INTEGRATION OF LOGISTICS PROCESSES AS A CONDITION FOR EFFICIENT OPERATION IN BUSINESSES

First part of the paper emphasizes fundamental concepts of logistics which facilitate course of business processes in enterprises and interrelations, which, in contemporary logistics, determine a new system approach. Further part underlines basic components of logistics system, with its tasks and functions, rules that should be used and factors which influence on integration of all the business processes, both in phase arrangement of an enterprise and between businesses on a domestic, international and global scale. Logistics costs, comprising 10-40% of total cost in companies, were also described. Proper planning of these costs brings new opportunities to generate profits and the levels of customer service and, in consequence, achievement of strategic goals. In next part, the importance of information to logistics information systems was emphasized. The necessity of in-depth analysis of the acquired information and its aggregation and deaggregation in terms of the demand at each level of organizational structure was highlighted. It undoubtedly affects functional integration in each information system in the company and thus on efficiency of the integrated information system. The importance of IT techniques and technologies was emphasized. They support performance of the functions within logistics information systems and thus main philosophy of procedure in logistics systems, whose concept is multilevel and multidirectional integration of the processes of flow in economic systems and overcoming all the difficulties in these flows. In order to underline the importance of information technology in logistics, place of logistics IT system in integrated IT systems was defined and their evolution was examined, pointing to the necessity of further development of IT technologies, which integrate companies with their environment. In last part of the paper, focus was on problems connected with integration and presentation of information for the purposes of logistics decision-makers and solutions proposed for these problems.