The history of logistics in Japan is not long, but it is developing very fast. Today, with advanced logistics technology and management methods, it has well controlled costs and has become an advanced country in the world of logistics.
The history of logistics in Japan is not long, but it is developing very fast. Today, with advanced logistics technology and management methods, it has well controlled costs and has become an advanced country in the world of logistics.
Compared with the United States, the Japanese logistics industry started late, but still earlier than China. Through decades of development, Japan's logistics industry has made considerable progress. Many technologies and indicators that measure the logistics industry are very eye-catching.
Paying attention to cost is what Japanese companies have been doing for decades. In this issue of the topic, let us take a look at the specific level of logistics costs in Japan? What effective reforms have Japanese companies made to reduce logistics costs?
1. Low proportion of logistics cost
Internationally, the ratio of total social logistics costs to GDP is usually used to measure the development level of a country's logistics, and the proportion of enterprise logistics costs to product sales is used to measure the industry's logistics development level.
In 2013, the ratio of total social logistics costs to GDP in China was 18%, basically the same as the previous year. According to the analysis report of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, this ratio is about 9.5 percentage points higher than that of Japan and about 6.5 percentage points higher than the global average. Compared with logistics developed countries like Japan, my country's logistics cost ratio is obviously higher.
According to the data of the Japanese logistics industry, from 1995 to 2003, the proportion of enterprise logistics costs in the total product sales of the Japanese logistics industry has gradually decreased by nearly one percentage point, and since 2003, it has remained at about 5%. Stable level. In the United States, the proportion of corporate logistics costs in product sales in 2012 was 7.87%. In 2013, corporate logistics costs accounted for 8.41% of product sales, which is higher than that in Japan and is showing an upward trend.
From the perspective of the manufacturing industry, in 2013, the logistics cost of Japanese ceramics, soil and stone, glass, cement and other industries accounted for the highest proportion of product sales, at 8.69%; ranked second is the food industry that requires cold chain transportation. The proportion is 8.57%; the food industry that can be transported at room temperature has a proportion of 6.01%.
To further analyze the specific cost structure, take truck transportation as an example. According to the survey data of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan and the All Japan Truck Association in 2011, transportation labor costs accounted for as high as 45.9%. Consider the reasons for this data. : First, labor costs in Japan are generally high; second, non-labor costs have been compressed as much as possible.
2. Upgrade from automation and information systems
In different eras, each industry will have different appearances and face different problems, which also promotes solutions in the corresponding context.
In Japan in the 1860s, the production and sales of enterprises surged, resulting in a surge in logistics. Not only that, inflation has led to rising prices and rising labor costs for companies.
In order to alleviate these two major problems, the Japanese logistics industry adopted increased mechanization during this period to improve logistics processing capacity and reduce labor. The three-dimensional automated warehouse appeared at this time, realizing the rational use of the warehouse's high-level space, and the realization of automated storage and retrieval of goods.
Nowadays, the three-dimensional warehouse has become an independent discipline and is developing rapidly in Japan. Since the late 1880s, Japan’s three-dimensional warehouses have spread from manufacturing to agriculture, warehousing, wholesale and retail, and banking and insurance industries, and logistics automation has been widely used. At present, Japan has become the most widely used automated warehouse in the world.
In addition to automation equipment, the Japanese logistics industry began to improve efficiency through information systems in the 1870s.
After the first oil crisis, the era of rapid economic growth in Japan came to an end, the volume of goods began to stabilize, and the demand for improving logistics processing capabilities was relatively weak. In this era, the Japanese logistics industry has begun to focus on improving the efficiency of logistics.
Prior to this, the information system of the Japanese logistics industry had not been popularized, and it was inefficient to rely on traditional methods. For example, Japanese sales departments generally make monthly reports on warehousing, delivery, inventory and other information at the end of the month and submit them to the head office. The head office cannot modify the production plan or make other adjustments based on the information of the sales outlets quickly and in real time.
Since the late 1870s, the logistics information network began to develop rapidly, integrating various branches, as well as various related departments such as production and sales, into one system, realizing real-time online logistics information processing and interaction, and greatly improving efficiency.
In the short term, the introduction of an information system increases the cost of import and maintenance, but in the long run, it saves communication costs and time costs, and avoids costs caused by problems caused by information asymmetry. With the development of economy, the information system of Japan's logistics industry has become more and more perfect.
Three, three ways to reduce costs
Although Japan's logistics industry is already at a leading level, they are still working hard to reduce costs.
According to a survey of 182 companies in Japan in the "2013 Japan Logistics Cost Survey Report" issued by the Japan Logistics System Association, a public interest organization legal person, the top three methods of reducing logistics costs adopted by Japanese companies in 2013 were as follows: Load rate, reduce inventory and re-plan logistics base.
In fact, this is the method that Japanese companies have continued to use in recent years to reduce logistics costs.
In the logistics industry, loading rate is a method of evaluating operational efficiency. From the perspective of logistics costs, transportation costs account for about 60%, and small-batch, multi-frequency transportation will lead to inefficiency. Increasing the loading rate can reduce the number of vehicles and other means of transportation used, thereby reducing transportation costs. This is where they are committed to increasing the loading rate.
The low logistics loading rate is largely due to the contradiction between weight and volume. For example, when the goods are full, but the weight is less than half of the weight that can be carried, and logistics companies generally charge freight based on weight, it will cause waste of vehicle tonnage resources and require more vehicles for transportation, which increases transportation costs.
Therefore, how to properly match the goods for transportation is very important to reduce logistics costs. Before carrying out cargo collocation, detailed analysis of the relevant data of the route, delivery time, weight and volume, packaging, logistics network, loading method and other factors of each delivery address is conducive to rationalizing the transportation and improving the loading rate.
It seems simple but the actual operation is more complicated, and because Japan puts customer demand first and is subject to the JIT production method, the difficulty of increasing the loading rate cannot be ignored. It can be seen that the logistics industry in Japan has entered a period of intensive cultivation.
In addition to breakthroughs in loading rates, Japanese companies have begun to reduce inventories.
The reduction in the number of products in the warehouse will help reduce the cost of storage and improve the flow of funds. At the same time, it will make the in and out operations more convenient. However, the inventory cannot be reduced at will. It will affect the whole body and require consideration of many aspects. For example, are the goods placed in the logistics center consistent with the hot-selling goods?
In addition, due to the high degree of internationalization of Japanese companies, many companies have placed production bases overseas and sold products abroad. In this context, once the inventory is insufficient and replenishment is required, more transportation and time costs will be faced. At present, predicting and accurately predicting the required amount of inventory from the perspective of the entire supply chain and rationalizing the inventory setting are regarded as the core of inventory management. At present, clearing dead inventory, sorting out categories, intensive inventory locations, shortening production preparation time, and improving sales forecast accuracy are more commonly used methods of reducing inventory.
At the same time, affected by Japan’s aging and declining population, the need for logistics has decreased. Japanese companies have re-planned their logistics bases and integrated logistics bases to reduce the number of logistics bases. Even many Japanese companies have begun to adopt the factory direct delivery method.