农产品物流外文翻译

毕业论文外文翻译（一）论文题目：国外发展农产品物流的成功经验及其对浙江的启示外文题目：Logistics &the National Economy出处：International Journal of Physical Distribution & LogisticsManagement作者：MCB UP Ltd原文：Logistics &the National EconomyIntroduceLogistics has always been a central and essential feature of all economic activity and yet paradoxically it is only in recent years that it has come to receive serious attention from either the business or academic world. One very obvious reason for this neglect is that, whilst the functions that comprise the logistics task are individually recognised, the concept of logistics as an integrative activity in business has only really developed within the last 20 years.What is logistics? It can be variously defined, but expressed at its simplest it is:The process of strategically managing the movement and storage of materials, parts, and finished inventory from suppliers, through the firm on to customers.Logistics is thus concerned with the management of the physical flow which begins with sources of supply and ends at the point of consumption. It is therefore clearly much wider in its reach than simply a concern with the movement of finished goods—a commonly held view of physical distribution. In the logistics scheme of things we are just as much concerned with plant and depot location, inventory levels, materials management and information systems as we are with transport.One of the features of the logistics concept which is its greatest attraction whilst simultaneously being the greatest drawback to its widespread adoption in industry so far is that it places the emphasis on integrating activities that traditionally have been located in different functions of the business. Thus in manycompanies responsibility for, say, inventory on the one hand and transport on the other may be vested in the production function and the distribution function respectively, and decisions on one will often be made without regard for the other. The logistics viewpoint however forces the decision-taker to recognise the connections between the component elements of the materials flow system — indeed it encourages comprehensive systems thinking rather than functional tunnel vision.It is interesting to trace the evolution of thought in the logistics activity and then to assess its importance for business today.As early as 1915, writing from that other place — Harvard Business School —Arch Shaw took a view of the logistics activity which was radically far-sighted. He said:The relations between the activities of demand creation and physical supply . . .illustrate the existence of the two principles of interdependence and balance.Failure to co-ordinate any one of these activities with its group-fellows and also with those in the other group, or undue emphasis or outlay put upon any one of these activities, is certain to upset the equilibrium of forces which means efficient distribution.. . . The physical distribution of the goods is a problem distinct from the creation of demand . . . Not a few worthy failures in distribution campaigns have been due to such a lack of co-ordination between demand creation and physical supply . . .Instead of being a subsequent problem, this question of supply must be met and answered before the work of distribution begins.This view of logistics as a bridge between demand creation and physical supply is still as valid today as it was when first expressed 65 years ago. However no matter how basic and fundamental this idea was, very little attention seems to have been paid to it and indeed in 1962 one of the gurus of Management, Peter Drucker, writing in Fortune magazine said:Physical distribution is today's frontier in business. It is the one area where managerial results of great magnitude can be achieved. And it is still largelyunexplored territory.There are signs however that management consciousness of the importance of logistics is growing. The last ten years have seen a major upsurge in interest in this area in the UK and the rest of Western Europe. We are still some way behind the United States in our acceptance of the logistics concept, a situation that is reflected perhaps in the fact that there is only one Chair in Marketing Logistics in Western Europe and that is here at Cranfield, compared with more than 50 in the United States.A number of factors have contributed to the growth of interest in logistics in management. One of these is that inevitably as companies seek out areas for productivity improvement they are forced to confront the major source of corporate costs represented by distribution. Production and marketing have both been subjected to scrutiny by academic commentators and the more efficiency-conscious companies. Now it is the turn of the materials flow system that binds production and marketing to receive similar examination.Giving increased urgency to this examination is the growth of costs of movement and storage. Energy crises have had a direct impact upon transport costs and soaring interest rates have made the costs of holding stocks into a major expense. Beyond this the vast proliferation in the size of most companies' product ranges has meant that the total stock-holding investment of these companies has increased dramatically. When one considers that a company such as Birds Eye ten years ago offered a range of 213 items whereas now it has a total range of 531 items then it can be appreciated just how important a factor in the corporate balance sheet inventory now is. Changes in the channels of distribution have themselves forced many manufacturers and distributors to take a fresh look at their distribution systems. Grocery retailing in this country is a prominent example of how power in the marketing channel has dramatically changed hands. Twenty-three years ago there were 150,000 retail grocery outlets, today there are only 68,000. Clearly the size of these outlets in physical and turnover terms has increased considerably and so too has the centralization of retail buying power. For example Tesco and Sainsbury together account for 25 per cent of the UK sales of groceries. The impact that thishas had on manufacturers and in particular on their distribution systems has been far reaching. Similar changes in channel relationships have occurred in many other industries too.The combination of all these factors has brought the distribution problem into sharp focus. In particular, awareness is growing both of the impact of logistics upon corporate profitability and, underlying this, its impact upon the national economy.Logistics and the National EconomyLogistics pervades almost every facet of economic activity. It provides the basic network whereby our everyday life is supported. This was demonstrated by the crisis brought to the nation by the transport strike of 1979 when all too clearly we saw the effects of a disturbance to the logistics system. Until then few people outside distribution probably ever thought of the central importance to the working of the economy of an efficient distribution system.It is easy to underestimate the scope of the logistics activity in the UK economy.Taking a broad definition of logistics-related functions within the economy and including all the distributive trades, a recent study has estimated that 29 per cent of the UK working population are employed in a logistics-related job. The same study also estimated that the total cost to the national economy of logistics in 1976 was £35 billion, or 32.