Untitled - Ministerstwo Rozwoju Regionalnego

to open for market economy. It led to significant de-location of industrial production
of developed countries-exporters, and consequently, of logistics services.
In Europe, significant structural changes have also taken place in industrial
production and in the markets of logistics services, caused by EU enlargement
and the relatively fast development of new member countries. Here we also
have a clear trend towards de-location of production to countries of low labour
costs. Industrial production will be growing mainly in the emerging markets of
China, India, Brazil and Russia, at a slower pace in countries of Eastern Europe,
including Poland. Not only do the volumes of transported goods grow but so do
the distances covered. Control of global supply chains becomes time consuming
and costly, whereas decision centres could be moved to Asia. Since competition
between economic regions of the world is growing, efficiency of transport infrastructure
becomes a more and more important factor of competitive capacity.
Additionally, production and consumption growth in countries of Eastern
Europe forces modernization of transport infrastructure and its integration with
European Union transport system.
In the case of industrial production and logistics services, customer orientation
is the element deciding about the structure of supply chains, which differ
not only because of various properties of products but also, or perhaps mainly,
because of the needs and expectations of the customers. System integration refers
not only to technological aspects but also to organizational ones, and is
based on knowledge. Developing supply network structure is, to a great extent,
based on inventiveness, not only in relation to flow of products but also processes
and procedures. From logistics point of view, management of supply
chains in contemporary market conditions and new models of running business
constitute, according to the conclusion of the document quoted here, the most
important areas of development 2 . Thus, it should be assumed that the character
of these changes, their intensity and scope of application will affect the level of
logistics costs in individual economies and in the selected sectors of individual
countries.
22.3. Research on logistics costs
Research on logistics costs in economy has been carried out relatively regularly
for years. It has, however, one basic fault - various methods of calculating or estimating
costs are applied, which results in significant differences in presented results.
For example, the research results presented by M. Christopher 3 and
2 Ibidem, p. 5.
3 Cf.: M. Christopher, Logistyka i zarz¹dzanie ³añcuchami dostaw. Polskie Centrum Doradztwa Logistycznego
2000, p. 73.
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