Logistics - Definition:

We will start this unit with an illustration. Take a case of a small businessman, who manufactured and marketed jam, those were the days while it had only a few brands to reckon with. It entailed travelling long distances. The load utilized to be huddled up at the rear (body of the vehicle) neatly packed in bright coloured cardboard packages. The manufacturer process the guavas/mangoes/pine-apple so on into a jelly as substance, bottled them carefully under his eyes, sealed them with molten wax (that was the practice those days), labelled them, packed them into neat containers careful enough to prevent breakages, marked them and dispatched them to their destination. The surplus were sent to a badly lit room and stacked neatly by placing bricks under the packages to stop against damp. You should have observed how meticulous he was and so concerned regarding his products.

One must admit here that one learns logistics in an extremely practical way. Right from the time you utilized your tri-cycle to lug the loads your friends carried. When you played as children, unknowingly, stacking your belongings neatly and carefully, inadvertently, and later delivered them to another friend and took marbles in return of those proud possessions. Till date one is doing almost the similar thing; material, mobilizing men, equipment and supplies over long distances across the length & breadth of this country, and stocking them for a future utilization. That is what logistics is in short.