Logistics Case: China Shipping's Perfect Logistics Information System

According to Xiao, assistant general manager in charge of marketing and information business of China Shipping Logistics, China Shipping Logistics can stand out from the fierce competition with companies such as COSCO Logistics, Sinotrans, China Merchants and Logistics, largely because it has established a relatively complete information system before others.

Transformation: Realizing Three-level Management

China Shipping Group, COSCO Group and Sinotrans are known as the three giants of China shipping market. In 2002, when the volume of containers increased by leaps and bounds, China Shipping Logistics came into being. According to the development plan of China Shipping Group, the logistics industry is the key and pillar industry, forming a large logistics development framework with shipping as the core, shipping agency, freight forwarding, yard, container truck, barge, air transport and sea-rail combined transport.

In the novel, the adjusted China Shipping Logistics adopts a three-level management mode, with the headquarters managing the area and the area managing the port. Headquarters leads, manages, plans and coordinates the logistics business of China Shipping on behalf of the Group, strengthens the control of the total cost of the whole logistics business and establishes the logistics supply chain; Under the leadership and management of the headquarters, regional companies operate distribution business, warehousing business, fleet business, cargo collection business, etc. In their respective regions, establish sales outlets in their respective regions to control regional costs; Under the management of regional companies, port companies carry out specific business operations of cargo collection and distribution, and are responsible for business data collection.

To do this, it is impossible without strong information system support. Mao, the general manager of China Shipping Logistics, pointed out in the early days of the company's establishment that to be a first-class logistics enterprise, we must first have first-class IT. In order to implement the "Big Logistics" strategy formulated by the Group, China Shipping Logistics finally chose China Merchants Chen Di as the software supplier.

Mode: "heartbeat"

Although China Merchants Chen Di is the first software supplier in China to integrate geographic information (GIS), satellite positioning (GPS), Wireless communication (Wireless) and Internet technology (WEB) and apply them to logistics, transportation and supply chain management. However, there is no precedent for an enterprise of this scale to establish a nationwide logistics information system in China. The general manager of China Merchants Shanghai Company once said: "Now it is not a single logistics system to look at a point, but to design a whole system from the perspective of supply chain connection from the height of the whole logistics network."

After repeated argumentation, the two sides agreed to apply enterprise-level integrated system nationwide, which can realize information sharing and exchange and keep data consistent. Zeng said that the core of the system is driven by market demand and centered on planning and scheduling, so that all links of logistics can work together. It needs to comprehensively manage enterprise plans, indicators, reports and accounts. , which can be refined and monitored layer by layer, has a unified enterprise document, report and account format, and has good expansibility and open structure. More importantly, the system should be an order-oriented information system. There should be a smooth information flow from accepting orders entrusted by customers to order management, making logistics plans around orders, implementing related logistics resources such as transportation capacity or warehousing, scheduling to logistics operations and quality monitoring.

It has been admitted that the difficulty of software projects lies in the change of business. The logistics business of China Shipping is complex, with numerous and ever-changing demands, and the information system must be improved accordingly. He clearly remembers that the research at the beginning of the project was mainly aimed at shipping business, and the main concern was to drag goods from this port to that port. There is very little real project logistics involved. After the strategic transformation last year, China Shipping Logistics has divested its shipping and freight forwarding business, specializing in third-party logistics.

"Heartbeat", the Ceng Hui military used an image metaphor to describe the existing business model of China Shipping. He explained: "The headquarters of China Shipping Logistics Group is a profit center, and the following eight regions are used as cost centers to allocate resources in a unified way and play a chess game nationwide. Now that there is a list of third-party logistics, it is entirely up to China Shipping Logistics to decide how many goods are delivered to what city and what warehouse. Unified allocation of warehousing resources, transportation resources and human resources. At present, China Shipping Logistics operates in full accordance with this model. The third party logistics emphasizes a beating heart, centralized management, centralized scheduling and unified accounting. Customers come in not to face one of your branches, but to face your entire logistics system and work together through an information system. "

What makes Guo Liang proud is that there is no similar logistics enterprise in China that can do this.

