Information Logistics

All organisations and companies are dependent on information. It can be found within IT systems, in binders and computer files on individual computers or in the management information systems which is sophisticated and powerful science in existence. Information logistics is the branch of computer science and logistics which is concerned with implementing systems that can perform many complex tasks using advanced mathematics and highly sophisticated algorithms. The discipline can be viewed as the bedrock of route planning software in the global distribution business. In this sphere, the industry is concerned with optimising the flow of goods and services and all relevant information between an origin and destination point.

An Information Element (IE) is an information component that is located in the organizational value chain. The combination of certain IEs leads to an information product (IP), which is any final product in the form of information that a person needs to have. When a higher number of different IEs are required, it often results in more planning problems in capacity and inherently leads to a non-delivery of the IP. Data Logistics is a concept that developed independently of Information Logistics in the 1990s, in response to the explosion of Internet content and traffic due to the invention of the World Wide Web (WWW). The growth in the volume of Web hits, combined with the steady increase in the size of Web-delivered objects such as images, audio and video clips resulted in the localized overloading of the bandwidth and processing resources of the local and/or wide area network and/or the Web server infrastructure. The resulting Internet bottleneck can cause Web clients to experience poor performance or complete denial of access to servers that host high volume sites (the so-called Slashdot effect).

The goal of Information Logistics is to deliver the right product, consisting of the right information element, in the right format, at the right place at the right time for the right people at the right price and all of this is customer demand driven. If this goal is to be achieved, knowledge workers are best equipped with information for the task at hand for improved interaction with its customers and machines are enabled to respond automatically to meaningful information. Methods for achieving the goal are:
- the analysis of information demand
- intelligent information storage
- the optimization of the flow of information
- securing technical and organizational flexibility
- integrated information and billing solutions

The supply of a product is part of the discipline Logistics. The purpose of this discipline is described as follows:

Logistics is the teachings of the plans and the effective and efficient run of supply. The contemporary logistics focuses on the organization, planning, control and implementation of the flow of goods, money, information and flow of people. Information Logistics focusses on information. Information (from Latin informare: "shape, shapes, instruct") means in a general sense everything that adds knowledge and thus reduce ignorance or lack of precision. In stricter sense information becomes information only to those who can interpret it. Interpreting information will provide knowledge.

It entails the organisation and prioritisation of tasks by using applications such as resource planning software and associated algorithms within the overall supply and distribution infrastructure. In such contexts, route optimisation is a keyword as there is almost certainly never going to a perfect set of delivery circumstances. These constraints to perfection in the real world are exemplified by such things as diversions or adverse operational conditions and are often updated in real time. Information logistics system such as a multi-use resource planner, the constraints are expressed as a series of mathematical equations and functions which take the form of an inequality. In advanced mathematics, an inequality occurs when two values in a relationship are not equal. This may sound obvious, but it must be made clear that the term inequality does not mean that one value is greater or that they can be compared, it merely means that value X does not equal value Y. In the most simplistic terms when an inequality occurs a further constraint is placed on route optimisation, and that means the delivery schedule may be affected, at the very least the schedule must be flexible enough to accommodate the change. The presence of an inequality means that new information must be input to the computer network and a new set of options displayed.

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