1 Chapter 4 Supply Chain Management, Logistics Changes and the Concept of Friction

Within the globalization discourse, the concept of supply chain management has been actively investigated as it brings new challenges to the setting and organization of global freight flows (Leinbach and Capineri, 2007; Meixell and Gargeya, 2005; Waters, 2010). Every aspect of supply chain management, from product design, the sourcing of parts, the assembly and distribution has been impacted by outsourcing and a global division of production (Dicken, 2011). Longer and more complex supply chains are well understood outcomes, but several other changes are occurring in the organization and structure of material flows. To better understand this global distribution space the concept of distance is being expanded through the concept of logistics that requires the management of flows over four major components. The first is geographical where each flow has an origin and a destination and consequently a degree of separation. Typically, flows with high degrees of separation tend to be more limited than flows with low degrees of separation. Paradoxically, however, globalization supported a higher degree of separation in conjunction with a growing intensity of flows between specific trade partners (WTO, 2008). The second is physical where each flow involves specific physical characteristics in terms of possible load units and the conditions in which they can be carried. The container has provided a convenient mean t