Example Career: Logistics Analysts

Career Description

Analyze product delivery or supply chain processes to identify or recommend changes. May manage route activity including invoicing, electronic bills, and shipment tracing.

What Job Titles Logistics Analysts Might Have

• Global Logistics Analyst
• Logistics Analyst
• Supply Chain Analyst

What Logistics Analysts Do

• Maintain databases of logistics information.
• Interpret data on logistics elements, such as availability, maintainability, reliability, supply chain management, strategic sourcing or distribution, supplier management, or transportation.
• Provide ongoing analyses in areas such as transportation costs, parts procurement, back orders, or delivery processes.
• Prepare reports on logistics performance measures.
• Confer with logistics management teams to determine ways to optimize service levels, maintain supply-chain efficiency, or minimize cost.
• Remotely monitor the flow of vehicles or inventory, using Web-based logistics information systems to track vehicles or containers.
• Track product flow from origin to final delivery.
• Recommend improvements to existing or planned logistics processes.
• Enter logistics-related data into databases.
• Develop or maintain models for logistics uses, such as cost estimating or demand forecasting.
• Review procedures, such as distribution or inventory management, to ensure maximum efficiency or minimum cost.
• Apply analytic methods or tools to understand, predict, or control logistics operations or processes.
• Monitor inventory transactions at warehouse facilities to assess receiving, storage, shipping, or inventory integrity.
• Analyze logistics data, using methods such as data mining, data modeling, or cost or benefit analysis.
• Maintain logistics records in accordance with corporate policies.
• Compute reporting metrics, such as on-time delivery rates, order fulfillment rates, or inventory turns.
• Write or revise standard operating procedures for logistics processes.
• Monitor industry standards, trends, or practices to identify developments in logistics planning or execution.
• Develop or maintain payment systems to ensure accuracy of vendor payments.
• Develop or maintain freight rate databases for use by supply chain departments to determine the most economical modes of transportation.
• Manage systems to ensure that pricing structures adequately reflect logistics costing.
• Communicate with or monitor service providers, such as ocean carriers, air freight forwarders, global consolidators, customs brokers, or trucking companies.
• Reorganize shipping schedules to consolidate loads, maximize vehicle usage, or limit the movement of empty vehicles or containers.

What Logistics Analysts Should Be Good At

• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Mathematical Reasoning - The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.

What Logistics Analysts Should Be Interested In

• Conventional - Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.
• Enterprising - Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

What Logistics Analysts Need to Learn

• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Transportation - Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Production and Processing - Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.