全球供应链长足但货运短腿
作者： DJN
责任编辑： 阚智
来源： 《电脑商情报》
时间： 2007-01-05 06:35
New technologies have allowed factories and retailers to tighten the global supply chain in recent years, but one link has struggled to keep up: shipping.
The world's major ocean-shipping lines -- the pack mules of global trade -- have been slow to introduce new software to match the information revolution taking place in other industries. Now, shipping lines are coming under increasing pressure from customers to feed a steady stream of information about the location of the shippers' goods and other data not usually available in the past, such as the temperature at which the cargo is being stored.
TRANSIT CHECK
• What's New: Container shipping lines are upgrading their technology to give clients more data about their goods in transit.
• The Background: "Just-in-time" inventory management requires manufacturers and retailers to keep closer track of shipments.
• Next Steps: Maersk is designing a system allowing customers to use the Web to select shipment itinerary and mode of transport.
The pressure comes as falling prices for ocean freight are forcing shipping lines to revamp their own operations to maximize efficiency and widen margins. In addition, retailers and manufacturers are practicing "just-in-time" inventory management, which requires them to keep better track of where their goods are, particularly while in transit.
"The client wants to know where the blue socks in size medium are that he ordered two weeks ago from China," said Jean-Philippe Thenoz, vice president of the North America lines at Marseille-based CMA-CGM, the third-largest shipping line by volume.
The shipping business also has undergone a consolidation in recent years, leaving five titans moving 60% of ocean freight. That has given the companies the scale and incentive to invest more heavily in updating their information-technology systems. Software and information-technology consulting companies such as SAP AG and International Business Machines Corp. also are designing specialized products.
Many issues that shipping lines are trying to solve have snarled the industry for ages. For example, a CMA-CGM ship can stop at four ports in China, loading 8,200 containers, before making the California coast in 19 days. A ship planner in Marseille uses homemade software to plot where to place containers, a process that can take six to eight hours.
If the weight isn't balanced, containers stacked on deck could slide off during the ocean crossing, and a poorly loaded ship can waste hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel. If containers that need to be unloaded at the first port of call in the U.S. are buried on the bottom of the ship, precious time and money will be wasted.
CMA-CGM has teamed up with IBM to develop, among other things, software that can distribute containers more efficiently. This could reduce time spent in port and help CMA-CGM achieve its most important objective: on-time arrival. A late arrival in Shanghai, for example, can make a ship miss the high tide on the Yangtze River and lead to a 12-hour delay.
Many of the changes are driven by customers that need to check on shipments in transit. Fruit companies such as Dole Food Co. and Chiquita Brands International Inc. harvest bananas when green and load them on ships in Fort-de-France, Martinique. During the seven-day crossing aboard a CMA-CGM ship to Le Havre, in northern France, they are stored at a specific temperature, so they emerge yellow and ready for sale in Europe.
CMA-CGM now has in place technology that lets clients request changes in a container's temperature during the trip. "The shipping period isn't the black hole it used to be for our customers," says Piet Jan Ten Thije, director of electronic commerce at the Maersk Line, part of A.P. Moller-Maersk of Denmark, the industry's largest company, which moves 16% of the world's ocean freight.
Maersk spent years developing a system of alerts that notify customers when anything from bad weather to port backups delays shipments. "This is very important to customers," Mr. Thije said.
For example, an auto maker that assembles cars from parts made at different sites needs to know when an engine part made in China will arrive a day late. That allows it to slow production of the other parts to match the new schedule -- to avoid halting an assembly line later or having to store items that were ready too soon.
Maersk is working on another feature that would let customers use a Web site to choose the itinerary and mode of transport by which their goods will move. For example, a shipper could choose from several itineraries, prices and trip lengths, using Maersk for the seaborne portion of the trip and selecting from railroads and trucking companies with which Maersk is affiliated for the land portions.
