1、06 国际物流系统 International Logistics Functions and Intermediaries,柳学信 副教授 首都经济贸易大学工商管理学院 2007年,Content,Outbound Logistics Inbound Logistics Overall Logistics Activities Logistics Intermediaries,Characteristics,International logistics involves movements that cross borders, and these movements are consi
2、derably more complex than domestic ones. Many international movements go aboard ship, and the entire process of moving through ports and being at sea is time consuming. Differences between time zones can limit the hours when verbal communications can take place. Documentation for international shipp
3、ing is varied and complicated, requiring the services of experts. Today inventory-in-transit is managed, increasing the information management complexity and demands of international logistics.,Demand forecasting Order management Packaging Labeling Documentation Customer service Parts and service su
4、pport,Outbound Logistics Functions,Demand Forecasting,Demand forecasting is carried on in conjunction with the firms marketing staff and its principal overseas distributors. This translates to production and procurement needs for the next planning period. These in turn translate into direct logistic
5、al requirements that include both delivery to customers and receipt of raw materials or components for assembly. The free flow of accurate demand forecasts is essential among the members of a supply chain to ensure a smooth flow of goods from origin to final consumer.,Order Management,Order manageme
6、nt starts with the receipt of an order from an overseas customer. It may be obtained by the firms salesperson, be telephoned or faxed in, come by mail, or arrive electronically through EDI, email, or the World Wide Web. The first step in international order management systems is to verify the accura
7、cy of the order. The next step is to verify the customers credit, or ability to pay. At the warehouse an order picking list is given to a warehouse worker who assembles the specific order. In the packing area, it is checked and packed for shipment, and the package is labeled. The export traffic mana
8、ger has been preparing the transportation documents and making arrangements for the forwarder or carrier to pick up the shipment. Various inventory and financial records are updated.,Packaging,Three purposes are served by packaging: identifying the product, protecting it, and aiding in handling. Ide
9、ntification serves a variety of purposes, from automated recognition of the product through bar coding to promotional purposes: packages make the product stand out on a store shelf and say “take me home” to the customer. The protective function is to protect the product and, in some instances, to ke
10、ep the product from damaging surrounding items. Packaging also makes handling the product in distribution a much simpler task.,Packaging,The choice of packaging materials is influenced by concerns for environmental protection. Containers that can be recycled, or are made of recycled materials, are e
11、njoying increased demand. Some nations are mandating their use.,Packaging,Most retail products are packed in a hierarchy of packaging. The concept is of building blocks with the smallest size being the container placed on the shelf that the customer buys and takes home. These containers fit into a m
12、aster carton that is typically one to two cubic feet in dimension; master cartons are unloaded, item by item, by the person stocking the shelves. Master cartons are stacked on pallets, usually wooden (though increasingly today recycled molded plastic) platforms. Loaded pallets are moved by fork-lift
13、 trucks into and out of warehouses, intermodal containers, railcars, and trucks. Pallet loads are also called “unit-loads,” and are the most common way of handling packaged freight.,Labeling,Labeling has several functions, the principal of which is to describe the contents of a package. Labeling is
14、usually in the language of the exporting nation, although it is often advisable to have it in the importing nations language as well. The buyer may intend to have the same shipping carton used for the international move serve for the domestic move as well, in which case additional labeling may be ap
15、plied. Today, a common request would be to have bar code labels applied.(Providing them would be an example of value-added service.),Documentation,In international movements, all documents must be present at the point where the goods are passing through the importing nations customs and inspection p
16、osts. Computers and the electronic preparation and presentation of documents through EDI and the WWW have made documentation less of a burden. International shipments require many more documents than domestic shipments. Documentation also links the shipment to payment for the product, a form of cont
17、rol necessary to insure that goods are not shipped without regard to their payment status.,Customer Service,Customer service involves an array of activities to keep existing customers happy. “It makes sense to focus on customers you already have, encouraging repeat business. Barring that, youll spen
