At present, the motivation for enterprises to decide to outsource or develop logistics information systems comes from two aspects: one is the pressure from market competition. For example, in order to get orders for logistics outsourcing services, enterprises often temporarily hook up with system developers to quickly launch a system-because the outsourcing tender clearly States: "Those with ready-made information systems are preferred"; Secondly, the rapid development of information technology has brought new application prospects. For example, the popularity of mobile phones makes it possible to track the logistics stowage status by communication, so it is necessary for enterprises to invest in a cargo tracking system.
With the emergence of some new trends in China's industrial circulation structure and applied science and technology, the logistics market as a whole also reflects some new hot spots. As an important means of logistics operation and management, information system has been gradually upgraded from the past stage of learning and trying to a new stage of customer-oriented, market-oriented, demand-oriented and application-oriented. For enterprises, it is particularly important to fully understand the development status and trends of logistics and even information technology.
Manufacturing logistics is surging.
Experts pointed out that China is becoming an important manufacturing base in the world, and the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta have formed unprecedented new industrial parks. In the future, these industrial parks will gradually move northward, starting from the coastal areas and building a long "manufacturing zone" from south to north. This trend has promoted the rapid development of logistics information technology.
Different from the logistics revolution caused by information technology such as Internet and e-commerce in previous years, this time it is due to the market demand of manufacturers for raw material procurement and inventory management, finished product transportation and sales, which directly brings the elastic effect of logistics expansion, which also determines that the supporting logistics business has obvious manufacturing characteristics: for example, if a famous manufacturing enterprise adopts the deep direct selling mode, the logistics enterprise will adopt the "door-to-door" and "desktop-to-desktop" direct shipping and direct remittance operation modes accordingly. In this way, manufacturers will naturally choose logistics system strategy from the perspective of manufacturing, and make a choice between ERP and special logistics system. From the industry experience, manufacturers can first consider the following ways according to their own production and operation situation and investment ability: outsourcing logistics business and handing it over to a third-party professional logistics company for management, but requiring the third-party professional logistics company to have a logistics system and be able to connect with the manufacturer's own production plan and financial system; When the production line tends to be stable, consider going to the logistics management system of raw materials and suppliers first, and then operating the ERP system; Firstly, select the module of production management, and then gradually implement the whole ERP system including logistics.
Under normal circumstances, ERP system is only responsible for the delivery of orders, and it is difficult to go deep into the operational level of logistics vertically, especially when it comes to vendor managed inventory (VMI) and other modes, which belongs to the category of typical logistics systems. Therefore, in practical work, some production enterprises, especially those with multiple factories, can adopt ERP system at the same time and match it with professional logistics warehousing and transportation distribution systems.
Foreign capital logistics is leading.
After China's entry into the WTO, foreign investment has set off a new upsurge in China. Different from the past, China is no longer a low-cost world factory whose main purpose is to export after processing, but a domestic market with a vast hinterland and a sustained and steady increase in customer capacity.
The soldiers and horses did not move, and the food and grass went first. In response to this old saying, before multinational companies began to plan their production and sales in China, trading companies, consulting companies and even logistics companies that had business ties with multinational companies had already made preparations for logistics outsourcing of foreign-funded enterprises in China. Because foreign-funded enterprises have abundant capital and long-term information experience, they often have the characteristics of "high starting point, fast speed, synchronous design of business processes and systems" when choosing logistics systems.
The situations that foreign-funded enterprises will encounter when choosing a logistics system can be roughly divided into the following categories: in the case of multinational headquarters investment, the headquarters will generally recommend and finally decide the type of system. Basically, we will try our best to adopt the systems already used in China to ensure the seamless connection of the group systems. For example, Japanese-funded enterprises tend to adopt the system of Japanese logistics suppliers, while Taiwan-funded enterprises are willing to choose software products with performance in Taiwan Province Province; Enterprises pay great attention to the brand and professional experience of system suppliers when making local investment decisions, and give priority to bidding for internationally renowned logistics system suppliers; Considering the core business, foreign-funded enterprises often do not develop their own systems, but have higher requirements for related system interfaces and technical support services; Because foreign-funded enterprises are engaged in the international procurement of raw materials and the export of finished products, in addition to the usual transportation and warehousing, they also emphasize the supply chain logistics including import and export customs clearance. Pursue the integration of logistics, business flow, capital flow and information flow.
At present, the gap between domestic logistics enterprises and foreign capital is mainly manifested in three aspects: system application technology, automation and management experience.
