Supply chain of supermarkets in olma

Ed Nagy is the manager of Wal-Mart Store 880 in Irvine, Texas, USA. Usually, Ed Najib likes to walk back and forth in the store, watching the bustling customers shopping and thinking about how to reduce costs. If you see that there are not many towels or soaps on the shelves, Ed Nagy only needs to scan the bar codes of towels or soaps, and you can know how many products are left in No.880 branch, how many have been ordered, how many products are in transit, when they arrive and how many are in the distribution center. Through the barcode of the product, Ed Nagy can also know how much the product was sold in 880 stores last week or even last year. Ed Nagy knows so much because Wal-Mart has a unified product code, and all goods in the mall have a unified product code UPC code. More importantly, Wal-Mart has realized the real-time information sharing among its branches, distribution centers, corporate headquarters and even suppliers.

At any branch of Wal-Mart, while customers pay for shopping, computers connected to POS machines have transmitted customers' shopping information via satellite to the distribution center not far from the branch and Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, until more than 5,000 suppliers. Wal-Mart's headquarters is just an ordinary bungalow, but the computer control center connected to it is a behemoth with the same appearance as a gymnasium. The company's computer system is second only to the Pentagon and even surpasses the Federal Space Agency. Wal-Mart's 4,000-gigabyte database, more than 5,500 workstations and countless servers and PCs ensure that Wal-Mart can make an inventory of the inventory, shelves and sales of every commodity in more than 4,500 stores around the world within one hour.

Relying on this huge information system, managers at Bentonville headquarters no longer need to concentrate on studying the reports of each store or region last month or last week. They can easily track the daily sales of any commodity, such as a piece of clothing or a fishing rod, and compare them between regions, so that it is easier to choose commodity varieties according to local tastes and conduct experimental sales. They can put the same goods in different stores in different ways, and then quickly order all stores to adopt the best one. Managers of each branch rely on historical data to adjust the order quantity and variety in time.

When the inventory of a certain commodity on the shelf of No.880 branch is lower than the quota, Wal-Mart's automatic replenishment system will move around and generate an order for a certain commodity. As long as Ed Nagy confirms, the order information will be automatically transmitted to the distribution center. If Ed Nagy thinks that the amount suggested by the system is too large or too small, he can make adjustments or even cancel the order.

Seamless logistics

The order information of Wal-Mart's branches is transmitted to the distribution center like a trickle, and the distribution center formally orders from suppliers after integration. The supplier can send the goods directly to the ordering store or distribution center. Some people describe Wal-Mart's distribution center as follows: the average area of these giant buildings exceeds 1 10000 square meters, which is equivalent to the size of 24 football fields; It contains all kinds of goods that people can imagine, from toothpaste to TV sets, from sanitary napkins to toys, with more than 80 thousand kinds of goods. Wal-Mart has more than 62 distribution centers in the United States, serving more than 4,000 shopping malls. These centers are carefully deployed according to the trade areas of various places. Usually, starting from any center, a car can reach the store it serves within one day.

In the distribution center, the computer is responsible for everything. After the supplier sends the goods to the distribution center, it goes through the procedures of checking the purchase plan and commodity inspection, and then sends them to different locations on the shelf for storage. When each commodity is put into storage, the computer will record their position and quantity one by one; Once the store puts forward the purchase plan, the computer will find out the storage location of these goods, print out a label with the store code and stick it on the goods. The whole package of goods will be sent directly to the conveyor belt, and the scattered goods will be taken out by the staff and sent to the conveyor belt. Commodities go in and out on several kilometers of conveyor belts, and the bar codes on them are identified by laser and sent to the place where they should be sent. The output of goods on the conveyor belt can reach 200,000 cases a day. For scattered goods, there are some signal lights on the conveyor belt, such as red, yellow and green. Employees can determine the store to deliver goods according to the signal light to pick up these goods and put them in boxes to avoid wasting space.

One end of the distribution center is a loading platform, which can load 130 trucks at the same time, and the other end is an unloading platform, which can park 135 trucks at the same time. The distribution center operates 24 hours a day, with an average of more than 200 trucks loading and unloading goods every day. Wal-Mart uses trucks as big as possible to transport goods. There may be about 65,438+06 meters long containers, which are longer or taller than container transport trucks. This kind of motorcade can often be seen on the expressway in the United States. Wal-Mart's trucks are all its own, and the drivers are also Wal-Mart employees. They run on the expressway between American states, and every cubic meter in the car is full, which is very helpful to save costs.

The company's more than 6,000 transport trucks are all equipped with satellite positioning systems, and the headquarters can see the location, cargo and destination of each vehicle at a glance. Therefore, at any time, the dispatching center can know where these vehicles are and how far they are from the store, and also know where a commodity has been transported and how long it will take to get to the store. In this respect, Wal-Mart is accurate to the hour. If employees know that the arrival time of the motorcade is delayed due to weather, road maintenance and other reasons, the stevedores can arrange other work instead of waiting.

