« Back | Home » Transport & Energy » Transport » Logistics

Logistics

 You’re travelling on the freeway, blissfully listening to your favourite rapper on your walkman. A huge heavy truck and trainer roars past, drowning all sound.

Written on the side of the truck is Dlamini Logistics. Another truck goes past, with Smitty’s Logistics on the side. “Uncool” you think, “spoiling my music.”

But what is logistics? It’s everywhere!

Logistics is a vitally important process in our lives. The market place or shops and the factories would grind to a halt without logistics.  When you buy those trendy shoes, they’ve been “managed” by the logistician from factory to crafter to you.

In the world of a shoemaker, anywhere in the world, the logistician makes sure that each machinist has the right tools and materials to produce the shoe. He or she also organizes the carrying of the shoe from the factory to the store to you.

As a logistician, you would know how to:

• Store goods and materials: For example, when you store goods in a warehouse, you need to know the best and cheapest way to store the leather skins, the machine spares and the finished shoes.
• List goods (make an inventory)
• Forward them (send them on)
• Handle materials (for example, the leather or rubber soles used in your shoes):
  • Carrying or transporting loose material, like grain, called bulk handling. Tankers, pipeline, conveyor belts, trucks, ships and trains do the bulk handling. Grain (wheat) is loaded into the “belly” or hold of ships, which carry it to other places.
  • Carrying or transporting goods (in boxes or drums on pallets), called break bulk handling, can be done by rail, ships or road.
  • Carrying or transporting products in containers. Imagine you’re at the harbour. Huge machines, with giant clamps are grabbing containers from trains and lowering them into the holds and onto the decks of ships.

The world of the logistics is awesome.

You can become a:

• Logistician
• Production Planner
• Logistics Management Specialist
• Supply Chain Manager
• Logistics manager
• Cargo and freight agent

Education options to consider:

• N Dip Logistics
• B Com Logistics, Logistics Management or  Transport Economics
• B Comm Management Sciences (Logistics) or Economic Sciences (Transport Economics)
• B Tech Logistics

Bursaries: Click on the company links below:

• SASOL, Ltd.
• TRANSNET
  Application forms and further enquiries from:
  The Manager, Transnet Bursaries, PO Box 23200, Joubertpark, 2044
• THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT
  Application forms and further enquiries from:
  The Secretary, Department of Transport and Supply Chain Management,Kingsway Campus, D Ring 7, University of Johannesburg, PO Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006