Get to know the vital terms of Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
A leg in logistics refers to the particular segment, part, or portion of a shipment’s overall journey within a transportation route. Thus, each leg would represent a particular point-to-point section that the cargo would have to pass through, whether that section falls within one mode of transportation or over multiple modes.
Point-to-Point Segments: A leg may represent travel from one city to another, for example, New York to Chicago or any defined points of a transportation route. For instance, a shipment from a warehouse to a distribution center may have legs for each step on its route.
Multimodal Transitions: Shipments in a logistics chain frequently change modes, from truck to rail, or from air to sea. In multimodal movement, each move between different types of transportation constitutes a separate leg.
Operational Planning: In order to maximize efficiency, each leg is typically planned out in detail. A schedule for which carrier to use and how to get from the origin to the destination are optimized per segment.
Consider a shipment from an overseas factory to a local store:
First Leg: From the factory to a seaport by truck.
Second Leg: By ship from the seaport to a U.S. port.
Third Leg: By train from the U.S. port to a regional distribution centre.
Final Leg: From the distribution centre to the store by truck.
Flexibility and Control: Separate management of every leg will provide the logistics provider with an opportunity to change routes, pick the most efficient carriers, and create optimal schedules as each different section demands.
Cost and Time Optimization: Segmentation through leg enables easier resource allocation and minimizes delays at every point within the route.
Improved Tracking and Accountability: The segmentation of a journey is helpful in tracking shipments and therefore solving the problems in a more real-time fashion, especially for long or international routes.
A leg in logistics would therefore detail an organized structure in managing and tracking each part of the shipment journey to ensure every segment of the route is planned, executed, and optimized to maximum efficiency. That segmented approach can help logistics organizations better reliability, cost reductions, and delivery accuracy.