Hisense: Winning the First Battle

In a sense, the reason why China Shipping has to make strategic adjustment is because it has signed a large project logistics bill like Hisense. At the end of 2002, hisense electric held the first third-party logistics tender. After a month's bidding, investigation and implementation plan formulation, China Shipping Group Logistics defeated many well-known domestic logistics enterprises in one fell swoop and won the bid for the national distribution logistics service project of TV products in hisense electric.

Xiao proudly said: "We can win nearly 45% share of Hisense, surpassing COSCO and Sinotrans, and the key is IT system. At present, this system is all paperless, and all the customer needs of Hisense are sent to the local sales company, then to the sales center at headquarters, then to the logistics department at headquarters, then to our logistics center and then to our operation point. The whole process can be said to be all paperless and seamless. From their system to ours, the whole process is perfect. We gave Hisense two hours, in fact, only a few minutes at the earliest. In the past, it was a fax operation from the customer's instructions to our list, and it took half a day to go back and forth. "

At the same time, China Merchants Chen Di, as a strategic partner of China Shipping Logistics, also appears in the customers of China Shipping from time to time to complete the "close contact" of IT for them. However, China Merchants Chen Di Company lost no time in inviting China Shipping Logistics to participate in some seminars on logistics informatization. Therefore, there is an interesting phenomenon, that is, many customers choose China Shipping Logistics as the third-party logistics supplier and China Merchants Chen Di as the logistics system supplier, such as Jianlibao and Coconut Tree Group.

Expansion: flexibility and rigidity

The successful operation of Hisense project has enhanced the confidence of Chinese people. At present, China Shipping Logistics is trying to actively develop logistics cooperation at home and abroad, integrate social resources and build an integrated supply chain management model with the help of first-class network services and advanced e-commerce.

Xiao said that with the in-depth application of information systems, China Shipping will gradually provide customers with personalized value-added services such as order operation and cargo tracking through the Internet, and establish an electronic data exchange system with the customer's own management system according to the needs of VIP customers to ensure the timeliness and accuracy of information exchange.

Business expansion brings more and more system flexibility requirements, from logistics level to supply chain level, which has become a part of customer business model. He once said: "Of course, this needs optimization, including the optimization of logistics and transportation, the optimization of warehousing and the optimization of manpower. The information base at the system level should be upgraded to the decision analysis level. Through data comparison, what kind of goods I make are the most profitable and what kind of goods I make are reasonable. Data such as bicycle profit rate and warehouse turnover rate must become the decision-making level. An important basis for reference. "

Xiao also believes that the system currently applied by China Shipping has good flexibility, and the whole system is universal, which can be used by both beverage enterprises and home appliance enterprises. The platform ability of the system is very strong, but it needs to be a bridge with the customer system.

It should be said that the system of China Shipping Logistics is not a very complete system. Since its development last year, the existing warehouse management system, transportation system, container management system and GPS tracking system have been put into use one after another. Xiao revealed that at present, China Shipping Logistics has invested more than 20 million in IT projects and will continue to invest in the future. Recently, there are also group headquarters management module, container operation module, financial and business promotion module, automatic stowage system and so on. Not long ago, the newly developed GPS system of China Shipping Logistics has been put into operation in China.

The pain of CIO

The development of logistics enterprise information system is not a one-off event, but should be based on the long term. As far as China Shipping is concerned, the whole process is quite painful. If our requirements change again, so will the developers. Large logistics enterprises must develop their own information systems, and smaller companies can take the form of leasing, such as renting GPS systems, or cooperating with large logistics companies. Logistics enterprises should gradually implement informatization according to their own financial strength and the ability of developers. The process of selecting logistics developers is particularly important. Never choose a company with small financial strength and frequent personnel turnover.