Logistics information management system is an information management system specialized in enterprise logistics management, including third-party logistics. From the development history of logistics, in the 1990s, the development of logistics technology was mainly reflected in equipment technology, including automatic warehouse, container transportation, large freight trucks and later GPS and GIS technologies. The application of these technologies has reached an unprecedented level in logistics operation efficiency and service scale. However, with the acceleration of technology popularization, the speed of technology renewal is further accelerated, and the technical level of logistics industry is also in a state of fast approaching each other, and the competition of logistics industry is becoming more and more fierce.

Since the beginning of 2 1 century, the retail index of the whole commercial society has been in a downward trend, but the profits generated by commodity production and operation are still increasing. What is the reason? According to the survey of commodity circulation enterprises, since the 20th century, the cost of commodities has dropped by nearly 27%, and the retail index has dropped by 9%. Therefore, the reduction of commodity production and operation costs has brought new profit growth points to enterprises.

In fact, from the overall process of commodity production and operation, the circulation cost has been reduced the most, which mainly depends on the unprecedented efficiency and speed brought by information construction.

The traditional commodity management network is multi-level and multi-level, and the commodity circulation path is long, and the products produced by enterprises have been in the circulation field for a long time.

Traditional logistics and product distribution methods will increase the time and cost of commodity circulation. For enterprises, the advantage of selling products through distributors is a clear division of labor, which can quickly spread the market. However, when the product enters the mature stage of sales, the service problem of the product to the end customer can not get a good response because it needs to go through the dealer. Huayu logistics network

Logistics informatization makes many distributors (whether affiliated or not) face an organization or center, namely logistics center. As the logistics center is a highly information-based organization, any demand of the market and manufacturers will be quickly responded here through the wide application of information systems. Therefore, the establishment of logistics center and the realization of logistics center informatization are the main reasons to reduce product operating costs.

Schematic diagram of the logistics center structure is shown in the above figure. Because the enterprises and customers faced by logistics centers may be interdisciplinary, logistics centers sometimes need to face the service needs of different majors and different management models, including information service needs. Therefore, how to realize the real-time information exchange between the system of the logistics center and the system in the enterprise with business partnership will be the basis for the efficient operation of the logistics center.

The professional development trend of the whole logistics industry and the trend of the logistics industry developing to the third party logistics show that the logistics information management system will be a very complex information management system, and so far no software product has completely covered all the requirements of the logistics information system.

Description of Structure and Function of Logistics Information System

At present, the logistics information system is mainly composed of the following parts:

Storage management and storage operation management

Transportation and stowage management

:: Financial management

:: Human resource management

Warehouse management and warehouse operation management

Warehouse management and warehouse operation management system are collectively called warehouse management system (WMS). With the expansion of enterprise scale, the structure of finished products is becoming more and more complex, and the personalized requirements of the whole market are getting higher and higher. The next problems are how to store these products, how to find them quickly when needed, how to store more items in a limited storage area, how to reasonably allocate products and items to meet the market demand with the lowest number of items and inventory, and how to arrange the docking and unloading operations at the warehouse door so as to complete the operations quickly and accurately.

In order to achieve the above effect, the advanced storage system has designed an advanced planning system in the system. The system is very sensitive to the field operation state, and can adjust the operation plan in real time according to the change of the field situation, so that the whole operation plan can be optimized. When automatically generating a plan, the main factors to be considered are product characteristics (whether there are special storage and handling requirements), storage location distribution and storage location distribution, storage work area, number of workers and training level, allowable work time, service time given by customers and running status of storage equipment. In addition, some WMS systems use rule base or knowledge base technology to integrate people's excellent experience in actual warehousing operations into system operation management, so that the system can fully integrate existing warehousing resources and realize the optimization of operation efficiency. In addition, the warehouse operation management system also needs to support all automation equipment in the warehouse.

