Have you ever thought about how the items you buy at the store get on the shelves? Or how the food gets to your favorite restaurant? Logistics is the planning and execution of transporting and storing these items from wherever they’ve been sourced, manufactured, assembled, or packaged to each destination along the way and eventually to you, the consumer. Effective logistics management is essential to ensuring products get where they need to be when they need to be there, but it also helps to mitigate costs for consumers. Whether you’re managing a domestic or global supply chain, logistics services are essential to the everyday operations of your business.
Global Logistics
Moving products through the global supply chain requires managing many moving pieces. From transportation and storage to proper handling across international borders, logistics services must work together to keep everything flowing efficiently. Managing global logistics also requires understanding trade laws, geographical challenges, politics, economic status, and many other challenges.
Logistics Management
Proper logistics management involves ensuring everyone in the supply chain uses correct operating procedures for planning, implementing, and controlling how products move and are stored. With everything from software to procedure, you can keep the supply chain running smoothly from end to end. Ultimately, effective management will save you time and money by reducing shrinkage and swell due to errors.
Logistics Services & Automation
Merchandise tracking can be streamlined with logistics services and automation. RFID (radio frequency identification) technology makes it easy to automate inventory counts as products are moved in and out of warehouses. Machinery used to automate picks can also help with inventory management and distribution efficiency. Automated inventory management also ensures new products are ordered when counts dip below a set number, which ensures you always have the products your customers need on the shelves.
Sustainability Within the Supply Chain
Sustainability breeds efficiency. From ensuring supply continuity to being conscientious and reducing costs, sustainability within the supply chain begins with effective logistics management. Whether you’re looking to reduce transportation costs, more efficiently organize a warehouse, or seamlessly manage inventory, you can reduce your carbon footprint while gaining an edge over competitors through sustainable logistics practices in your supply chain.
Supply Chain Logistics
The supply chain is the process that starts with sourcing raw materials to create a product until it ends up with the consumer. Supply chain logistics ensures the materials and products efficiently get to where they need to be on time by managing warehousing, fulfillment strategies, and transportation. A breakdown in logistics at any point in the supply chain can result in significant product delays and, ultimately, unhappy customers. Managing warehousing and transportation can help to prevent snags that slow production and fulfillment times.
Warehouse Logistics
Inventory management can be difficult with merchandise constantly moving in and out of warehouses. Fortunately, simply scanning a barcode can help streamline inventory management. Furthermore, implementing an RFID system throughout a warehouse allows for real-time inventory tracking in a matter of seconds. RFID tags can be passively read by scanners throughout the building to monitor product movement without workers taking time to scan them individually. Warehouse logistics is one piece to ensuring fulfillment and transportation needs are met.
Fulfillment & Transportation Logistics
Peace of mind comes with knowing where your products are in the supply chain. Whether you’re waiting on an order to replenish inventory or fulfilling an order by sending it to a customer or another supply chain partner, you want to know where your products are. Logistics tracking allows you to keep tabs on products as they move through the supply chain because you know it’s essential to continue tracking items even after they’ve left your door.
How Does GS1 Support Logistics in the Supply Chain?
Proper dissemination of information throughout your supply chain is an important part of logistics management. GS1® supports logistics services by making sharing information globally interoperable and as easy as scanning a barcode. The food industry uses barcodes to hold product information with proper storage and handling during transit, which ensures perishable items reach retail grocery stores as they should. Barcodes play a significant role in ensuring authentic medications are dispensed in pharmacies with product verification and tracking through logistics transportation.
Food Industry
Getting produce from the farm to the table requires moving food quickly and safely. In addition to ensuring produce is properly packaged and moved to the supermarket, other perishable items need to maintain specific storage requirements to ensure they’re still safe to eat when they reach the store. Barcodes hold product information for warehouses and markets detailing the proper storage and handling of food items.
Retail Grocery
Maintaining accurate inventory counts is part of keeping items on the shelf at a retail grocery store. Whether you’re shopping for produce, pasta, or your favorite beverage, the grocery store relies on its inventory management system to automatically adjust inventory with every sale. This automation helps to manage inventory effectively and keep customers happy.
Pharmaceutical Industry
Counterfeit medicines are a real problem in the pharmaceutical industry. Barcodes help ensure authentic medications reach their destination through pharmaceutical supply chain tracking, product verification, and regulatory compliance. Each partner in the supply chain can work together to safely transport pharmaceuticals and verify that they reach their destination so patients get the medications they need.
Shipping
Scanning a barcode is an easy way to track how a product moves from one location to another. Part of making barcodes effective in tracking is automating the capture of the specific identifying data in them. A Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) or Global Location Number (GLN) help identify not only which pallet/case contains the product but also where that product is and has been. SSCCs and GLNs help to track items throughout the shipping process.
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GS1 Barcodes for Logistics Management
Barcodes carrying identifiers registered with GS1 can help you effectively manage your supply chain. Certifying that each logistics service you partner with has consistent and accurate product information in authentic barcodes will ensure your products reach their destination. This, paired with other shared data, will verify that your products have been handled properly from the first to the final stage of the supply chain.
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