Delivering The Goods

Citation

van Hoek, R. (2004), "Delivering The Goods", Supply Chain Management, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 118-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/13598540410517638

The aim of this book is to contribute to the appreciation of logistics among senior management in the functions we work with and the levels in the organization we report to. The first part of the book describes how historically logistics has been a make or break factor in the history of great wars and military accomplishment, all the way back to Alexander the Great and beyond. The second part of the book sets out to describe, in an easily accessible manner, logistics principles, in particular that logistics is everywhere and plays an essential role in serving customers. Because of its noble ambition and the limited depth of teaching it needs to do (an ability to see how logistics may appear basic operationally but actually offers unique value enhancing opportunities) some of its weaknesses can be forgiven.

The weaknesses fall into two categories: first, its casual writing style and second, its incompleteness. There is a lot of speaking not writing language in there, but this may be intentional for ease of reading. Statements such as “little new has been learned about logistics in the last decades” and that “academic contributions are a dread” are big statements from authors that claim that:

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  one of the founding fathers of logistics, Bud LaLonde, is an economic historian;

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  Hau Lee invented the bullwhip effect; this was Forester, in Industrial Dynamics of course; and

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  supply chain management is just a new name for logistics, ignoring that supply chain management encompasses a larger arena within which logistics plays an important role.

There are some additional smaller editorial issues, such as the fact that the famous dark continent quote from Drucker is introduced two or three times and that there is a lot of back and forth against the time in line the first part of the book.

In the second category, it would be unfair to say that logistics roots can solely be found in military. It is true that this is where logistics started but it cuts the second major source of logistics innovation, industry, somewhat short. The case studies in the back of the book are short and add little more than an illustration which could have been integrated into the main text.

The inaugural Logistics Research Network conference in the UK (the Institute of Logistics and Transport linked group of academics), a couple of years ago generated a list of research needs. The history of logistics was one of them. It has now been written, at least partially and from one perspective, not by academics. This is an easy read and a book worthy of your reading list.