Supply chain strategy refers to a strategy of how the supply chain can achieve the business and organizational goals of the enterprise in the process of enterprise development.
It must be consistent with the strategy of enterprise development. World-class companies such as Apple, Cisco, Amazon, and Procter & Gamble all promote strong collaboration between their supply chains and business teams to execute business strategies.
Important elements for supply chain strategy
Application of supply chain strategy
Procter & Gamble represents the efficiency strategy, and its main products are Functional products. Procter & Gamble’s supply chain requires maximum resource utilization, minimize inventory, maximize inventory turnover, and the shortest order delivery time. The selection criteria of suppliers are low prices and guaranteed quality. The P & G supply chain strategy is to reduce operating costs and maximize overall efficiency.
And Apple represents the Responsiveness strategy. As the world’s most famous electronic product design manufacturer, Apple’s business strategy is very focused on product innovation, iPhone products will launch a new product every six months, so Apple’s supply chain strategy must also be very agile, The speed of product iteration must be fast enough so that it can keep up with the pace of enterprise development. The supply chain focuses on products quickly occupying the market, and logistics costs are not particularly valued.
Here is a short video to analyse how to quickly define the supply chain. It is very clear and interesting. Please have a look!
Olympic Logistics is a physical flow process that consists of basic logistics activities such as transportation, storage, packaging, loading and unloading, distribution, distribution processing, and information processing, and is related to hosting the Olympic Games from the supply location to the receiving location.
How complex and difficult is the demand for Olympic logistics?
As the world’s largest sports event, the Olympic Games has more athletes and spectators than any other sports event, which has caused huge logistics demand. Taking the equipment required for the competition as an example, its number far exceeds that of other competitions, which is a big problem for the logistics system of the host city. Take the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil as an example. The Olympic Games will use 32,000 table tennis balls, 400 soccer balls, 8400 badminton balls, 250 golf carts, 54 boats, 80,000 chairs, 70,000 tables, 29,000 mattresses, and 60,000 hangers. , 6000 TV sets and 10000 smartphones.
Four major problems of Olympic logistics
1. Concentration
During the Olympics, venues such as Olympic competition venues, Olympic villages, and news centers were distributed in a concentrated manner. According to data from previous Olympics, during the opening and closing ceremonies of the general Olympics, athletes, spectators, journalists, venue equipment, and news equipment will be more concentrated in space. Fully considering the concentration problems of Olympic logistics, when planning the logistics system, it is necessary to rationally allocate logistics resources in space, which can not only reduce logistics costs, but also meet the logistics demand relationship.
2. Uncertainty
Olympic logistics demand has great uncertainty. It is difficult for logistics managers to make logistics work plans. Not only must they master the basic planning methods and capabilities, but the most important thing is to fully consider the various situations of plan failure. During the general Olympics, 40% of the storage space is used to store all competition equipment, and the remaining 60% is used to store unknown items. Due to the uncertainty of demand, logistics managers must constantly redesign the placement of warehouse items to adapt to new storage needs.
3. Security
Due to the peculiarity of the Olympic Games, the objects of the Olympic logistics demand-competition equipment, news equipment, living materials, etc. in the event logistics are almost all key items, requiring a high degree of security. At the Atlanta Olympics, 85% of the sports equipment came from abroad. Due to the great distance between the place of production and the place of consumption, once these sports equipment is damaged, it is difficult to quickly find alternatives, which will inevitably affect the competition as scheduled. High-tech products such as computers and radio broadcast equipment are of high value and involve information confidentiality. They also require a high degree of security and require the use of bar code recording and tracking.
4. Staged
The Olympic logistics system is phased in time and can generally be divided into establishment, resupply and recovery. During the establishment phase, the logistics personnel’s work is relatively busy. The venue logistics manager controls the order processing, submits the equipment and equipment orders to the Olympic main warehouse, and sets up the transportation schedule; the re-supply phase occurs during the Olympic Games. The logistics activities are mainly to re-enter some For consumer goods, the workload of the staff is very small; the recovery phase takes place after the Olympic Games and is the busiest of the three phases. The recovery phase needs to return all the facilities and equipment transported from the Olympic main warehouse.
“Our biggest challenge is to plan and implement all warehouse processes and procedures. We must be foolproof. Although no one pays attention to us, I am responsible for my The team is proud. “
Generally, the travel route and behavior of the AGV can be controlled through a computer, or the electromagnetic path-following system can be used to set up its travel route. The electromagnetic track is pasted on the floor, and the unmanned vehicle moves and moves according to the information brought by the electromagnetic track.
