed for supply chain management over the more classic view of logistics, although some of these elements have also been recognized as key to the successful planning of logistics operations. These four are:

1) The supply chain is viewed as a single entity rather than a series of fragmented elements such as procurement, manufacturing, distribution, etc. This is also how logistics is viewed in most forward-looking companies. The real change is that both the suppliers and the end users are included in the planning process, thus going outside the boundaries of a single organization in an attempt to plan for the supply chain as a whole.

2) Supply chain management is very much a strategic planning process, with a particular emphasis on strategic decision making rather than on the operational systems.

Supply chain management provides for a very different approach to dealing with inventory throughout the pipeline process. Traditionally, inventory has been used as a safety-valve between the separate components within the pipeline - thus leading to large and expensive stocks of products. Supply chain management aims to alter this perspective so that inventory is used as a last resort to balance the integrated flow of product through the pipeline.ZX

Central to the success of effective supply chain management is the use of integrated information systems that are a part of the whole supply chain rather than merely acting in isolation for each of the separate components. These enable visibility of product demand and stock levels through the full length of the pipeline. This has only become a possibility with the recent advances in information systems technology.

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META DE LA LOGISTICA

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