18、d a lot of time and effort refilling a leaky bucket as you chase an ever-replenishing supply of new customers.” FedEx pioneered the use of Web-based tracking of customer-shipped packages in 1994, empowering the customer with real-time information on the shipping status of packages.,Customer Service,
19、In a survey of logistics practice worldwide: Firms listed customer service performance ahead of such concerns as lowered logistics costs and delivery speed and dependability in terms of importance to the success of logistics within their firm. The most successful firms differed significantly in thei
20、r performance on six key customer service measures as compared to the poorest performing firms. Those performance measures were fill rate, stockouts, shipping errors, cycle time, complete orders, and overall reliability. Customer service levels are more challenging to maintain in international distr
21、ibution systems. Repair parts, supplies, catalogs, warranties, and return policies must take into account the hurdles of crossing borders.,Parts and Service Support,Equipment that has been sold must be maintained. Buyers of capital equipment insist on knowing that their purchase will be kept in runn
22、ing order for many years, and thus prompt delivery of repair parts is necessary. Air freight is often used for that purpose. One large U.S. tractor manufacturer retains an outside firm to request, at random, specific repair parts from its own dealers and competitors dealers throughout the world to m
23、easure how long it takes to fill the part orders. Repair parts inventories are expensive to maintain and often must be justified on different criteria than are used for the main product lines. In many trades special parts lists exist showing the interchangeability of various competitors parts.,Parts
24、 and Service Support,In an era when long-term partnerships are increasingly common, manufacturers of capital goods are recognizing that post-sales activities are important. Mercedes Benz trucks leans heavily on this approach: Before expounding on the trucks features, the West German company uses adv
25、ertisements to ask the enigmatic question: “Are you buying a vehicle or an iceberg?” In studying documents, one soon learns that the company in fact is referring to the total-cost concept to buy, operate, and replace the equipment. Mercedes Benz is happy to remind buyers that the price to buy a truc
26、k now only constitutes about fifteen percent of the total cost estimated for the average life of this kind of equipment. Beyond maintenance services, which are complemented by an accelerated spare parts distribution system, the company also develops software packages for fleet management or delivery
27、 planning, as well as numerous training programs in economical driving or upkeep.,Inbound Logistics Functions,Production scheduling Procurement Returned products,Production Scheduling,Production is scheduled in an attempt to balance demand for products with plant capacity and availability of inputs.
28、 In the international arena, one must take into account anticipated changes in relative values of currencies, longer distances and times for materials to travel, quotas on imports, etc. Some firms try to develop products that can be manufactured and sold in many parts of the world. Ford Focus, which
29、 is a “world designed” vehicle that one can spot variants of in many countries.,Production Scheduling,The logistics staff hope to develop back-and-forth hauls of materials in order to better utilize transportation equipment. Just-in-time manufacturing philosophies call for disciplined, on-time deliv
30、eries. NUMMI (a GM-Toyota joint venture) in Fremont, California sends a seven-week forecast to its North American suppliers each week. The forecasts show potential ship quantities for the week by individual part numbers. Parts from Japan are handled in two ways: for optional parts, a three-day stock
31、 is maintained at the plant store-room and fed to the assembly line on a JIT basis. The other parts, such as engines that are used on all autos, move in response to seven-week plans. No safety stock of them is kept; they move in containers directly from the port to the assembly line.,Procurement,The
32、 logistics staff advises as to the transportation services that must be used to insure that the purchased materials arrive in good condition and on schedule. If the vendor assumes responsibility for delivery of the inputs, the buyers logistics staff monitors the delivery performance. The logistics s
33、taff will also attempt to consolidate the shipments of various inputs, to reduce their overall transportation costs. U. S. retail chains, buying in Asia, have consolidation points at major Asian ports, and have vendors ship goods to the consolidation points where the buyers agent takes possession, p
34、laces them into containers, and ships the full containers to the United States.,Procurement,One issue in international sourcing is to learn about and rate the political stability in the nation from which one is buying. Currency exchange rates are always an issue One must also evaluate the vendor fir
35、m and determine the quality of its product and its ability to maintain a given quality. Sourcing decisions are made after determining total acquisition costs, which include the price of the product, transportation, inventory investment, packaging, and so on. U.S. catalog merchants are required by la
