On the problems and development countermeasures of modern warehousing industry in China
Warehousing plays a vital role in logistics system. Efficient and reasonable warehousing can help enterprises to speed up the circulation of materials, reduce costs, ensure the smooth progress of production and realize effective control and management of resources. This paper analyzes the present situation and existing problems of China's warehousing industry, and puts forward effective strategies for optimizing warehousing management, so as to solve the existing problems of warehousing industry and improve the competitiveness of China's warehousing industry.
Warehousing is an important part of modern logistics. Effective warehousing can realize product integration, adjust supply and demand, reduce costs and optimize the whole logistics system. When the warehousing industry exists as a format, logistics is an effective means to realize value-added services; In the logistics industry, warehousing is an indispensable and important node. Warehousing always appears at the junction of logistics links, such as between purchasing and production, between primary processing and finishing of production, between production and sales, between wholesale and retail, between different modes of transportation and so on. Warehouse management has become the core link of supply chain management.
1 Current situation of warehousing industry in China
With the rapid development of modern information technology, the development of warehouse management technology has experienced the initial manual management stage, to the mechanized, automated and intelligent warehouse management stage, and the warehouse management technology has been rising continuously. Driven by the national macro-control policies, China's warehousing industry has improved its operating efficiency and management level, with a good development momentum, mainly as follows:
(1) With the increase of warehousing business, business income grows rapidly. With the rapid development of logistics and the change of social demand, China's warehousing business volume is increasing, and the cargo throughput, average inventory and cargo turnover times are obviously improved.
(2) The warehousing technology has developed rapidly. The application of automation technology and information technology has become an important pillar of warehousing technology. Automatic warehousing, automatic identification and sorting system, bar code technology, RFID and other technologies have been paid attention to and applied by more and more enterprises. Technologies such as supplier management inventory and zero inventory have also begun to be used in some large enterprises.
2. The main problems in China warehousing industry
2. 1 The market competition of warehousing enterprises has intensified.
Domestic storage facilities can not meet the needs of logistics activities, the original storage enterprises lack the funds needed to transform infrastructure, and foreign logistics companies have invested in the construction of warehouses. Large enterprises in China are also constantly building modern warehouses as a platform for developing logistics. This trend has increased the competitiveness among warehousing enterprises, and the market competition among warehousing enterprises has become more and more fierce.
2.2 The development of warehousing technology is unbalanced, and the information situation is not optimistic.
(1) Many enterprises do not know enough about improving the automation and mechanization of warehouse operations. The modern warehouses of some large enterprises have very advanced storage equipment, including all kinds of advanced loading and unloading equipment, high-rise shelf warehouses, automated three-dimensional warehouses and so on. However, the warehouse operation of many enterprises still depends on manual operation. This unbalanced development of warehousing technology will seriously affect the overall operation efficiency of China warehousing industry.
(2) Information technology has been applied to a certain extent, but the overall situation of informatization of small and medium-sized logistics enterprises is not optimistic. Enterprises lack knowledge and understanding of logistics informatization, the construction of logistics informatization starts late and advances slowly, and the overall level of logistics informatization is low, so they rarely plan their informatization construction from the overall goal of supply chain. The gap of logistics informatization between large enterprises and small enterprises is getting bigger and bigger, and even there is a gap of logistics informatization. The cost of transportation, warehousing, distribution, labor and equipment in China is much lower than that in developed countries, while the comprehensive cost of the whole logistics process is much higher than that in developed countries. One of the main reasons is the low degree of informatization in all aspects of logistics and poor information communication, which leads to large inventory and waste of transportation capacity.
2.3 automated storage resource utilization is not high.
At present, the main problems existing in the use of automated warehouses in China are low utilization rate, unclear effect, uncertain scale and unobtrusive advantages, which cause many warehouse resources to be idle, especially some small-batch and single-product production enterprises to realize warehouse automation, and the contradiction between idle facilities and equipment resources in warehouses and repeated configuration is prominent.
2.4 There are many warehouses, but the layout is not reasonable enough.
Because all industries and departments have established their own warehouses in order to meet their own needs, and the number of warehouses is large. All warehouses are built in areas with concentrated economy and convenient transportation, so that the layout of warehouses is extremely unreasonable, resulting in a polarized situation of a large number of surplus storage in some areas and insufficient storage capacity in some areas.
2.5 Lack of warehouse management personnel
To develop the warehousing industry, we need not only talents with certain professional skills, but also operational talents and warehousing management talents. These talents are scarce in China at present, and the logistics industry needs these three kinds of compound talents more. In the training of logistics talents, many colleges and universities only attach importance to theoretical teaching, ignoring practical teaching, and the investment in practical teaching is insufficient. The school-enterprise combination model has not been implemented, and the students' practical ability is poor. Does not meet the actual needs of enterprises.
3 Modern warehousing management optimization strategy
Warehouse management plays a vital role in the whole supply chain of enterprises, if it can't ensure the smooth progress of procurement, delivery and inventory control. It will lead to an increase in management costs and a decline in service quality, thus affecting the competitiveness of enterprises. In view of the problems existing in China's warehousing industry, in order to improve the competitiveness of warehousing enterprises, we should optimize warehousing management from the following aspects:
3. 1 Optimize the warehouse layout and give full play to local advantages.
