50 com­mon logis­tics terms

50 com­mon logis­tics terms

  1. Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment (SCM):

    • The man­age­ment of the entire process of deliv­er­ing a prod­uct or ser­vice from the sup­plier to the customer.

  1. Logis­tics:

    • The process of plan­ning, imple­ment­ing, and con­trol­ling the effi­cient move­ment and stor­age of goods, ser­vices, and related infor­ma­tion from point of ori­gin to point of consumption.

  1. Inven­tory Management:

    • The super­vi­sion of non-​capitalized assets (inven­tory) and stock items.

  1. Ware­house Man­age­ment Sys­tem (WMS):

    • Soft­ware designed to man­age and opti­mize ware­house oper­a­tions, includ­ing track­ing inven­tory lev­els and man­ag­ing order fulfillment.

  1. Dis­tri­b­u­tion Center:

    • A facil­ity used to store, pack, and ship goods to retail­ers, whole­salers, or directly to consumers.

  1. Trans­porta­tion Man­age­ment Sys­tem (TMS):

    • Soft­ware that aids in plan­ning, exe­cu­tion, and opti­miza­tion of phys­i­cal move­ments of goods.

  1. Third-​Party Logis­tics (3PL):

    • Out­sourc­ing logis­tics activ­i­ties to a third-​party provider for dis­tri­b­u­tion and ful­fill­ment services.

  1. Freight For­warder:

    • A com­pany that orga­nizes ship­ments for indi­vid­u­als or cor­po­ra­tions to get goods from the man­u­fac­turer to a mar­ket, cus­tomer, or final point of distribution.

  1. Car­rier:

    • A com­pany or indi­vid­ual that trans­ports goods.

  1. Incoterms (Inter­na­tional Com­mer­cial Terms):

    • Stan­dard­ized terms used in inter­na­tional trade to out­line the respon­si­bil­i­ties of buy­ers and sell­ers regard­ing the deliv­ery of goods.

  1. Lead Time:

    • The time between the ini­ti­a­tion and com­ple­tion of a pro­duc­tion or logis­tics process.

  1. Just-​in-​Time (JIT):

    • An inven­tory man­age­ment strat­egy where goods are pro­duced or acquired just in time for sale.

  1. Cross-​Docking:

    • A logis­tics prac­tice where prod­ucts are directly trans­ferred from inbound to out­bound trans­porta­tion with­out being stored in a warehouse.

  1. Reverse Logis­tics:

    • The process of mov­ing goods from their final des­ti­na­tion back to the man­u­fac­turer for returns, recy­cling, or disposal.

  1. Route Opti­miza­tion:

    • The process of find­ing the most effi­cient route for trans­porta­tion to min­i­mize costs and max­i­mize deliv­ery speed.

  1. Last-​Mile Delivery:

    • The final stage of deliv­ery from a dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter to the end consumer.

  1. Bill of Lad­ing (BOL):

    • A legal doc­u­ment that details the type, quan­tity, and des­ti­na­tion of goods being transported.

  1. Freight Bro­ker:

    • An inter­me­di­ary between a ship­per and a car­rier who facil­i­tates the trans­porta­tion of goods.

  1. Dead­head:

    • The move­ment of a com­mer­cial vehi­cle with­out a load.

  1. Inter­modal Transportation:

    • The use of mul­ti­ple modes of trans­porta­tion (e.g., truck, train, ship) for a sin­gle shipment.

  1. Con­tainer­iza­tion:

    • The prac­tice of pack­ing goods in stan­dard­ized con­tain­ers for effi­cient and secure transportation.

  1. Duty:

    • A tax imposed by a gov­ern­ment on goods imported or exported.

  1. E-​commerce Fulfillment:

    • The process of receiv­ing, pro­cess­ing, and ship­ping online orders.

  1. Safety Stock:

    • Extra inven­tory held to mit­i­gate the risk of stockouts.

  1. Sup­ply Chain Visibility:

    • The abil­ity to track and mon­i­tor prod­ucts as they move through the sup­ply chain.

  1. LTL (Less Than Truckload):

    • Ship­ping smaller loads that don’t require a full truck.

  1. FTL (Full Truckload):

    • Ship­ping enough goods to fill an entire truck.

  1. Pick and Pack:

    • The process of select­ing items from inven­tory and pack­ing them for shipment.

  1. SKU (Stock Keep­ing Unit):

    • A unique iden­ti­fier for each dis­tinct prod­uct and service.

  1. Pal­leti­za­tion:

    • The process of load­ing and trans­port­ing goods on pallets.

  1. Dun­nage:

    • Mate­ri­als used to sup­port and pro­tect cargo dur­ing transportation.

  1. Cus­toms Broker:

    • A per­son or firm that helps nav­i­gate cus­toms pro­ce­dures and paper­work for import­ing and export­ing goods.

  1. Haz­mat:

    • Haz­ardous mate­ri­als that require spe­cial han­dling and transportation.

  1. Ded­i­cated Fleet:

    • A set of vehi­cles exclu­sively used for a par­tic­u­lar company’s trans­porta­tion needs.

  1. Ful­fill­ment Center:

    • A facil­ity used to ful­fill cus­tomer orders, often asso­ci­ated with e-​commerce.

  1. Pick and Ship:

    • The process of pick­ing items from inven­tory and imme­di­ately ship­ping them.

  1. Order Cycle Time:

    • The time it takes for an order to be processed from ini­ti­a­tion to delivery.

  1. RFID (Radio-​Frequency Identification):

    • Tech­nol­ogy used to track and iden­tify objects using radio waves.

  1. Tar­iff:

    • A tax or duty to be paid on a par­tic­u­lar class of imports or exports.

  1. Drop Ship­ping:

    • A retail ful­fill­ment method where a store doesn’t keep the prod­ucts it sells in stock.

  1. Freight Claim:

    • A demand by a ship­per or con­signee for finan­cial reim­burse­ment due to loss or dam­age of goods dur­ing transportation.

  1. Duty Draw­back:

    • A refund of duties and taxes paid on imported goods that are sub­se­quently exported.

  1. Inland Port:

    • A loca­tion away from tra­di­tional land, air, and coastal bor­ders equipped for the receipt and dis­tri­b­u­tion of goods.

  1. Order Ful­fill­ment:

    • The process of com­plet­ing an order and mak­ing it ready for delivery.

  1. VMI (Ven­dor Man­aged Inventory):

    • Inven­tory man­age­ment sys­tem where the sup­plier is respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing the buyer’s inven­tory levels.

  1. EDI (Elec­tronic Data Interchange):

    • The elec­tronic exchange of busi­ness doc­u­ments between companies.

  1. Dwell Time:

    • The amount of time a con­tainer or ship­ment spends sit­ting idle in a trans­porta­tion hub.

  1. Yard Man­age­ment Sys­tem (YMS):

    • Soft­ware designed to man­age the move­ment of trail­ers and con­tain­ers in a yard.

  1. Freight Rate:

    • The price charged by a car­rier for trans­porta­tion services.

  1. Inbound Logis­tics:

    • The man­age­ment of goods from sup­pli­ers and ven­dors into a pro­duc­tion or dis­tri­b­u­tion system.