The specific functional design of warehousing business is as follows:

Material management

According to the future development trend of warehousing, logistics and e-commerce, material management will mainly focus on the following functions:

(1). Property and classification management of materials

At present, there are two ways to classify material attributes, one is code inheritance classification, and the material attribute classification is established by code segmentation. Its advantage is that when sorting, materials with the same attributes are grouped into one category, which is convenient for management. However, with the increase of material types, this method leads to too long coding and too many fields, and different material attribute categories use the same field, which causes inconvenience in management, and it shows sparse matrix in data storage and wastes storage resources. The main representative coding schemes are Unspsc, UCC and EAN.

Another method is to define the material properties by using the property structure table. Its main feature is to define the classification and classification attributes of materials first, and then define the attribute values. Its structure is a bit like a pyramid. In this classification method, the coding method of materials can be independent of material attributes, and the classification can be increased indefinitely. At the same time, the description system of material attributes is established with the help of attribute structure table, which can express different attribute description categories in a unified database system, but there is no waste of attribute categories and sparse matrix with too many empty fields. The typical classification is Nato Auslang.

(2) Description of storage of materials

After defining the material attribute, another material attribute that needs to be defined is the storage attribute of the material, which mainly includes the following information:

Storage information of materials, including storage area, warehouse, storage area in warehouse and shelf storage.

The inventory information of materials, including warehousing inventory and in-transit inventory, is different in China and abroad, and China takes the original samples issued by the government as the original record basis, so it is impossible to account for the arrival of goods and documents.

Warehouse configuration management

Need to configure the storage conditions of materials. Advanced warehouse management system can identify and manage warehouse resources by configuring warehouse entity parameters. The information to be configured mainly includes warehouse number, storage area, location number, location area and location storage rules. Through the storage configuration, we can make an optimized storage operation plan according to the actual operation requirements, and realize the efficient utilization of the storage environment, that is, store more goods in a limited area, obtain greater storage throughput with limited resources, and obtain higher operation efficiency and speed with limited manpower and material resources.

Storage operation plan

Warehouse operation plan is an operation plan that is completed within a specified time by collecting and receiving goods orders according to the warehouse configuration data in the system and combining the process rules that have been set in the system. The warehousing operation plan mainly includes the following aspects:

(1). Receiving the goods on the shelf.

(2) Selecting goods

(3). Supplement

(4). Dock loading

Warehouse operation execution control

After the warehouse operation plan is generated, it needs to be executed perfectly. General warehouse management system will combine hardware equipment and bar code equipment to complete the warehouse operation plan, so the warehouse operation system is not only a plan management system, but also a business execution management system. In terms of job execution, many WMS products have advanced solutions and corresponding products, such as EXE's beyond, ES/ 1 AWM and other systems. Among them, ES/ 1 AWM also provides an execution management system based on printed work orders to adapt to the warehouse working environment with low automation level.

Warehouse resource management

Another important management object in the warehouse management system is the management of warehouse resources, which includes the management of warehouse structure, warehouse equipment and warehouse operators in addition to the warehouse itself. The main function is to rationally allocate storage equipment through equipment maintenance plan and improve the equipment integrity rate; Rational allocation of storage structure, improve site utilization; Reasonable organization of warehousing workers can maximize the efficiency of warehousing operations.

exception handling

In real life, warehouse management is very complicated. In warehouse management, we will encounter all kinds of unexpected events and other abnormal trading operations, so we need an excellent WMS system to properly handle these abnormal situations.

Activity-based cost management

The optimization of warehouse operation management will eventually be reflected in the reduction of warehouse cost and the improvement of operation efficiency, and cost control is one of the main purposes of applying warehouse management system. However, unlike ERP system, most of the cost control described in ERP system is centered on material cost, while the cost of WMS system must be centered on activity cost, because the main management object of WMS system is materials, but the main body of management is really working. Therefore, the control and optimization of activity-based cost is a more important link in WMS system.

