Will real-time distribution drive the transformation of modern logistics and supply chain systems?

First, the rapid development of real-time distribution will become the next vent?

Instant delivery refers to the service that realizes immediate delivery from end to end without going through warehousing and distribution transfer. Its core feature is timeliness. Originally, this is one of the most primitive logistics functional services. However, at the end of urban distribution, instant distribution has achieved rapid development through catering and take-off, and it has also connected to the new retail outlets, and has begun to promote the transformation of traditional logistics systems. Caused widespread concern in the industry. So, real-time distribution will really become a new outlet for the development of the logistics industry?

1. Wind speed is increasing, and real-time distribution is expanding rapidly.

According to the research report of Industrial Securities, the real-time distribution industry developed rapidly in 2017, with a user scale of 293 million, which is much faster than the growth rate of the express delivery industry in the same period. According to the data of “2018Q1 China Real-time Distribution Market Research Report” released by Ai Media Consulting, the demand for real-time distribution in China will surge in 2018. The number of users in the industry will reach 355 million, and it will grow at a high rate with a quarter-on-quarter growth rate of 21.2%.

The rapid development of the real-time distribution industry has attracted the participation of traditional express delivery companies, e-commerce logistics companies, and urban distribution companies. Recently, SF Express launched three kinds of instant delivery products in the same city, such as SF Express, Instant Delivery and Night Service. Yuantong Express has cut into the real-time distribution field with the product “Timed Up”. At present, it has realized the full coverage of the core cities of the five major economic sectors in East China, North China, South China, Central China and Southwest China. Yunda Express and Zhongtong Express also opened “Cloud Delivery” and “ City Express" service speeds up the distribution of instant delivery services. JD.com comprehensively promotes the “Jingdong Service+” innovation in its logistics infrastructure system, and achieves the ultimate in logistics and distribution through the docking of the pre-located warehouse. The “Jingyinda” service launched by the company has achieved the shortest contracting time within the delivery range of three to five kilometers. Achieve "what you see is what you get".

2. The air outlet is increasing, and the real-time distribution boundary is fully expanded.

Instant delivery began to rise from take-out to cut-in. As of 2017, the take-away catering industry was 206.1 billion yuan, up 79.8% year-on-year, and the industry penetration rate was 5.2%. At present, the real-time distribution has begun to expand from the field of delivery to fresh food, flower cakes, medicines and other distribution services that require high timeliness, and the service boundary has expanded rapidly.

With the development of new retail, the instant distribution is quickly connected with the offline distribution of new retail outlets, and it is rapidly expanding to the areas of over-the-home distribution and retail end-of-sale distribution. With the economic development of lazy people, instant delivery has begun to interface with C2C services. To the generation of delivery, the expansion of the same city express delivery; with the increase in customer demand for delivery timeliness, real-time distribution has begun to interface with the traditional distribution system, infiltrating into the same city landing area, promoting the end of the express market revolution, and expanding the boundaries.

Instant delivery + front-loading warehouse will drive the interconnection of the general warehouse, the warehouse, the front warehouse and the front store, and the whole network linkage, which will bring the inventory control of the multi-level storage network of animal flow and supply chain system. Because the front cloth warehouse will definitely bring inventory increase, the front warehouse close to the consumer is generally in the central location, the storage rent will be high, the storage area must be tight, and the pre-position warehouse must be solved with the optimized inventory control. problem. In the past, inventory control was the inventory control of a single point warehouse, even in the case of networked inventory level control, it was centralized control of inventory. Instant delivery and docking (shop) docking, relying on the past centralized inventory control model will obviously have many problems, must carry out distributed inventory control research, realize inventory control technology and theory from centralized to distributed, this aspect is still research Blank, I hope more experts and professors carry out related research.

Finally, it should be emphasized that inventory control and inventory management are two concepts that are irrelevant. Warehouse management is mainly the operation management of logistics and warehousing. Inventory control is to study the minimum inventory to maximize the logistics needs. To ensure the safety of the inventory, no out of stock, affecting production or retail trade. The focus of inventory control is on fluctuations in demand, the speed of replenishment, the number of safe inventories, and the inventory turnover rate.

It is expected that in the future, warehouse management, merchant warehouse management, e-commerce regional warehouse management, and manufacturer's warehouse management need to be integrated and distributed, and at least need to open up silo barriers such as warehouse inventory, commercial inventory, and total warehouse inventory to realize information sharing. , inventory linkage, scientific control, real-time transfer. This is the subversive innovation of logistics and supply chain brought by instant distribution, which is the key to the breakthrough and wide-scale promotion and application of new logistics.