The warehousing industry in many countries is located in urban areas, major traffic routes and relatively developed areas. Material storage enterprises should make full use of the advantages of active business flow, well-informed information, convenient transportation and large area, and quickly adjust their business policies and strategies and adjust their business structure. In particular, it covers a large area and has a superior geographical position, which is a huge wealth. Through reasonable planning, scientific arrangement and various forms of economic cooperation, the common shortage of funds in warehousing enterprises will be solved, the layout of the reservoir area will be adjusted, the warehouses will be updated, and the necessary technical transformation will be carried out to meet the needs of large-scale material circulation. Break the compartmentalization, face the society and participate in the competition.
3.2 Strengthen technical transformation and management.
The development of modern logistics industry needs the support of modern warehousing management, and informatization and advanced technology oriented by informatization have become effective ways to modernize warehousing industry. Change the traditional manual information recording and manual operation management mode of paper and pen into electronic, digital and networked computer management and mechanized and automated operation management mode. The technical transformation of warehouse management mainly starts from the following two aspects:
(1) Determine the construction and transformation of warehousing hardware facilities according to the relationship between market supply and demand, improve the mechanization, automation and intelligence of warehousing, and improve the utilization rate of warehousing resources and the efficiency of warehousing management.
(2) Build a perfect and powerful warehouse management system, and do a good job in the technical transformation of warehouse management informationization and networking. In terms of software facilities, there are several levels to choose from: ① single storage and transportation management software; ② Enterprise LAN; (3) Realize information sharing with customers and partners through the extranet and Internet.
The application of logistics information technology and warehouse management system in warehouse management, goods sorting, inventory counting and inventory control can greatly improve the efficiency of warehouse management and reduce errors, and can also realize the information sharing of warehouse information between enterprises and partners through internal and external networks of enterprises. Nowadays, radio frequency identification technology, bar code technology, scanning technology and data acquisition technology are more and more used in handling equipment such as forklifts, stackers, automatic guided vehicles and conveyor belts. As a flexible logistics tool, mobile robots are also playing an increasingly important role in flexible production, storage and product delivery.
3.3 Constantly improve the warehousing standardization system and take the road of internationalization.
In order to adapt to the requirements of the open market and do well the preparatory work in line with international practices, the key is to introduce advanced management methods, strengthen the integration of warehousing resources and constantly improve the warehousing standardization system. The storage and transportation facilities of storage enterprises in different industries in China cannot be used, which affects the ability of enterprises to plan storage resources reasonably. In order to meet the requirements of modern logistics, strengthen the integration of resources and establish a storage network, warehouses, pallets, shelves and other storage facilities and equipment must be designed according to the international logistics standard module size. Warehousing standardization is not only to realize the close cooperation between warehousing and other links, but also an effective means to improve the internal work efficiency of warehousing.
3.4 Strengthen the cultivation of warehousing talents
The cultivation of warehousing talents should pay special attention to the cultivation of practical ability. Colleges and universities must increase the investment in logistics practice teaching and implement the mode of combining schools with enterprises.
3.5 Extend the service field and provide warehousing value-added services.
The profit of the warehousing industry is getting thinner and thinner, and sticking to the traditional warehousing business will inevitably be eliminated by the market. Therefore, it is wise for many managers to actively explore business channels, implement diversified operations and develop in the direction of trade, freight forwarding and distribution processing. In addition to providing traditional services, modern warehousing enterprises should also strive to provide customers with a variety of value-added services that meet customer needs, so as to enhance the intrinsic value of warehousing enterprises, maintain their competitiveness and win more customers. Warehousing enterprises can increase the following value-added services: distribution, packaging, distribution processing, information and consulting services. The original warehouse, the original employees, innovated the warehousing business and enhanced the market competitiveness of warehousing enterprises by extending the service field.
3.6 Reasonable selection of supply chain inventory management strategy
Inventory management is an important part of warehouse management, but the concept of inventory control needs to be updated urgently because of outdated management methods and lagging management concepts in China's warehouse industry. Therefore, it is necessary to flexibly adopt advanced supply chain inventory management strategies according to the actual situation of enterprises. Such as JIT zero inventory management strategy, parallel and parallel process strategy, delayed product difference strategy, VMI strategy, joint inventory management strategy and so on. In order to reduce the inventory level, reduce the occupation of inventory funds, reduce the total inventory cost and improve the storage utilization rate.
3.7 Revitalize assets and improve the utilization rate of storage resources.
Developing idle resources, revitalizing the stock of assets and improving the utilization rate of equipment are important measures for the logistics industry to improve its economic benefits in the process of transforming its operating mechanism. Fully put idle resources into the open market, break the boundaries between industries and administrative regions, and let the market allocate resources effectively and reasonably. Introduce relevant policies, encourage professional institutions to operate idle equipment, expand equipment information exchange channels, and improve information service means. Transfer, auction, lease and exchange idle equipment with compensation through normal channels.
3.8 Accelerate the construction of public information platform and realize the informationization of warehouse management.
In order to improve the warehouse utilization rate and realize effective inventory control, it is necessary to establish and improve an effective logistics information network, realize warehouse information sharing, and actively promote enterprise warehouse management informationization. Using modern information technology to build a public information platform, realize the effective combination of public information network and warehousing information network resources, and improve the level of enterprise warehousing information.
4 conclusion
With the rapid development of China's economy, the prospect of warehousing industry is bright, and the market competition will be more intense. In order to improve the competitiveness of China's warehousing industry, we should make more efforts in the renewal and innovation of management concepts, modern logistics management information technology, the improvement of personnel quality and the extension of service fields, and constantly optimize the allocation of warehousing resources. In order to meet the requirements of high efficiency and low cost in time, we must constantly innovate on the basis of efficient information management.