16 mars 2007
Competitive Intelligence: The New Supply Chain Edge
What are the strengths and weaknesses of your supply chain? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors' supply chains? If you know the answers to these questions, you've got supply chain competitive intelligence. And with that information you can take the actions necessary to outperform the competition while improving revenue, profitability, and return on investment.
Source: SCM Review
10 mars 2007
GSI EANCOM
GS1 EANCOM provides a standardised and predictable structure for
electronic business messages, enabling business partners to communicate
business data rapidly, efficiently and accurately, irrespective of
their internal hardware or software types.
The messages available in the EANCOM standard cover the functions required to effect a complete trade transaction:
- the messages which enable the trade transaction to take place, e.g. price catalogue, purchase order, invoice, etc;
- the messages used to instruct transport services to move the goods;
- the messages used in settlement of the trade transactions through the banking system.
The flows and trading partners catered for in EANCOM can be simply represented as follows:
The business messages available in EANCOM can be divided into the following categories:
Master Data Messages
These contain data which rarely changes (product measurements, names and addresses, etc):
- The Party Information message: is used to identify all the locations name, address, contact persons, financial accounts, etc) associated to subsequent commercial transactions and their related operational information.
- The Product Information messages: provide parties with information containing the descriptive, logistical and financial details of a product or a service.
Business Transactions Messages
These cover the general trading cycle from quotation request to remittance advice:
- Quotation messages contain all details relevant to the supply of the goods or services requested by the potential buyer (terms of delivery, payment terms, price, allowances and charges, etc).
- Purchase Order set of messages relates to the ordering process from a proposed order, subsequent changes and the eventual order confirmation (relevant quantities, dates, location of delivery, etc).
- Transport and Logistics messages provide information related to the despatch transport and receipt of previously ordered products.
- Invoice and Remittance Advice messages relate to the payment of the goods supplied. The buyer can automatically reconcile the suppliers invoice using the product receipt information.
Report and Planning Messages
These messages include general trading reports which allow partners to plan for the future:
- They enable trading partners to exchange precious information in order to understand each others requirements.
- They provide valuable and up-to-date reports and forecasts concerning delivery, sales and stocks and enable the partners involved to plan their activities and marketing strategies.
Syntax and Service Report Message
The Syntax and Service Report message may be sent by the receiver of any EDIFACT message to acknowledge or refuse an interchange, functional group or message.
General Message
The General message may be used to send data for which there is no specific standard message.
Security Message
These messages are only available in the EANCOM version 2002, Syntax 4.
- The secure authentication and acknowledgement message is used in order to transmit the digital signature, related information to verify the signature by the recipient, and the references to the data secured.
- The security key and certificate management message can be used to transmit the public key of the sender to the recipient. The recipient is then able to verify digital signatures in further transmissions. It is also possible to make references to certificates from certification authorities (trust centres).
For more details, please read EANCOM 1997-Update2000
For more infomation about GS1, please go GS1 website
07 mars 2007
RFID Technology Improves SCM Productivity
With the development of RF technologies, it has already penetrated in the fields of commerce, industry, transportation, logistics management, health and insurance, finace, education and so on. Among these technologies, the most popular and matured one is named RFID,which uses RF communication in order to make identification and exchange data. This technology is used in warehousing, tranportation and distruction industries.
In the SCM, RFID could provide more advanced technological support to no matter what part in this chain with better management effectiveness, which achieves the purpose to perfect the systematical management. Some experts think that in order to improve the profits of SCM, every member in the SC should have the operation infomation on time of the others to avoid the interruption of chain and low productivity. RFID is capable to improve the automization level, reduce the error rate and transparent the communication. In short, RFID system could control and monitor all the parts of the SC.
However there are some problems:the global unification standard, the privacy and the cost problems.
Generally speaking, RFID is the trend. Accoding to some statistics, 70% of the global international groupes have shown their resolutions to make practice of this technology, so we can see that RFID has really unlimited applicaiton potencials.
Source: http://www.rfidchina.org/info-645-112.html
China hopes to become the frontrunner in setting global Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) standard
China hopes to become the frontrunner in setting global Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) standards as experts within the fledgling tracking industry call for internationally compatible technology.
"RFID will play an important role in the socioeconomic field and relevant policies are being made to encourage its development," China's Ministry of Information Industry director Zhang Qi told a forum in Beijing.
RFID, which can be used to track goods ranging from steel to pets, allows retailers and suppliers to trace containers and shipments as they travel around the world with the aim of improving efficiency through the supply chain.
As RFID is in its relative infancy China has the opportunity to establish its leverage in applying homegrown technology standards and IBM China's lead architect Colin Lam said he expects Chinese standards to emerge in the next six to nine months.
"In China I have seen a lot of desire to take the lead in standard setting," he said, adding "can we translate 'made in China' into 'invented in China'?"
Industry experts agreed that given China's huge export market, the application of RFID standards could prove very important to the nation's trade.
"Improving the efficiency of the supply chain network is especially important for China given the size of its exports," EPCglobal president Chris Adcock told the forum via video link.
For RFID to be successful, uniform standards should be applied so that they can operate internationally, as the more opaque standards become, the more trade restrictive rather than beneficial they will be, said Douglas Sonnek, second secretary of the US embassy's economic section.
"The success of standards will be determined by their interoperability across borders," he said.
The transition to RFID technology will take time, as although the importance of uniformity is stressed, different applications require different technology and therefore standards.
"We should aim to establish a standards framework in which to define applications and the right technology for them," Julia Zhu, principal standards architect for California-based Savi Technology said.
Education and training is also an important issue that needs to be addressed for RFID to develop to its full potential.
"The level of expertise needs to rise dramatically from the current situation," Harold Clampitt, CEO of American RFID Solution said.
Lam agreed that lack of skills is a key factor and the Chinese government needs to work with universities in particular to promote technological training in the same way that the governments of Japan and Korea have done.
Craig Harman, president and CEO of US-based QED Systems added that although there has been some difficulty in keeping in contact with industry groups in China he believes the international community will work together in the continued development of RFID.
"I honestly believe we will have success with RFID," he said.
Source: http://www.rfidchina.org
RFID Application of Supply Chain at Takeoff：EPC Avoids Official Pressure
RFID technology is seen as a sunrise business in
China, but the amount of market is lower than the level of advanced
countries greatly. EPC has taken global leadership in UHF, but it has
met with a sharp shooting in China. The article named RFID Applicaiton of Supply Chain at Takeoff by Phd. Dong Xuegeng bases on the status
that EPC has passed through Hong Kong and entered Guangdong province
and has been applied in SCM gradually, and points that China should
face that fact, and break away from difficulty of situation without
frequency channel and standard for UHF immediately.
Source: RFID Technologies and Applications