1The CLM Definition of Logistics

The Council of Logistics Management has adopted this definition of logistics:

Logistics is that part of the supply chain process that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customers' requirements.

What is Supply Chain Management?

If the difference between logistics and supply chain is confusing, discussions about the phenomenon of "supply chain management" (SCM) can be thoroughly bewildering. The problem, according to the Supply Chain Research Group at The University of Tennessee, is one of trying to define two concepts with one term, i.e., supply chain management. The idea of viewing the coordination of a supply chain from an overall system perspective with each of the tactical activities of distribution flows viewed within a broader strategic context (which has been called SCM as a management philosophy) is more accurately called a Supply Chain Orientation. The actual implementation of this orientation across various companies in the supply chain is more appropriately called Supply Chain Management.

Supply Chain Orientation is defined as "the recognition by an organization of the systemic, strategic implications of the tactical activities involved in managing the various flows in a supply chain." A company possesses a supply chain orientation (SCO) if its management can see the implications of managing both the upstream and downstream flows of products, services, finances, and information across their suppliers and their customers.

However, this does not mean that every firm with an SCO can implement it because such implementation requires an SCO across several companies, directly connected in the supply chain. The firm with an SCO may implement individual, disjointed supply chain tactics (such as Just-In-Time delivery or Electronic Data Interchange with suppliers and customers), but this is not Supply Chain Management unless those tactics are coordinated (a strategic orientation) across the supply chain (a systemic orientation).

Supply Chain Management is the implementation of a supply chain orientation across suppliers and customers. Companies implementing SCM first must have a supply chain orientation. In other words, a Supply Chain Orientation is a management philosophy and Supply Chain Management is the sum total of all ihe overt management actions undertaken to realize that philosophy.

Supply Chain Management is defined as "the systemic, strategic coordination of the traditional business functions and tactics across these business functions within a particular company and across businesses within the supply chain for the purposes of improving the long-term performance of the individual companies and the supply chain as a whole."