Information and communication technologies (ICT) in construction and development of logistics systems

The higher and higher level of competitiveness of enterprises, the in- creasing expectations of customers or internalization of business are just a few examples of challenges that most of companies must face nowadays. None of these challenges may be faced, however, if the companies do not cope with logistics pro- blems. The increasing number of problems, among others related to the necessity of diversification of products, of provision of frequent, fast and small deliveries, of ensuring reliability and flexibility in operation, of transfer of goods almost all over the world, can no longer be solved with application of traditional methods. Con- dition of success in contemporary logistics is implementation of modern techno- logy. Companies without IT systems, without automatic identification of goods or electronic exchange of data have not chances for strong presence in today’s supply chains or other modern forms of business. In this paper characteristics of selected information and communication technologies (ICT) were presented with reference to the operation of contemporary logistics systems. The introduction presents the role and substance of the information resources in logistics. Technological solu- tions concerning transfer of information were grouped and characterized according to the following types: family of electronic connections, corporate networks and information highways. In each group of the solutions main faults and benefits were presented, from the perspective of possibilities of application in logistic.