Gradus

Having entered the 21st century, we can note a growing role for logistics. As a consequence of the political, historical and economic changes taking place in the 20th century, companies are moving their production units to several countries thereby dividing up the production processes. The strengthening of this process would not have occurred without the creation of the single market of the European Union since the elimination of borders and European integration have been of fundamental importance in this process. This territorial realignment and the subsequent growth make it necessary that the raw materials and matrices used in the manufacturing processes as well as the semi-finished and finished goods reach the factories and warehousing centres located in different countries at the right time and in the required quantity and quality to satisfy the needs of production processes and customers. Expectations towards the reliability of transporting processes have been continually on the rise, therefore companies specialised in this sector have also had to continuously improve the quality of their services. These developments and endeavours have spurred companies involved in transport and forwarding to constantly reassess the utilisation level of their capacities and urged them to find optimum involvement of their resources in the processes of the supply chain.

Keywords: competitiveness, electronics, distance-based toll, system, price competition,