Panameniam Logistic Appreciations

Panameniam Logistic Appreciations

ABSTRACT

Our economy has been around the international logistic for long time adapting the country for the promotion of these activities. The government has developed strategies to impulse Panama to become the logistic and commercial America’s hub. Due to the complexity of the logistic problems was necessary to create the National Logistic Council to analyze each component of this system. We analyzed how complexity is expressed in the management, integration and planning of the panameniam logistic assets.

Key words: máximo 5

RESUMEN

Nuestra economía ha girado en torno a la logística internacional desde tiempos remotos, adaptando al país para el fomento de estas actividades. El Estado panameño ha desarrollado estrategias para impulsar a Panamá a convertirse el Hub Logístico y Comercial de América. Debido a la complejidad de los problemas logísticos fue necesario crear el Consejo Nacional de Logística para analizar cada componente del sistema. Analizamos como la complejidad se manifiesta en la administración, integración y planificación de los activos logísticos del país.

Palabras claves: máximo 5

1. Introduction

In order to understand logistics it is important to see where does it appeared for the first time, it happened on the military science field as a way of supplying the army forces with what they need as troop movement, arms, food, etc. As itself war is a example of a complex problem because it combine all their characteristics. However nowadays the logistic field has evolved and can be apply to the business environment at any level.

The change suffered by the arose of the supply chain management have transformed the conventional way of business around the world, where each part responsible for an specific state of the product or service work with not much communication between the other links of the chain. For example, let’s say that the company is a manufacturer and the raw material comes from an specific place, then the manufacturer is located in another place around the world and also the distribution, each of the parts know that they have an objective of collecting the raw material, produce the product and then distribute but it was a one way flow and not satisfying the new supply chain management characteristics.

It is true that the future competition among the companies around the world is based on who has the stronger supply chain. They have been said this, the evolution suffer by the commerce thanks to the born of the supply chain management have cause the change of logistics into a more complex problem.

The logistics of Panama have been force to adapt as fast as they can to the new tendency that is being implemented around the world. The Panamanian government is trying to rise the investment in the country in order to build the logistic hub of the Americas which has become for more than one the expected outcome in the near future. For example, the government has created some laws to attract inversion such as the special economic areas (Panama Pacífico and Colon Free Zone) and the variety of projects that are been conducted on the region in order to strengthen tall the links that compose the Panamanian Logistic platform. Also we have a lot of services that had grown around our logistic activities. For example, Panamanian banking system has been consolidated during the years as one of the strongest and competitive of the region and that is a great advantage to established at Panama Logistic operations.

Nevertheless, we can’t say that Panama has developed a logistic system that goes hand in hand with the requirements of the world trade. It is necessary to analyze all the components of this system (infrastructure, information systems, etc.) to identify opportunities areas and do a correct integration of themselves. To integrate our logistics issues is a really complex problem because we have to analyze the international logistic which is unpredictable in a certain way, but also we have to pay attention to those logistics issues that affect us internally.

In order to attend these needs, the National Logistic Council was created in 2010. It has the participation of government entities, companies, commercial organizations and educational institutions. Its main objective is to place Panama as the logistic and commercial America’s hub, by the analyses of the information shared during their meetings. To evaluate logistic in Panama in that way tries to aboard this complex problem with the approach of communicating between representatives of diverse group of the society which is good to considers each one given that even a small change in one area can carry a big disturb in the logistic activities. The interdependence between each part of the system has result in the creation of this council who evaluates the data recorded by its participants, but also gives the chance to look for other approaches that can be considered soft where they explained their point of view which is great to identify and correct any failure in technologies or infrastructure, the lack of suitable human resources and the country opportunities in logistics at short, medium and long term. This information is taken by the Georgia Tech Logistics Innovation & Research Center to develop their investigations and analyses of the cargo flows and the logistic issues.

The National Logistic Council has been divided in four committees: Infrastructure, Information & Technology, Logistics Performance and ProPanama. Consider as part of our infrastructure the logistic assets, logistic services and all the flows related to these assets. As we agree that this is an appropriate division to attack the logistic problem in Panama we are going to focus in the panamaniam logistic infrastructure (mainly the logistics assets) and the reason why is that we believe that if we build up the planning of a near future well settle logistic hub the importance of strong infrastructure will drive the Panama logistics to its golden age.

So basically Panama has the foundation to become what Singapure and Dubai have done in terms of logistics development but the reality of the logistic cluster of Panama its full of different issues that must be fixed in order to guarantee a parallel improvement of all the links on the supply chain offered by the country.

Panama’s Logistic Cluster

The real challenge for Panama in the next years will be consolidate and improve its Logistic Cluster. This cluster is a complex system that needs to be analyzed very carefully in order to position Panama as a world-class logistics hub. The Panama’s

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