Since the 21st century, as a result of expansion of the world economy, especially e-commerce businesses, logistics industry is now facing unprecedented challenges. In China, for example, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, the total turnover of logistics industry in 2013 had reached 177.3 trillion, achieving 21.07% compound annual growth average comparing to 38.4 trillion in 2004, accounting for 6.8% of the total GDP. This has brought emergence of numerous logistics enterprises, both large and small, and simultaneously put many enterprises operated traditionally in danger.
The principle of distribution management is to have the right product, with the right cost, in the right quantity, at the right place, and at the right time to be delivered to the valued customers. But customers receive wrong product type or false quantity from time to time, and sometimes they are even informed that their products are lost. These incidents will greatly reduce consumer satisfaction and damage corporate image. Reviewing the current condition, enterprises are now turning to smart and rugged mobile computers to improve the moving load, delivery speed, service quality, and hold down operation costs.
How dose Chainway solution better distribution management?
Order information needs to be verified in each step from suppliers’ loading docks to customers’ front doors, which is particularly essential when the origin of goods is far away from its destination. Mistakes are easily committed when there are mountains of goods in flow. They are often transferred from warehouse A to transportation hub B and to distribution center C. Comparing to the traditional manual match of order information, Chainway mobile computers, integrated with barcode scanning and RFID modules deliver better accuracy in information verification.
In the past, when packages arrive at customers’ front doors, they should sign their name on a piece of paper as a confirmation for receipt. After a whole day’s heavy work, the staff need to work overtime to scan each barcode and then take a photo of the signature. It costs approximately 2 hours to finish 1000 pieces, not to mention when the device is slow and sometimes system halt happens. What’s more, it’s easy to tear, broken or even lose that small piece of paper under such a harsh industrial environment. But now customers can sign an electronic signature on the rugged screen with a stylus, and it will be automatically updated. The whole process just takes 1 to 2 seconds. In this way, staff will no long be bothered by those laborious steps. To the whole enterprise, it means streamlined workflows, saved labor and costs, faster information feedback.
With accurate GPS and fast wireless communication functions, the delivery conditions of each parcel can be updated to the backend database. For administrators, they can ensure accurate delivery and successful operation inside. If there happens delay, they can find out causes as soon as possible and deal with the incident instantly, so that they will not keep their valued customers wait. From the side of consumers, they can surf on line and get the first-hand logistics update, in this case, they can know where exactly the goods they bought has arrived, and predict on which day they can get it.