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. These costs included the cost of holding stock (excluding stock appreciation), storage, materials handling and transport.Other studies have confirmed this order of magnitude of costs. So in terms of cost alone logistics activities account for a massive part of the national expenditure.Clearly any productivity improvement that could be achieved in any part of the logistics system would release resources for use elsewhere in the economy. A study recently commissioned by the National Council of Physical Distribution Management in the USA suggested that effective productivity improvement programmes in logistics could lead to reductions of between ten and 20 per cent in total corporate costs. The evidence suggests that such savings are potentially available in this country; in some cases the savings could be considerably higher.It must not be thought however that the logistics activity is merely a cost to the nation and as such the only desirable course of action is to reduce it. On the contrary, logistics is a positive contributor to national wealth. It facilitates the economic process and in many ways it is the engine that drives that process.For example, one important way in which the logistics process affects the national economy is through delivery performance in export markets. Much evidence has been assembled, for instance that contained in a recent survey by the Council of British Chambers of Commerce in Europe, strongly suggesting that a major reason for our declining export performance is our seeming inability as a nation to deliver on time. In many markets our products have no inbuilt technical or quality advantage over foreign competition and thus if delivery service is perceived to be inferior the sale is easily lost. There are countless stories, many of them unfortunately true, about the failure of British manufacturing companies to pay sufficient regard to the overseas distribution network. We can only hazard a guess as to how many more British Leyland vehicles could have been sold in the United States if the distributive network for vehicles and spares had matched that of Volkswagen or Datsun.And yet it has not always been this way. It is most instructive, I feel, to look back to the massive economic development that was under way in this country two hundred years ago and to note the vital role played in our industrial revolution by the development of appropriate and efficient distribution networks.Logistics and the Industrial RevolutionIn the short space of time approximately bounded by the years 1760 and 1830 a transformation of the whole way of life of Britain took place. That this period has come to be universally known as the "Industrial Revolution" is easily understandable when it is recalled that industrial activity was metamorphosised within a lifetime from a scattered series of domestic processes into a highly concentrated, mechanised, factory and urban-based industry. This period is perhaps best remembered for the world-changing developments in the iron and steel manufacturing processes, in textile machinery, in steam power and in engineering. It is also a period remembered for the creative genius of people like Richard Arkwright, James Watt, Matthew Boultonand the Darbys.However it can fairly be claimed that none of this dramatic and rapid change from a largely agrarian and cottage industry country to a highly industrialised and trade-oriented nation could have happened without an equivalent revolution in the distributive process. Here the names of Telford, Brindley, McAdam and, later, Stephenson and Brunei represent the great developments that were made to link the place of production with the point of consumption.Prior to the mid-eighteenth century, transport throughout Britain was difficult, time-consuming and uncertain. Most roads were little more than dirt-tracks and most of the country's distribution was accomplished by trains of pack horses following ancient tracks and crossing rivers by means of narrow bridges. The coming of the turnpike system changed the whole nature of the road network. Whilst the first of the turnpikes, administered by a local trust of worthies and entrepreneurs, can be found as early as 1706, it was not until the second half of the century that their number grew substantially.The expansion of trade and industry meant that improved means had to be found for moving goods over a much greater distance. The new methods of production meant that markets had to be found over a much wider area; hence the need for more effective distribution systems. As every new Trust set up to establish a turnpike required an Act of Parliament it is possible to infer the onset of industrialization from the great increase in such legislation in the second half of the eighteenth century. Betwen 1750 and 1770 there were more than twice as many Turnpike Acts as in the whole of the previous 50 years and most significantly the increased rate of road building was most noticeable in the new manufacturing districts of the Midlands.These new roads substantially reduced travelling time. In the 1750s for example, a stage-coach took ten days to reach Edinburgh from London; by the second decade of the nineteenth century the same journey took under three. The qualities of these roads and bridges engineered by people like Telford and McAdam were of a standard that was unknown in the rest of the world and their effects were profound.译文：物流和国民经济引言物流一直都是所有经济活动的中心和重要环节，但矛盾的是只有在近几年里才受到商业和学术界的重视。