Design of Standardized Data Process in 4PL Freight Management

The problems of low informatization and low intensification are present in China’s TPL industry, and the key way to improve logistics level is to imrove the informatiztion level of TPL. In view of the situation that current management of 4PLplatform can’t meet the practical application needs of TPL enterprises, this paper proposes the building of such a 4PL platform that is based on the real needs of most TPL enterprises, serves most TPL, ensures that the management of every TPL enterprise and branch fits the current reality, and at the same time, builds up horizontal supply chain so that TPL enterprises can share warehousing resources, freight resources and joint distribution. Introduction Every 1% cost reduction in China’s logistics will bring about 100 billion of social assets, and China’s logistics still has 6% -10% of improvement room compared with that of developed nations . The key way to improve China’s logistics is to improve TPL’s informationization. The size of TPL enterprises in China is relatively small, according to materials, there are more than 700,000 domestic registered TPL enterprises , but the number of enterprises in actual operation reaches 10 million, that is to say, the proportion of informationization is less than 10%. Based on this, our country stresses strengthening logistics informationization in the 11 and 12 five-year plan. On Jan. 7, 2013, the Department of Industry and Informationization issued the Guidelines of Improving Logistics Informationization , putting forth suggestions to fasten the building of a standardized system for logistics informationization. To solve the prevailing problems of low informationization and low intensification in medium and small TPL enterprises, many experts have proposed that building 4PLplatform and using 4PL facing supply chain management can reduce traction costs, commodity transferring costs and logistical process, bring tremendous social cost reduction and profit increase . This view has reaped common understanding in this industry and at present many researchers, including the government, scholars, software designers and institutions, are all committed to the study and design of 4PL . The ideal is condition is that all the supplying and purchasing activities of clients are managed by 4PL. But in practice, the current 4PLplatform suffers from the flaw that its process does not fir TPL reality, which makes TPL informatization the bottleneck of the industry. The author proposes building such a 4PL management platform that, with the building of a standardized process, serves a number of TPL, establishes horizontal supply chain among TPL, ensures the management of each TPL’s branches fit the business reality and at the same time ensures that TPL enterprises and their branches can from cloud logistics on the Web, so that TPL enterprises can manage themselves through the platform with the lowest cost and TPL enterprises can share warehousing resources, freight resources and joint distribution, forming a business mode unique to TPL enterprises . A standardized process of freight management in 4PL platform building is designed, including door to door service, waiting for reception, inbound, outbound, outbound list, standard outbound procedures, meanwhile, the component computation algorithm of net revenue, receivables, inventory temporary charges, alternative payments, fund balances and cash balances is provided. International Conference on Education Technology and Information System (ICETIS 2013) © 2013. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 886 to prepare cargo There are two ways for cargo to be transported from shipping enterprises to TPL. One is known as waiting for delivery, that is, shipping enterprises send the goods to TPL. The other is that TPL take delivery of cargo from shipping enterprises (door to door service). A. Door to door service The management procedures of door to door service are shown in Figure1. The people who take delivery of cargo from shipping enterprises are usually delivery staff, who take delivery, accept the orders and cargo, and fill out cargo receipts for shipping enterprises. The cargo receipts should contain the following: ○1 information of the destination (destination, name of the store); ○2 date of cargo reception, cargo number; ○3 information of the shipping enterprise (name, number, and telephone number of the shipping enterprise, consignee’s name and telephone number); ○4 information of charge types (rates, types of charges); ○5 types of charges (cash, account period, the arrival pay, back pay, own delivery, other charges, total); ○6 information of the cargo (the order numbers, packages, number of packages, volume, weight, amount, remarks);○7 simplified shipping agreement: specification of cargo, insurance, package, scope of coverage, terms of cargo loss and damage compensation claims, terms of delivery and claims; ○8 other information (declared value, alternative payments, number of orders, number of inventory documents). The current informationization situation of this receipt can’t connect 4PL to each shipping enterprise, the problem being not technology but cost. The principle of low cost must followed. In this platform this receipt is still designed to be hand-written in printed documents, so that each undertaking company can afford the application cost of this platform. Cargo receipts are in triplicate. After the consignor signs, the consignor keep one of the receipts, delivery staff takes to orders and two receipts and the cargo back to undertaking company. Then one order and one cargo receipt are handed to the keyboard operator; the cargo and one cargo receipt are handed over to treasury manager to put the cargo in storage. B. Waiting for reception The management procedures of waiting for reception are shown in Figure 2. The treasury manager of TPL is responsible foe receiving the cargo delivered by the consignor, and the keyboard operator receives the orders, writes out cargo receipts for delivery staff. The cargo receipts are printed by the system in triplicate. The cargo receipts are delivery receipts in the system, and are printed after the delivery receipts are renamed, in fact this saves handwritten cargo receipts. The keyboard operator keys the cargo receipt in system to form delivery receipt. Inbound Each branch is equipped with one treasury manager, who is responsible for the inbound and outbound of cargo in kind of the branch. In the case of door to door service, keyboard operators receive orders and cargo receipts from delivery staff and fill out delivery lists according to cargo receipts as shown in Figure 3. The form and content of cargo receipts and delivery lists are basically the same. Cargo receipts are handwritten; delivery lists are the electronic edition of cargo receipts. If the keyboard operators of waiting for reception notify by themselves treasury managers to put cargo in kind in storage, cargo receipts needn’t be filled out; delivery lists are written out then printed in triplicate with the name of cargo receipts. Delivery lists should be filled out whether it is the inbound of cargo in kind that have been stored or the inbound of ordinary cargo. After the delivery lists are filled out and confirmed, they come into inventory tables and form daily income tables, which are printed by each branch when needed. Numbers of cargo allocation