Wednesday September the 28th at the Congress Center of the University of Parma took place the congress “Logistics as management tool – Excellence cases and Leaders' opinions” promoted by the online magazine "Logisticamente.it" together with the University of Parma. The congress, having as target the medium/big size Italian industries, aimed to demonstrate, through excellence case histories and managers reports, that logistics can be an very useful tool to improve efficiency for companies in every field. Important speakers coming from different areas (research, consulting, production factories and services) offered to the more than 300 managers attending the event a program whose aim was to show that logistics is really a good management tool. During the first meeting, coordinated by Prof. Giulia Urgeletti (Past President Ailog), the evolution of logistics value in the past, present and future has been summarized by speakers coming from the academic word and from business contexts. Logistics experts, professors of Parma University, marketing managers and general managers have been asked with questions with the specific goal to discover if it is true, as usually said, that logistics is poorly considered among the different company functions. In one hour of intense debate it has been demonstrated that the Logistics function in a company is growing more and more in importance since logistics people know how to solve problems and can also give useful strategic suggestions. Moreover they are able to mediate between production and sales culture, often antagonist in a company. Later on some excellence case histories has been presented by some of the most important companies operating in the logistics field and, among them, Fast . Our speech underlined the importance of the integration between the production physical flow and the information flow, as realized through our modular applications in Sant’Anna di Vinadio mineral water bottling plant. This case history demonstrated that logistics optimization and an integrated information technology system are a must to satisfy products traceability requirements according to the current laws.
