Latest Logistics Lecture

Author: Jin Wei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: This book is a compilation of the author's extensive experience and research in the field of logistics, covering fundamental theories, technical applications, and advanced management practices from abroad. Written in a lecture format, the language is clear and accessible, offering both knowledge, theoretical depth, authority, and guidance. It enables readers to gain a comprehensive, accurate, systematic, and complete understanding of the essence and of logistics. This book is suitable for government officials, corporate decision-makers, and departmental managers for reference, as well as for students studying logistics.
The New Logistics Lecture is finally completed. At this moment, my mixed emotions are difficult to express in words. In a nutshell: let us share this achievement together!
Logistics is an emerging interdisciplinary science that spans both natural and social sciences. It integrates economics, technology, management, engineering, and natural sciences, drawing its theoretical and practical methods from operations research, systems theory, information theory, and economic mathematics. It combines the essence of multiple disciplines, making it a cutting-edge science in modern economic research and practice, driving the development of the new economy. Thus, it has demonstrated immense vitality and unleashed tremendous energy since its discovery.
In the 21st century, logistics is one of the main contradictions in world economic development. After the global commodity market entered saturation or oversaturation in the 1980s, people realized through practice that only by solving logistics issues could production be expanded smoothly and the economy continue to grow. Particularly in China, due to a long-standing emphasis on production over circulation, products have accumulated excessively, transportation has become unbearable, and logistics costs account for 20% or even more of the GDP. In contrast, the figure in the U.S. is less than 10%.
Table of Contents
Enterprises have evolved from cost-based competition to quality-based competition, and with the globalization of the economy and the of the Internet, competition has now shifted to time and speed—how quickly to respond to and meet customer needs. To achieve this, companies must make significant adjustments in strategy and organizational structure, with the most notable feature being a shift from a competition-centered strategy to a collaboration-centered value innovation strategy, from inventory-based production models to mass customization production models (MC), and from a pyramid-style organizational structure that controls everything to a virtual enterprise structure centered on network core capabilities.
A virtual enterprise is a completely new organizational structure, consisting of a rapid-response supply chain organized around customer needs, with operational management vastly different from traditional enterprises. This book begins by examining the development process of traditional centralized production planning and control methods and their incompatibility in the new environment. Based on an analysis of the trends in production planning and control technology, it proposes a virtual enterprise resource planning (VERP) system tailored for mass customization production models (MC).
The book first introduces ERP-related content, which serves as the foundation for its application. It then explores the characteristics of virtual enterprises and their construction methods, proposing a VERP framework and related modules. From Chapter 5 onwards, it delves deeper into business process reengineering for virtual enterprises, the customer and data foundations of virtual enterprises, and the operational foundation (MC) of virtual enterprises. Chapter 8 introduces an agent-based intelligent VERP model, further researching negotiation and control mechanisms within VERP.