"Automobile Logistics" leads the trend
Recently, the most famous automobile groups in the world have rushed to the domestic market, the industrial scale is getting bigger and bigger, and the competition between price and speed is becoming more and more fierce. Reducing logistics cost and improving logistics efficiency have become the basis for the development of many enterprises.
If home appliance logistics and distribution once occupied the high-end in the field of logistics system, now automobile logistics has become a "leader". Electronic kanban, just-in-time system and zero inventory are all modes of production and logistics, which are being imitated by other non-automobile enterprises in China.
The automobile industry involves many complicated links such as online ordering of sales stores, transnational parts procurement, wide-area assembly, warehousing and transportation, import and export, maintenance, environmental protection recycling, recall and so on. Due to the strict requirements for logistics management of spare parts and vehicles, for logistics enterprises, whether they can pass the information system depends on "receiving purchase orders and kanban instructions accurately and timely, and feeding back logistics operation status information".
Specifically, when choosing system partners, automobile enterprises or related logistics enterprises attach great importance to each other's professional background and successful cases in the automobile industry, so often only those well-known system suppliers with strong comprehensive strength can become candidates; From the actual situation, foreign automobile enterprises have relatively perfect logistics mode and system support, while domestic enterprises mainly focus on production site management, and basically have no mature system; At present, automobile enterprises mainly focus on parts logistics management system, distribution settlement system, sales plan and production plan system. Production control system, quality management and quality assurance system, wide-area procurement and distribution system and maintenance service management system will become the focus in the future.
On the other hand, because there are many upstream and downstream manufacturers involved in automobile enterprises, such enterprises pay more and more attention to supply chain management and systems.
"automatic identification" promotes business opportunities
At present, the identification system based on bar code, especially two-dimensional bar code, plays an important role in the fields of logistics and manufacturing, and there are signs of a major breakthrough in logistics identification technology. Reflected in the new generation of electronic tag system (RFID) and automatic sorting system.
In the field of electronic tag system, contactless readable RFID is likely to replace the bar code printed on paper and take the lead in setting off a revolution in the field of logistics. Although there are still obstacles in reading and writing distance and production cost, RFID has great technical advantages compared with reading and writing characteristics, information capacity and reuse.
Since 2005, Wal-Mart has required its main suppliers to put electronic labels on containers, and electronic label promotion centers in the United States and Japan are also conducting various experiments. Japan has also developed a reading device that can read and write bar codes and electronic labels at the same time. Platform software vendors preset standard driver interfaces for electronic tags in their products.
China recently announced "accelerating the development and commercial application of electronic tags" as its national strategy. It can be predicted that some high-end manufacturing and logistics enterprises will take the lead in changing from bar code system to electronic label system to build their own competitive advantages in domestic and foreign markets. A few days ago, Fujitsu Beijing Company developed a large-capacity RFID, which can add, delete or modify the stored contents at any time, with the characteristics of safety and reliability. After applying the system, enterprises will speed up business processes, thus improving overall work efficiency, and constantly tap new business in the infinite business opportunities.
In the field of automatic sorting system, the traditional DPS system needs power wiring construction, which is expensive and suitable for goods with high shipping frequency and various types. At present, the new system uses electronic tags without wiring, and can be combined with wireless RF devices in the warehouse to achieve a high degree of automation in sorting line or storage area, and the installation is very simple, and the system cost is greatly reduced.
Logistics software reshuffle
According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 500 companies engaged in logistics software development in China, but not many of them have scale. There are few professional logistics software companies in China, and they have their own logistics software products, mainly product sales and secondary development, which are usually difficult to fully meet the system requirements of different types of enterprises other than logistics.
Through running-in in recent years, many excellent software and consulting companies have gradually turned from software products to logistics business itself, which has improved their professional consulting service capabilities. Logistics enterprises have also moved from retreat to pragmatism, realizing that the core of informatization is application plus service. Because it is not easy for large logistics software enterprises to develop a software suitable for all kinds of enterprises. Therefore, IT is not so much that logistics enterprises choose logistics software as long-term IT partners. System suppliers are no longer pure software product competition, but brand quality and overall service strength competition. There are only a few excellent suppliers left in mature markets. It can be said that a knockout competition between system suppliers has begun.
This year will be the most critical period for the opening of the logistics market, and many logistics enterprises are strengthening their core competitiveness. Rich customer resources, mature management mode and powerful information network are the magic weapons to win. Is your enterprise ready for the increasingly competitive market?