It has been claimed by a group of experts that "Geographical Information System (GIS) can simplify logistics operations in India by reducting the complexity by bringing out subtle geographic patterns and relationships th

Geographic Information System (GIS): The application of Information Technology can support and help in resolving several problems and issues. Geographic Information System (GIS) enable storage, manipulation, analysis and display of geographically referenced data. The rate of growth in the GIS industry has accelerated in the 1990s as businesses have adopted GIS to relate different sources of information to one another through a common geographical reference. Global Positioning System (GPS), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Bar Coding are some of the important pillars of such GIS system. The greatest challenge of logistics is a routing of vehicles especially in India as the geographical spread is fairly large. Some of the applications of GIS in logistics are: Vehicle tracking and dispatch involves being able to keep track of the location and the inventory on board every vehicle in the field and having the latest information on its position and operating status. Route analysis is the operation which aims at minimizing the cost of travel involved in transporting goods from one location to another whether in terms of trips required or time or distance or a combination of these. Warehouse operations become significant in cost reduction when the operation grows big and each warehouse becomes a very large operation in itself. Facilities and depot management involves minimizing waste by considering the location aspects, the available capacity, the inventory in question and the range or effective covered area of each facility. Routing and scheduling aim at minimizing all kinds of costs including mileage, overtime and maximizing all benefits including customer satisfaction, adherence to schedules, etc. The system can also be joined to an inventory control system in ERP software like SAP R/3 which could help create geographically aware inventory packets for delivery, taking into account the locations of the address and the capability of the truck that will service the specific route.