Chicago-Cook Business Center - Logistics Information

8.21.2008

Logistics Leader

Definition of Logistics:
The process of strategically managing the movement and storage of materials or products and related information from any point in the manufacturing process through consumer fulfillment.

Translation:
How does my company move and store my product until it gets to the customer?

Chicago-Cook’s Logistics Market
When French traders and explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet first camped out along the banks of the Chicago River in 1673, they remarked that one day, on that site, a great city would develop due to the joining of the Great Lakes and the “Checagou” River. Sure enough the city that developed here 150 years later did so because a person could bring his goods from as far away as Europe and, provided they go through Chicago, drop them off in St. Louis or New Orleans without ever having to unload his ship. As transportation modes changed so did the region. Since it’s inception, Chicago-Cook has been the distribution hub of the Midwest and the country.

Consider these facts:

1/3 of the nation’s GDP is produced within 300 miles of Chicago-Cook County
There are over 70 million consumers in the Midwest
50% of all goods and services produced in the country are produced within 500 miles of the Chicago region
The Chicago region is the world’s leading intermodal container port (nearly twice the size of Los Angeles).
Over 50% of the North American industrial economy is within one day’s truck delivery
The GDP of the nine-county Chicago region is roughly equivalent to the economies of Belgium, Switzerland, or Argentina
94 of the Fortune 100 companies have a presence in the Chicago region
Chicago-Cook is the nation’s busiest rail hub served by 21 intermodal facilities and 19 container depots handling 8.8 million containers daily.
The Chicago region has over 41,700 outbound truckloads a day
Air transport is the largest mode of distribution in the region. Nearly 900 million cargo tons domestic and 700 million cargo tons international from O’Hare airport alone. That’s over 1.5 billion tons of cargo distributed by just one of Chicago-Cook’s 2 airports annually!

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