[Logistics is one of the important contents of modern service industry, but many logistics enterprises still continue the traditional operation mode in warehouse management and material distribution: relying on manual recording and sorting, which leads to the disadvantages such as wasting time when looking for tools or inventory, unclear inventory accounts, low shipping accuracy rate, etc.
According to Qingdao Daily, with the rapid development of market economy, this traditional operation mode has become increasingly unsuitable for the needs of modern logistics, and also restricts the improvement of competitiveness of logistics enterprises. How to get the desired items faster and more accurately, how to grasp the quantity of goods entering and leaving more timely and accurately, thus improving efficiency and reducing cost, has become an important issue faced by logistics enterprises.
Improving management level by technical means
Currently, there are thousands of logistics enterprises of various sizes in our city. What methods can solve these problems? Not long ago, I had a discussion with Ms. Qu Huaqing, General Manager of Qingdao Yiming Digital Technology Co., Ltd. From her, I learned about the solutions currently adopted by foreign logistics enterprises. Ms. Qu is an expert in modern logistics and software, dedicated to the research and development of software for the modernization of logistics, and has a comprehensive understanding and in-depth study of the current status of international and domestic logistics enterprises.
According to Ms. Qu, in developed countries and regions in the logistics industry such as the United States, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, China, most logistics enterprises have achieved intelligent management, among which electronic tags are the standard configuration for most logistics distribution centers. So-called electronic tags, in appearance, are actually a long strip panel with LCD display and buttons. At Yiming Digital Technology Company, Ms. Qu briefly demonstrated its working principle to me: For example, in a warehouse storing a large number of goods, each unit shelf has an electronic tag attached to it, and each tag has a wire leading out. These wires finally converge into the computer at the management control center. The computer database records the item name, quantity, and code information of the items on each shelf where the electronic tags are located. When the management control center needs to retrieve a certain type of goods, it directly issues a picking instruction through the computer, and the electronic tag will display the variety and quantity of the picked goods. The warehouse manager only needs to pick up the goods according to the data displayed on the tag, and after completion, press the confirmation key on the tag, the indicator immediately goes out, and the updated picking data is automatically fed back to the system, completing a task.
Compared with the traditional manual operation, this operation method has very obvious advantages: the entire operation process does not require printing of paper documents such as outbound orders and sorting orders, and can also save time searching for the location of goods and verifying varieties; the energy of warehouse managers will be mainly used for confirming the quantity of picked goods, basically no need for thinking, judgment, and recording, greatly improving work efficiency, and less likely to make mistakes; regardless of how frequent the goods are adjusted in and out of the warehouse, the control center can always accurately grasp the inventory situation of each type of goods in real time, analyze the total amount of goods entering and leaving within a period of time, for commercial enterprises, this is the most direct data to understand the market sales situation of the product, convenient for organizing sources of goods.
Information technology application needs to be promoted
As the leader of commercial enterprises, L群 Group felt the limitations of traditional operation methods earlier. On the basis of striving for national projects, L群 Group applied electronic tags to warehouse management and logistics distribution as early as 2003. According to relevant responsible persons of the group, combined with high-rise three-dimensional storage and mechanized operations, the application of electronic tags has enabled L群 Group's logistics distribution center to achieve paperless operations within the warehouse and intelligent task allocation, fundamentally changing the entire logistics management. It is reported that the logistics center built by Wei Ke Group in Chengyang District will also use advanced shelves, high-level forklifts and other mechanical equipment representing the advanced level of international logistics, as well as high-tech informatization technologies such as electronic tags, automatic sorting systems, and handheld terminals.
However, according to my understanding, the vast majority of other logistics enterprises in our city currently do not have clear plans for introduction. Ms. Qu believes that the main reasons affecting the popularization and promotion of information technology in logistics enterprises are: domestic logistics enterprises' awareness of enhancing intelligent management is not strong enough, and they have not fully recognized the important role of intelligence in warehouse management and logistics distribution; the domestic level of such software industry is relatively backward, and there is no specialized company that has developed mature products similar to ERP systems, while foreign similar products are too expensive, exceeding the financial capacity of most enterprises; even if some logistics enterprises have the ability to purchase products from foreign manufacturers, due to the lack of understanding of the management methods and business processes of domestic logistics enterprises by foreign merchants, their product solutions are not targeted enough, making it difficult to apply, and several agents in China have previously acted as agents for foreign manufacturers' products, but ultimately failed to promote them.
On the one hand, the modern management level of logistics enterprises lags behind and needs to quickly realize the transformation from traditional methods to intelligence, while on the other hand, there is a lack of corresponding system products. This situation also provides huge business opportunities for software enterprises that are rapidly developing. According to experts' analysis, based on the development experience of foreign logistics enterprises and the current development status and trends of domestic logistics industry, in the future, the domestic market conservatively estimates that it will need nearly a thousand sets of systems each year. Calculating each set of system using an average of 2000 electronic tags, this will be a huge market. Currently, there are already hundreds of software enterprises in our city, and the annual revenue of the software industry reaches billions of yuan, but there are very few software enterprises specifically targeting the logistics industry. Whoever can seize the opportunity and develop products with complete functions and low prices will stand out in this industry. (Editor: Fan Chen)]