Flexible and efficient logistics and distribution make Wal-Mart have an advantage in the fierce retail competition. Wal-Mart can ensure that the delivery time of goods from the distribution center to any store does not exceed 48 hours. The shelves of Wal-Mart stores can be replenished twice a week on average, while other stores in the same industry only replenish goods once every two weeks on average. By keeping as little inventory as possible, Wal-Mart not only saves storage space, but also reduces inventory costs. In the study of American retail enterprises, the economist Dr. Si Tong found that among the three major retail enterprises in the United States, the proportion of commodity logistics cost to sales was 1.3% for Wal-Mart, 8.75% for Kmart and 5% for Sears. If the annual sales amount is $25 billion, the logistics cost of Wal-Mart is $65.438+$86.25 million less than that of Kmart and $425 million less than that of Sears, which is staggering.

Supply chain management

Wal-Mart also has a very good system that allows suppliers to directly access Wal-Mart's system, which Wal-Mart calls the retail link. Suppliers can keep abreast of the situation in every Wal-Mart store. Any supplier can access this system to know the sales of their products yesterday, today, last month or even last year. They know how much this product has sold and can be updated within 24 hours. Through the retail link, suppliers can understand the sales situation and decide the production plan, so that their product costs can also be reduced, thus making the whole process a "seamless" process.

The "prototype" of the retail link is the automatic ordering and delivery system established by Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble to promote sales. In order to reduce the marketing cost, Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble, a daily chemical supplier, established a cooperative alliance in July, 1987. Regarding the form and content of cooperation, sam walton said: "In order to promote the development of our business, we began to share information by means of computers in the form of alliances. P&G can call Wal-Mart's sales and inventory data and make effective production and distribution plans accordingly. It is not just a simple financial management, but a comprehensive management of the entire business activities by using Nova's information technology, thus bringing both parties into a new situation. "

The main organization of cooperation between the two parties is a special cooperation team of about 70 people composed of P&G and Wal-Mart's financial, circulation, production and other functional departments, and they are stationed in Wal-Mart for collaborative management. According to the planning of the special cooperation group, Wal-Mart began to implement supply chain management for P&G's diaper products on 1989, that is, to establish a low-inventory just-in-time automatic ordering and delivery system.

The specific form is: the enterprises of both sides realize networking through EDI and satellite communication. With the help of this information system, P&G can not only quickly know the inventory of diapers in Wal-Mart Logistics Center, but also timely know the sales, inventory, price and other data of diapers in Wal-Mart stores. This will not only enable P&G to make timely production and R&D plans that meet the market demand, but also manage Wal-Mart's inventory in the form of single items, realize continuous replenishment, and prevent the structural opportunity cost of goods (that is, excessive inventory of unsalable goods).

Wal-Mart, on the other hand, was liberated from the original heavy logistics operation and focused on sales activities. At the same time, based on the information obtained from Procter & Gamble through EDI, we can make timely decisions on the shelf and purchase quantity of goods, and MMI (Manufacturer Managed Inventory) system can realize automatic purchase. Wal-Mart handed over the management right of the logistics center or warehouse to Procter & Gamble for implementation, and the ownership still belongs to Procter & Gamble. In this way, not only Wal-Mart does not have to engage in specific logistics activities, but also the enterprises of both sides do not have to negotiate the terms of each transaction (such as distribution and price), which greatly shortens the time from ordering goods to purchasing, warehousing, sorting and replenishment sales.

The specific operation process is: each store in Wal-Mart has established a safety inventory level. Once the existing inventory falls below this level, the computer located in Wal-Mart will automatically place an order with P&G's diaper factory via communication satellite. After P&G receives the order, it will distribute the ordered goods to all stores for in-store management. In order to shorten the delivery time of the whole commodity, the settlement system between the two enterprises also adopts EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer) system. Through this system, the financial settlement between enterprises no longer needs traditional physical forms such as checks, but is completed by computers and terminals.

Obviously, the introduction of EFT system not only improves the settlement efficiency between enterprises, but also greatly reduces the indirect cost between the two enterprises. For Procter & Gamble, EFT system accelerates the withdrawal of funds and improves the capital turnover rate. For Wal-Mart, due to the timely commodity management system, the loan payment is guaranteed after the commodity is completed (there was a requirement for advance payment before), and at the same time, its capital turnover is accelerated and its capital efficiency is improved. Another important positive effect of P&G and Wal-Mart's production and marketing alliance is that the two companies completely broke the multi-link circulation system that dominated the circulation field in the United States at that time.

Facts have proved that since P&G and Wal-Mart implemented the production and marketing alliance, the turnover rate of P&G diapers in Wal-Mart stores has increased by 70%, and correspondingly, the sales of P&G diapers has also increased by 50%, reaching $3 billion. Since then, Wal-Mart has always adopted the form of single-link direct transaction, laying the foundation for its comprehensive control of circulation costs and shaping new competitive advantages.

For Wal-Mart, because of the establishment and expansion of its new sales system, 1990 has surpassed Kmart, the largest retailer in the United States. Since then, Wal-Mart has established EDI systems with all commodity suppliers, forming a cooperative network of production and marketing with Wal-Mart as the core.

Wal-Mart's success may prove that not all technology companies rise, oil giants can't "set the sun" forever, and traditional enterprises can't set the sun, which has nothing to do with technology? There is no good industry, only good enterprises, or there is no bad industry, only bad enterprises; Only by relying on continuous scientific and technological progress and constantly promoting business changes according to changes in the internal and external economic environment can enterprises become century-old stores.