Modern logistics has the idea of system integration and total cost control. It regards all supply, production, sales, transportation, inventory and related information flow in economic activities as a dynamic system, and cares about the operation efficiency and cost of the whole system. An important manifestation of logistics integration is the emergence of the concept of supply chain. The supply chain regards the whole process of the logistics system from procurement through the production process and goods distribution to users as a linked "chain". The logistics management takes the whole supply chain as the basic unit, rather than a single functional department. When adopting supply chain management, world-class companies try to enhance the competitiveness of the whole supply chain by increasing the value provided by the whole supply chain to consumers and reducing the cost of the whole supply chain. Its competition is no longer just the competition between individual companies, but the competition between supply chains and supply chains.
1. Logistics technology specialization
Modern technology has been widely used in logistics activities, such as bar code technology, EDI technology, automation technology, network technology, intelligent and flexible technology and so on. Specialized, standardized and intelligent logistics facilities and equipment are also widely used in transportation, loading and unloading and warehousing. The application of these modern technologies, facilities and equipment has greatly improved the efficiency of logistics activities and expanded the field of logistics activities.
2. Logistics management informatization
Logistics informatization is the inevitable demand of informatization of the whole society. Modern logistics highly depends on the collection, analysis, processing and immediate updating of a large amount of data and information. In the modern society with highly developed information technology and network technology, information has penetrated into every field of logistics from the database and coding of customer data acquisition and order processing, the electronization and computerization of logistics information processing, to the real-time and standardization of information transmission. A large number of third-party logistics providers without vehicles, ships and fixed logistics equipment rely on their information advantages to carry out global operations. In a sense, modern logistics competition has become the competition of logistics information.
3. Socialization of logistics services
The outstanding performance is the rapid development of third-party logistics and logistics center. With the deepening of social division of labor and the increasing complexity of market demand, production and operation have higher and higher requirements for logistics technology and logistics management. Many industrial and commercial enterprises gradually realize that it is impossible to obtain competitive advantage in every field by relying on their own strength. They prefer to take out resources, hand over the logistics links that the enterprise is not good at to professional logistics companies, or set up relatively independent logistics professional departments within the enterprise, and focus the limited resources on their real advantageous fields. According to the survey of 500 large manufacturing companies conducted by Northeastern University in 1998, 69% of the cargo owners handed over the logistics business to the third-party logistics enterprises, and 10% of the cargo owners are studying to hand over the logistics business to the third-party logistics enterprises in the future. Due to the advantages of talents, technology and information, professional logistics departments can adopt more advanced logistics technology and management methods to achieve economies of scale, so as to achieve logistics rationalization - in the whole process of products from the supplier to the demander, the links are the least, the time is the shortest, the distance is the shortest and the cost is the least.
4. Internationalization of logistics activities
In the wave of industrial globalization, multinational corporations generally adopt a global strategy to choose the sources of raw materials and parts and the sales market of products and services all over the world. Therefore, the selection and allocation of logistics go beyond national boundaries and focus on the global market. The common practice of large multinational corporations is to choose a distribution center suitable for global distribution and a distribution warehouse for key supplies; When obtaining raw materials and distributing new products, use the existing local logistics network, and promote this advanced logistics technology to new regional markets. Similarly, the global procurement of raw materials and parts has greatly reduced the cost of automobiles and changed the location of automobile production lines.