36、w to ship products to their customers within 30 days or refund their money within 90 days after the order is placed. The merchants incur extra costs as shipments to their customers are delayed beyond 30 days.,Returned Products,Product recalls, meaning that a safety defect or hazard has been discover
37、ed and the products are removed from the shelves and both retailers and consumers attempt to return them to the manufacturer or to some intermediary. Some returned goods are those that have been on the shelves too long, and are no longer fresh. In the United States many food products have a “pull da
38、te” code on the package, indicating that the product should not be sold after that date. There are products that the customer is returning to be repaired or replaced. Some products are returned to be recycled in some way or another. There are products that may have been placed on consignment, never
39、sold, and are being returned.,Returned Products,The firm doing business internationally will have to realize that in many national markets where the product is being sold, some returns can be expected for reasons given in the previous paragraph. Reverse flow channels must be established within those
40、 nations. Strict accounting controls are necessary to protect all parties in these sorts of transactions. Some care is also needed to insure that the returned product, thought to be scrapped, does not “reappear” to compete with ones other products in the same or perhaps in a different market. -What
41、to do with those?,Returned Products,Increasingly firms are using information technology to facilitate reverse logistics flows. One important function that requires specialized information systems is gatekeeping. Firms accepting returns must categorize, approve, and specify procedures as far forward
42、in the distribution channel as possible. Such gatekeeping functions can now be pushed down to the point of end-customer return, typically a retail store. Returned products may be examined for completeness and condition, scanned into the reverse logistics information system, and appropriate final dis
43、position determined before the good leaves the retail location. Firms typically outsource the design and operation of such sophisticated reverse logistics systems.,Returned Products,It is possible, although unlikely, to have products returned to the nation where they were manufactured. This does not
44、 happen frequently because of logistics costs and uncertainties regarding the items value at its final destination point. Quite often returned products are disposed of inside of the nation in which they were sold to the end customer. This may involve repackaging and sale, salvage sale, or disposal (
45、usually requiring some level of destruction to prevent the resale of defective goods).,Overall Logistics Activities,Inventory management Transportation management Materials handling Warehouse and distribution center management Salvage and scrap disposal Interplant movements Plant and warehouse site
46、selection Moving people Coordinating and Managing Logistics,Inventory Management,Modern logistics thinking is critical of inventories; all other things being equal, a system with fewer or smaller inventories is judged to be superior. There are costs associated with holding inventories, including int
47、erest on the money invested in the inventory, storage costs, and risks of deterioration, obsolescence, and shrinkage.Inventory shrinkage is the term that acknowledges and measures the fact that most inventory records show more goods have entered an inventory than can be found. In some trades shrinka
48、ge is so pronounced that it is designed into the system, with a common example being the shipment of tropical fish.,Inventory Management,For products that are traded internationally, there are additional inventory classifications: the country of origin, since import duties or charges sometimes vary
49、by country of origin; countries where goods can or cannot be sold, an example being that some foreign autos cannot be sold in the United States because of emission control and crash safety requirements; the specific languages used on the product or package or in catalogs. For these categories, the p
50、hrase committed might be applicable. Committed inventory is pledged for a certain market, use, or customer, and cannot be freely drawn upon for other purposes.,Inventory Management,Maintaining accurate records of international inventories is more difficult because of the length of the pipeline throu
51、gh which the products travel and the fact that there many more places where the inventory can hide. Inventory valuation is also difficult because if goods are valued in the currency of where they are produced, that value will usually fluctuate vis-vis the currency value in the nation where they are stored. Import quotas also affect the value, since goods that have been admitted under the quota may be sold, while those outside the quota must wait. Some international companies use an internal “company” currency for consistency.,