AGV is characterized by wheeled movement. Compared with walking, crawling or other non-wheeled mobile robots, it has the advantages of quick action, high work efficiency, simple structure, strong controllability and good security. Compared with other equipment commonly used in material transportation, AGV’s active area does not need to lay rails, support frames and other fixed devices, and is not limited by the site, road and space. Therefore, in the automated logistics system, it can fully reflect its automation and flexibility to achieve efficient, economical, and flexible unmanned production.
With the popularity of automation, AGV is favored by all walks of life. In the development atmosphere of Industry 4.0, the Internet + big data + manufacturing began to merge, smart manufacturing and smart factories sprung up in large areas, and smart logistics appeared in everyone’s eyes.
From the perspective of practical applications, AGV robots do not require manual participation during operation, which greatly reduces labor costs, and can also cooperate with different AGVs to improve work efficiency and production quality. But the connection between them requires the support of the network, and the emergence of 5G can be said to be just right. In addition, the help of other intelligent machines or intelligent systems is needed, and the intelligent factory is the best implementation scenario.
AGV robots can rescue workers from dangerous and harsh working environments, and are gradually replacing traditional manual manufacturing.
During transportation, people always face traffic jam. In order to solve this problem, people have proposed the idea of establishing an underground logistics system to carry goods through an underground pipeline network. This transportation method is safer and faster and will not be affected by weather and road conditions. It can change the way of logistics and cargo transportation while solving the air pollution problems caused by traffic congestion and exhaust emissions.
Magway is a British startup company which is planning to replace traditional ground truck transportation and build an underground logistics network. The network consists of a series of pipes less than 1 meter in diameter. These transportation pipelines are similar to underground water and gas pipelines. Parcels will be transported in pipelines through cargo bays, which will follow a track driven by synchronous electromagnetic motors (similar to the technology used in roller coasters). The first underground logistics line planned by Magway will be from Hatfield to Royal Park, a distance of about 32.2 kilometres. The line is expected to be operational by 2022 and will transport more than 600 million packages per year.
In China, JD.com also conceived a set of underground intelligent hubs for intelligent logistics. The concept also uses underground logistics transportation methods, applying magnetic levitation and direct drive magnetic power technology, and completing the transportation of goods through the operation of “transport cabins” in pipelines.
5G Network (5G Network) is the fifth generation mobile communication network. Its peak theoretical transmission speed can reach 1GB every 8 seconds. Compared with a 4G network with a peak of 100Mbps, the transmission speed is hundreds of times faster. 4G networks have been in use for a long time, and have provided us with important changes such as taxi rides, mobile payments, and mobile navigation.
It is not difficult to imagine that the arrival of the 5G era will bring about drastic changes in our lives. But what changes will 5G cause to the logistics industry? Its huge impact is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.
1.In transportation
5G can provide wider network coverage in urban or rural areas. It enables “vehicle to all” (V2X) applications, which will enable continuous monitoring, tracking and theft detection of the logistics and supply chain industries. Furthermore, more driverless cars can be applied to the logistics and distribution process. The “zero” delay characteristic of 5G networks can also greatly reduce the risk of driverless cars in traffic accidents.
2. In the warehouse
Numerous surveillance cameras are currently distributed in logistics parks or warehouses around the world. Relying on high-speed 5G networks, these cameras will be upgraded from simple surveillance shooting functions to intelligent perception systems. Integrating technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and AI to realise full-process visualisation, which enables real-time monitoring, analysis, calculation, and early warning of the operation process.
3. During delivery
In addition to the aforementioned unmanned driving can be used in logistics distribution scenarios, drones will also rely on the popularity of 5G networks to develop rapidly. The current test scenarios of drones are mostly distribution in remote areas, because the electromagnetic environment in urban distribution scenarios is complex and high-rise buildings, which place higher requirements on the navigation, accuracy and anti-interference of drones. Relying on the high bandwidth, low latency, and anti-interference of 5G networks, it will be assisted on the basis of GPS navigation, and can further improve the machine vision ability.
“5G brings a comprehensive change of path to digital logistics and supply chain services. But technology adaptation is a gradual process for many people. In this process, training new logistics talents and upgrading the capabilities of the team are very important.”
The blog of Logistics at MGEPS at UPV 