For a long time, warehousing operation has been the cost center within an enterprise, and the problem that has long troubled enterprise managers is that the cost of warehousing operation is difficult to calculate and control. With the development of enterprise's production in the direction of division of labor, cooperation and specialization, enterprise's warehousing will not only provide services for one department or several departments of the enterprise, but will gradually move towards the warehousing center within the group enterprise or appear in the form of third-party logistics services. The warehousing business will be transferred from the cost center to the expense center and finally to the new profit center. Therefore, the advanced WMS system will provide an activity-based cost management system to help warehouse operators accurately calculate warehouse operation costs, and lay a foundation for further optimizing warehouse management and improving warehouse efficiency.

Transportation and stowage management

Transportation management is another main subsystem in logistics, and the main management object of transportation management is vehicle management (vehicles, ships, airplanes, etc.). ), transportation environment management (transportation routes, stations, maps), personnel management (drivers, stevedores, managers, etc.). ), waybill management (waybill, transportation planning and dispatching, etc. ), transportation cost accounting (personnel cost, transportation resource cost (tool cost and personnel cost), energy consumption accounting control, etc. ) and optimized management.

The main functional modules of transportation management are designed as follows:

Transportation equipment resource management

Transportation equipment resources mainly include vehicles, ships, air transport equipment and other means of transportation. Among them, the elements that need to be managed are transportation capacity (including loading capacity and weight), transportation speed (hours and kilometers), energy consumption measurement and so on. For transportation business, it also includes the outsourcing service of transportation business, so transportation resources also include the management of transportation service providers.

Transportation line management

According to the different characteristics of transportation enterprises and transportation services, it can be divided into regional transportation management, line transportation management and mixed transportation line management. The main purpose of transportation route management is to establish regional databases of transportation services, and refer to these databases and adopt certain algorithms to design reasonable transportation routes and transportation station sequences. Therefore, the description of transportation area is the basis of transportation line management.

The attributes of the transportation route mainly include the coordinates of the transportation destination, the distance passing through the station, and the unobstructed capacity value. Among them, the patency capacity value is the basis of future optimization. General patency value consists of the following elements:

(1). Information such as road traffic between stations (usually available through the government's GIS system) and peak traffic.

(2) Accident probability between stations

(3) rush hour traffic

The unobstructed ability is related to the means of transportation, so the above elements must be set separately according to different means of transportation.

personnel management

In transportation management system, personnel management is also very important. For transportation operations, although the system gives an optimized transportation route, in actual operation, there will be various emergencies. Experienced drivers and inexperienced drivers will have different performances and different results when dealing with these emergencies. However, the labor cost of experienced drivers is relatively high, and how to reasonably allocate posts and tasks for operators will directly affect the quality of transportation operations.

Personnel management is mainly the management of personnel attributes, and the scientific description of attributes provides a data basis for the rationalization of business distribution and the optimization of personnel combination.

The attributes of drivers are mainly determined by the following elements:

Basic attributes of personnel (name, gender, age, education level, address, contact information, etc. );

Skill attributes of personnel (driving experience, driver's license grade, work experience, work area history, accident history and other information);

Cost attributes of personnel (salary, allowance, reward, etc. ).

customer management

The demand sources of transportation management mainly include the following aspects:

(1). Transportation demand of logistics companies

(2) the manufacturer's delivery requirements

(3). End-user's demand for delivery and delivery.

Among them, logistics companies mainly refer to third-party logistics, including freight forwarding enterprises. These companies solve the transportation problem in two ways, one is through their own transportation resources, and the other is to outsource some of their own transportation services. In this respect, freight forwarding enterprises are particularly prominent. Therefore, the customer management of transportation management system mainly aims at the classified management of the demand sources of transportation services, and provides different forms and contents of transportation services according to these needs.

Transportation order management

Transport service is driven by transport demand, and transport order is the manifestation of demand. Advanced transportation management system should be able to generate different transportation orders according to the different needs of users, so as to minimize the transportation costs of users and their own transportation costs.

