U.S. Freight: Economy in Motion, 1998.

摘要

Logistics seeks to eliminate unnecessary inventory from the manufacturing/production process by putting supplies and finished goods in the distribution pipeline for the minimum amount of time possible. As a result, transportation carriers and the infrastructure over which they operate are being asked to perform with precessions never before required. This is expected to challenge our existing ability to respond to unanticipated demands for transport services. More and more businesses are switching from a push inventory system to a pull system. The traditional push system assumes levels of demand and distributes goods based on those assumptions so that inventory is pushed through the distribution system. The pull system allows market demand to determine production levels so that inventory is pulled through the distribution system. The pull system seeks only to produce goods for which actual market demand is known.