Logistics Viewpoints is getting back to its roots.
Going forward, we are putting more emphasis on logistics and less on trying to cover the entire supply chain.
That may sound like a small distinction. It isn’t.
Supply chain has become an enormous umbrella. It can include sourcing, procurement, manufacturing, planning, inventory, logistics, sustainability, risk, technology, and almost anything that happens between a supplier and a customer.
There is plenty to write about there. But trying to cover all of it can also make it harder for a publication to have a clear point of view.
Logistics gives us that focus.
What We Mean by Logistics
For Logistics Viewpoints, the center of gravity will be the movement and storage of goods and the systems required to make that happen.
That means transportation, warehousing, distribution, fulfillment, automation, robotics, visibility, global logistics, logistics technology, and execution.
It also means we will continue writing quite a bit about AI, data, digital twins, agents, and decision intelligence. But the question will be what those technologies actually mean for logistics.
How does AI change transportation planning or execution?
What happens when warehouse systems can coordinate robots, people, inventory, and material-handling equipment in real time?
Can better visibility actually change a decision before it is too late to do anything about it?
Where can software act on its own, and where should a person remain in the loop?
Those are logistics questions.
This Doesn’t Mean Supply Chain Disappears
There is obviously no clean wall between logistics and the rest of the supply chain.
Inventory decisions affect transportation. Manufacturing decisions affect warehouses and distribution networks. Sourcing changes freight flows. Planning determines what logistics eventually has to execute.
So we aren’t going to stop using the term “supply chain,” and we aren’t going back through years of Logistics Viewpoints articles changing old terminology.
The distinction is more practical.
If a broader supply chain development has a meaningful logistics consequence, we will cover it. If it doesn’t, we don’t necessarily need to.
That gives us a fairly simple editorial test: Where is the logistics story?
The Site Will Change With the Focus
We’re also going through Logistics Viewpoints itself to make sure the site reflects that direction.
Some of the language has gradually become broader over the years. The homepage, About page, Topics pages, newsletter language, navigation, and several other areas still describe LV largely in supply chain terms.
Those will change.
For example, “Independent Intelligence for Supply Chain Leaders” becomes “Independent Intelligence for Logistics Leaders.”
The topics we emphasize will also become more clearly organized around transportation, warehousing, fulfillment, automation, visibility and orchestration, global logistics and trade, logistics technology and AI, and logistics risk and resilience.
ARC Advisory Group will, of course, continue to conduct research across the broader supply chain and industrial technology markets. This change is about giving Logistics Viewpoints a sharper editorial identity, not narrowing ARC’s research coverage.
Two New Series Help Set the Direction
We are also launching two substantial series that reflect where we want to take the publication.
The first is Systems Engineering in Logistics, a 16-part series.
One of the problems with logistics transformation is that companies can approach transportation, warehousing, automation, software, data, and AI as separate projects. But they all eventually have to work together.
The series looks at logistics as a system.
It starts with requirements and operating models and works through process and data architecture, technology selection, AI, digital twins, automation, testing, resilience, and lifecycle management.
The basic idea is simple: before optimizing another piece of logistics, make sure we understand the system we are changing.
The second series is The New Architecture of Logistics, with 10 articles looking at what that system is becoming.
We’ll examine why logistics increasingly looks like an operating system, why the traditional boundary between transportation and warehousing is weakening, the emergence of a logistics control layer, increasingly orchestrated warehouses, computational transportation, the changing economics of visibility, AI agents, decision velocity, and eventually more autonomous logistics operations.
The two series approach the subject from different directions.
Systems Engineering in Logistics is about how we design the system.
The New Architecture of Logistics is about what the system is becoming.
Back to Logistics
Logistics itself is becoming a much bigger technology story.
Warehouses are becoming more automated. Transportation systems are becoming more dynamic. Physical assets are becoming easier for software to observe. AI is moving closer to execution. Decisions that once took hours can increasingly be made in minutes or seconds.
At the same time, none of the physical realities have disappeared. Trucks still have to arrive. Trailers still have to be loaded. Inventory still has to be in the right place. Orders still have to get out the door.
That intersection between the physical world and increasingly intelligent technology is where Logistics Viewpoints has a lot to say.
So the change is not about making LV smaller.
It is about making it clearer what we are here to cover.
Logistics.
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