Mr. Thije admitted the demands for more information have a downside for Maersk. "With the millions of containers we carry, things do go wrong, and customers will be able to see it," he said. "But we have to live with that."
The world's major ocean-shipping lines -- the pack mules of global trade -- have been slow to introduce new software to match the information revolution taking place in other industries. Now, shipping lines are coming under increasing pressure from customers to feed a steady stream of information about the location of the shippers' goods and other data not usually available in the past, such as the temperature at which the cargo is being stored.
TRANSIT CHECK
• What's New: Container shipping lines are upgrading their technology to give clients more data about their goods in transit.
• The Background: "Just-in-time" inventory management requires manufacturers and retailers to keep closer track of shipments.
• Next Steps: Maersk is designing a system allowing customers to use the Web to select shipment itinerary and mode of transport.
The pressure comes as falling prices for ocean freight are forcing shipping lines to revamp their own operations to maximize efficiency and widen margins. In addition, retailers and manufacturers are practicing "just-in-time" inventory management, which requires them to keep better track of where their goods are, particularly while in transit.
"The client wants to know where the blue socks in size medium are that he ordered two weeks ago from China," said Jean-Philippe Thenoz, vice president of the North America lines at Marseille-based CMA-CGM, the third-largest shipping line by volume.
The shipping business also has undergone a consolidation in recent years, leaving five titans moving 60% of ocean freight. That has given the companies the scale and incentive to invest more heavily in updating their information-technology systems. Software and information-technology consulting companies such as SAP AG and International Business Machines Corp. also are designing specialized products.
Many issues that shipping lines are trying to solve have snarled the industry for ages. For example, a CMA-CGM ship can stop at four ports in China, loading 8,200 containers, before making the California coast in 19 days. A ship planner in Marseille uses homemade software to plot where to place containers, a process that can take six to eight hours.
If the weight isn't balanced, containers stacked on deck could slide off during the ocean crossing, and a poorly loaded ship can waste hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel. If containers that need to be unloaded at the first port of call in the U.S. are buried on the bottom of the ship, precious time and money will be wasted.
CMA-CGM has teamed up with IBM to develop, among other things, software that can distribute containers more efficiently. This could reduce time spent in port and help CMA-CGM achieve its most important objective: on-time arrival. A late arrival in Shanghai, for example, can make a ship miss the high tide on the Yangtze River and lead to a 12-hour delay.
Many of the changes are driven by customers that need to check on shipments in transit. Fruit companies such as Dole Food Co. and Chiquita Brands International Inc. harvest bananas when green and load them on ships in Fort-de-France, Martinique. During the seven-day crossing aboard a CMA-CGM ship to Le Havre, in northern France, they are stored at a specific temperature, so they emerge yellow and ready for sale in Europe.
CMA-CGM now has in place technology that lets clients request changes in a container's temperature during the trip. "The shipping period isn't the black hole it used to be for our customers," says Piet Jan Ten Thije, director of electronic commerce at the Maersk Line, part of A.P. Moller-Maersk of Denmark, the industry's largest company, which moves 16% of the world's ocean freight.
Maersk spent years developing a system of alerts that notify customers when anything from bad weather to port backups delays shipments. "This is very important to customers," Mr. Thije said.
For example, an auto maker that assembles cars from parts made at different sites needs to know when an engine part made in China will arrive a day late. That allows it to slow production of the other parts to match the new schedule -- to avoid halting an assembly line later or having to store items that were ready too soon.
Maersk is working on another feature that would let customers use a Web site to choose the itinerary and mode of transport by which their goods will move. For example, a shipper could choose from several itineraries, prices and trip lengths, using Maersk for the seaborne portion of the trip and selecting from railroads and trucking companies with which Maersk is affiliated for the land portions.
Mr. Thije admitted the demands for more information have a downside for Maersk. "With the millions of containers we carry, things do go wrong, and customers will be able to see it," he said. "But we have to live with that."