3, instant delivery and instant service issues

When I proposed real-time logistics theory in 2003, I repeatedly emphasized that real-time is not immediate, but should reflect the concept of “instant service”. For example, we went to the hippo for a fresh meal. We ordered the meal as soon as we arrived at the store. We waited for the chef to cook after we ordered the meal. We waited for a long time when we finished the meal. This is definitely not ours. hopefully.

Can you go to the store to eat, eat and leave, there is no waiting time, this requires more than just a real-time link, but the real-time supply chain system in real time, through the real-time operation of the supply chain system, can achieve our "to "Immediate service" where the store is eating.

How to achieve the goal of this "instant service"? From the perspective of the supply chain system, we need to calculate the production time of various food and beverage varieties, the master's working time, the customer queue time, etc., according to the needs of the ordering customer, start the ordering Let customers open the app on the way to the restaurant to start ordering, according to the customer's expected time to manage the scheduling master master, the catering food is put into the fresh-keeping area to ensure the most suitable taste and temperature, when the customer arrives at the store Realize instant service. This requires comprehensive procurement of the entire supply chain system procurement, planning, production, storage, and distribution. The supply chain system of Shangchao Store also needs similar changes as described above to meet the immediate delivery requirements.

4. The problem of store transfer and supply chain upgrade to supply network

Instant delivery is end-to-end delivery. What kind of chemical reaction will happen through the instant distribution of the end stores of different supply chains? What impact will it have on the supply chain system?

The supply chain belongs to the upstream and downstream functional chain structure with the main chain of the supply chain as the core. The same products of different stores often belong to the chain of different sales channels, which are divergent rather than horizontally connected at the end of the supply chain.

Take the clothing supply chain as an example. Suppose a certain brand of clothing is sold through different channels and is distributed at the end through different supply chains. It is highly probable that several end stores that are not far from the end belong to different supply chain ends. When a store is out of stock, according to the traditional supply chain operation process, the store needs to issue the ordering requirements, the goods demand from the store to the merchant, from the merchant to the supplier to upload the replenishment requirements, from the supplier to the channel, by the channel Delivered to the store floor. There are many links in this chain, and there are many logistics operations, but the market opportunities are fleeting. Most likely, this store is out of stock. There may be a backlog of goods in the end store of another supply chain system next door. Since the end of the supply chain system cannot be interconnected, the store that backlogs may need to return to the brand. .

If the information system interconnects the end stores, real-time logistics and distribution can realize store transfer, and the end of different supply chain systems can link the end of the supply chain, realize the transformation of the supply chain to the supply network, and promote the supply chain. Interconnection between different systems? There is a disruptive innovation in the supply network. This innovative model still lacks in-depth research on authority and system, but in practice, some companies are constantly innovating and trial-and-error, and are in the development stage of iterative progress.

5. The ecological boundary problem between the traffic portal of instant service and local life service

Instant delivery is a kind of real-time logistics, and it is also an instant service. It is a kind of traffic portal that links local customers. Its boundaries should be wide open, and it is not limited by tradition, and it is pioneering innovation. For example, real-time distribution can be fully integrated with real-time retail, realizing distribution is retail, retail is delivery.

With the instant delivery of this traffic portal, you can overlay more local services. For example, the US Mission is constantly using the instant delivery to superimpose various new local living services to create a large ecosystem of local living services, including service reviews, travel services, ticketing services, new retail business and so on.

From the flow of instant delivery to the logistics system, as mentioned above, it has brought a lot of ideas for the transformation of new logistics innovation models. If you extend upstream from the point of view of real-time retail traffic, will it also bring more imagination of supply chain changes. If the customer needs instant delivery, the food and beverage is safe, the ingredients are fresh, and the quality is reliable. With this flow entrance, can it extend to the restaurant's food supply chain and develop more models? Similarly, docking with new retail stores. The real-time distribution traffic portal extends upstream, will it change from another portal to new retail, e-commerce, product brand, and change the existing e-commerce architecture?

In short, instant delivery is like a squid entering the logistics and supply chain system, which may bring us a lot of changes and even bring subversive changes. What changes will be made specifically? We can wait and see, where are the changes going? In the scene, people can also explore and think about the problems I raised above, in-depth research, open up ideas and innovations, and personally invest in this transformation, and stand on the forefront!