Transport vs Logistics – Is there a difference?

Many peo­ple believe that there is no dif­fer­ence between trans­port and logis­tics. They say logis­tics is just a fan­cy word for trans­port. Oth­ers are con­fused, say­ing that trans­port is part of logis­tics, while oth­ers think it is the oth­er way round. Where do you fall? By the time you are done read­ing this, you will have a clear under­stand­ing of the two in depth and how they fit into the sup­ply chain. 

Let us begin with the sim­ple def­i­n­i­tion before going into the details. You should, how­ev­er, under­stand that even though they are dif­fer­ent, the words are used inter­change­ably. Here we go:

Trans­port — is the move­ment of goods from one loca­tion to anoth­er.

Logis­tics – involves all activ­i­ties that facil­i­tate the move­ment of goods from the source to you, the end user. 

Where­as both deal with get­ting prod­ucts and ser­vices from one loca­tion to anoth­er, logis­tics involves oth­er activ­i­ties like inte­gra­tion of stor­age, trans­porta­tion, cat­a­loging, han­dling, and pack­ag­ing of goods. 

Logistics

Logis­tics, as a process, involves a lot of activ­i­ties before the goods can get to the final user. It involves a lot of plan­ning, and many deci­sions must be made before the goods can get to you. For exam­ple, our logis­tics man­ag­er has to deter­mine one or all of the fol­low­ing, every pass­ing day. She has to deter­mine the best and safest way to get the goods to a client based on pack­ag­ing, con­tainer­iza­tion, doc­u­men­ta­tion & insur­ance, stor­age, import & export reg­u­la­tions, and fragili­ty of the pack­age. At times, espe­cial­ly when work­ing with clients new to ship­ping, she has to han­dle claims, man­age ven­dors & part­ners, and take risk mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures.

Transport

Trans­porta­tion, as men­tioned above, involves mov­ing goods or ser­vices, peo­ple, and ani­mals from one loca­tion to anoth­er. This may be by rail, road, air, sea, cable, space, or pipeline. Trans­port is an inte­gral part of logis­tics as it merges all oth­er activ­i­ties involved in the logis­tics process. For an impor­ta­tion process to be suc­cess­ful, dif­fer­ent modes of trans­port have to be employed depend­ing on the needs and bud­get of the client. Trans­port, com­bined with cus­toms clear­ance and stor­age, is a sim­pli­fied def­i­n­i­tion of the logis­tics process. 

A good trans­port t ser­vices provider should be able to advise you on the fol­low­ing: 

1. Cost-effec­tive ways to have your car­go deliv­ered
2. The best deliv­ery route
3. Close­ly esti­mat­ed deliv­ery time­lines 

How to know a logistic service provider will deliver

The best and obvi­ous way to know whether a logis­tics com­pa­ny will deliv­er is to ask around. It sounds sim­ple, but it is a time-test­ed mod­el. The clos­er the tes­ti­mo­ni­al is to your indus­try, the bet­ter. But if you can’t find a reli­able refer­rer to ask, you can do the next best thing. Assess how well they are orga­nized. We have pre­pared a check­list of five things we feel are essen­tial before engag­ing a logis­tics part­ner. 

Plan­ning

Always find out if they have plans and struc­tures for han­dling dif­fer­ent projects. Lousy logis­tics ser­vice providers lack prop­er plan­ning, lead­ing to unnec­es­sary delays, loss, or dam­age of goods. An expe­ri­enced logis­tics ser­vice provider knows what activ­i­ty pre­cedes the oth­er. This means they can give you a sched­ule, a route map, and esti­mat­ed deliv­ery time­lines. 

Rela­tion­ships Man­age­ment

The first inter­ac­tion with your logis­tics ser­vice provider should give you con­fi­dence in their capa­bil­i­ties. If you can find a client they have served, ask how fre­quent­ly they com­mu­ni­cate when a ship­ment is in motion. Also, find out how they han­dle a cri­sis, like when a con­tain­er is miss­ing. Last­ly, find out how many long-stand­ing clients they have…I’m sure you know why!

Ware­house Man­age­ment 

Good ware­house man­age­ment nar­rows down to the skill lev­el of the per­son­nel at the ware­house. Of course, the ware­house facil­i­ty mat­ters; you may want to know their pro­vi­sions for han­dling frag­ile goods, explo­sive mate­r­i­al, or per­ish­able goods. How­ev­er, with inex­pe­ri­enced per­son­nel, even the most basic things could go wrong. Ensure that their staff is well trained on spe­cial activ­i­ties like pack­ag­ing, assem­bling, label­ing, and removal ser­vices, among oth­er skills that may come in handy when time is of the essence.

Coor­di­na­tion

A well-orga­nized logis­tics firm should work like an auto­mat­ed sys­tem. This means every step of the process should be antic­i­pat­ed, and the per­son­nel involved be in place to ensure a smooth flow of oper­a­tions. For instance, you should not have to pay extra stor­age costs because there are no avail­able trucks to load your ship­ment. 

Tech­nol­o­gy

Choose a logis­tics com­pa­ny that keeps up with the lat­est tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions that sup­port effi­cien­cy in ser­vice deliv­ery. For instance, we have invest­ed in the lat­est track­ing soft­ware to give our clients fre­quent updates on the progress of their ship­ments while on the road. Good tech­nol­o­gy also assists in the coor­di­na­tion of activ­i­ties as every per­son on the team knows what is expect­ed of them at any giv­en time. 

Do you have any ques­tions about the logis­tics process? Let us know via call or direct mail, and we will address it sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly. Also, please opt-in to our mail­ing list by fill­ing in the pop-up menu with your email address. We will be send­ing you help­ful infor­ma­tion on logis­tics and trans­porta­tion.