According to the transportation sequence, combined transportation operation can greatly improve transportation efficiency. The intermodal services such as LTL provided by some famous international logistics service providers are a typical example.

The result of transportation planning and dispatching will achieve three purposes:

The transportation cost is the lowest.

The fastest transportation speed.

The highest transportation safety guarantee.

Transportation scheduling needs to introduce some optimization algorithms, especially in path optimization. At present, most optimization algorithms adopt Morris's K- shortest path algorithm, which adopts the bidirectional scanning algorithm of path node matrix to improve the speed of traditional path optimization algorithms. Using this algorithm, we can not only find the shortest path between any two points in the whole node matrix, but also find the k-th shortest path and its passing nodes. This algorithm has been widely used in Shanghai traffic planning simulation.

cost accounting

In transportation management, the main item of cost accounting is transportation cost, and the control of variable cost is more difficult, especially the control of energy consumption. There are many factors that affect energy consumption, such as the length of the path, unobstructed ability, driver's driving skills, etc. Climate is also one of the factors that affect energy consumption. At present, most transportation management mainly depends on the path length in the control of transportation variable cost, and accurate cost accounting should consider the influence of all the above factors on energy consumption.

Work tracking

In actual transportation management, the object of planning and scheduling is not a static object, but constantly changing, so it is necessary to design job tracking to record and track these changes, so tracking is one of the more important and distinctive functions in transportation management system.

At present, the tracking of transportation management system is divided into two forms: static tracking and dynamic tracking. Static tracking is mainly realized by collecting the receipt of the transport bill, while dynamic tracking is carried out by mobile phone short messages, GPS and other equipment. Static tracking is an after-the-fact behavior, which can only provide improvement basis for the next planning and scheduling, but can't correct or improve the problems that are happening. Dynamic tracking is different. Dynamic tracking can make planning and scheduling more reasonable, reduce empty car operation and improve the ability to deal with abnormal events.

financial management

Financial computerization has been developed in China for more than ten years, but most financial software only simulates manual operation and does not strengthen control in enterprise management. The financial management of logistics system just highlights the financial management function, which is reflected in the management of accounts receivable and accounts payable.

The data source of traditional financial system is voucher, but from the management point of view, voucher is not original data. Due to historical reasons, vouchers have become the basis of financial data. For logistics enterprises, if all businesses enter the financial system through vouchers, it will cause the rapid expansion of system data and waste data storage resources. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of the logistics management system, the financial management system must directly correspond to the original operating documents such as order data in data collection.

Many enterprises have triangular debts, the main reason is that they can't provide accurate and effective data (creditor's rights certificate), so accounts receivable and payable are very important links in financial management, and the logistics system faces direct customers, so accounts receivable and payable management is particularly important.

manpower management/scheduling

Different from the human resource management of ERP, the human resource management given by logistics system is mainly aimed at the management of operators. Including personnel attribute records, work experience records, post experience records and rewards and punishments records. In China's logistics enterprises, except managers, most workers come from the labor market and migrant workers. These workers are highly mobile, and the management level of these workers in the labor market is low at present. Therefore, the logistics management system must provide human resource management based on logistics operation requirements and establish a human resource database.

One of the results of the great flow of human resources is that it is impossible to steadily improve the level of operation standardization and long-term training, so that workers can gradually grow into professional operators. Therefore, it is necessary to record all the people who have participated in the work of this enterprise through the human resources database, especially their skills and communication methods. Form a labor talent pool based on the needs of enterprises, so that the labor skills based on enterprises can be passed down and improved.

In addition, the designer's KPI table and monthly/quarterly/annual/performance evaluation table are needed to comprehensively evaluate the operator's status.

In addition, we must look at human resources from the perspective of investment, introduce a group of operators, start to calculate the investment in these people, including wages, taxes and insurance, and evaluate their output through KPI. Human resources are the most potential.