Before the 1950s, logistics was thought of in military terms. It had to do with procurement, maintenance, and transportation of military facilities, material, and personnel. The study and practice of physical distribution and logistics emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Logistics cost in the U.S. accounted for 15% of the gross national product and on an individual firm level, they could be as high as 32%. In the 1990s, a new name emerges: “supply chain management”. This name took the logisti...
