Recently, the "2021 Global Manufacturing Supply Chain and Logistics Technology Symposium" hosted by Logistics Technology and Application magazine was held in Suzhou. Conference "Integration enables intelligent Chain future" as the theme, invited experts from the manufacturing and logistics industry, as well as the leading international auto parts production enterprise, enterprise of world industrial group, the international famous enterprises system integrators, software information, the representative of the domestic well-known automobile enterprises gathered, wonderful to share innovation and application of the logistics in intelligent manufacturing technology, Discuss the construction of supply chain and logistics system in manufacturing industry, and look forward to the development of smart supply chain and logistics for manufacturing industry.

In order to further deepen the theme of "Integration enables intelligent Chain future", the conference specially set up three sub-forums on "discrete manufacturing logistics", "continuous manufacturing logistics" and "Heavy-duty logistics" to explain the current situation and future of manufacturing supply chain and logistics system construction from multiple perspectives.

One、Changes and new developments in supply chain

1.Changes in supply chain

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, globalization was largely confined to internal transfers in western countries, Europe and the United States. Today, globalization is so deep that even a cup of coffee may require the collaboration of 29 companies in 18 countries. At the same time, its vulnerability is also increasingly prominent. COVID-19 has disrupted global supply chains, affecting supplies in China, Japan and South Korea, consumption in Europe and the United States, and energy production in the Middle East. The Great Depression was a reckoning of supply and demand imbalances and overcapacity in a free-market economy.

The impact of the epidemic on any small link in the industrial chain could halt the entire chain. Especially under the addition of modern management "production by sales" and "zero inventory" and other modes, the industrial chain is damaged. The supply chain inventory of most enterprises is not more than one month, which leads to the production of any link in the industrial chain for three months, and the whole industrial chain basically stagnates.

Industrial Internet builds an industrial chain with product data as the core and realizes accurate scheduling and decision-making of the whole process through internal intelligence and modularization, external linking and cloud.

The US has provoked trade disputes everywhere, causing unprecedented challenges to globalization. Unilateralism and trade protectionism have severely impacted the global multilateral system, and the WTO is gradually being marginalized. The economic tenor of global governance has changed radically since the ebb of trade liberalism.

2.New Developments in supply Chain

Under the guidance of new concepts such as Industry 4.0 and intelligent manufacturing, as well as national policies such as the 14th Five-Year Plan, the Belt and Road Initiative, double Cycle and new infrastructure, and driven by cutting-edge technologies such as big data, cloud computing, 5G, AI, industrial Internet, ARTIFICIAL intelligence, visual identity, RF, simulation technology, VR and blockchain, Wisdom manufacturing, logistics, intelligent, no factories, industrial robots, a service-oriented manufacturing factory, customized production mode, the supply chain to the "short" change "coarse" direction, then to the automatic, unmanned, intelligent wisdom logistics, co-ordinated, standardization, service, network development, transparency and flexibility.

Two、Smart logistics helps the development of supply chain

Here, we need to clarify the relationship between supply chain and logistics. Supply chain, mainly connecting suppliers, production and processing with end customers; Logistics mainly includes transportation, storage, packaging, loading, unloading and handling, circulation processing, distribution, information services and so on. Logistics is part of a supply chain.

At present, there are many unreasonable logistics: unreasonable layout, line is too long or reciprocating; Scheduling is not reasonable, resulting in many times out of the storage; Unreasonable inventory setting, resulting in excess or insufficient inventory, the increase of management costs; Occupy a large number of personnel, personnel labor intensity, personnel cost; Occupy a large amount of handling equipment, use and maintenance costs increase; Can not be accurately controlled, resulting in loss, damage or scrap; Low level of automation, affecting the overall efficiency; Low utilization of space, resulting in waste; Information error, lack of real-time, lead to inaccurate inventory, affect production, increase the difficulty of management. Above, directly affect product quality, cost, efficiency, and then affect market competition, customer satisfaction, etc.

The rational goal of logistics is mainly reflected in the whole process of supply from materials to commodities, and the flow direction and flow of logistics are the most reasonable. That is, flow is smooth, no cross, no repetition, little flow, and strive to achieve a single process in the internal.

In terms of smart logistics, it mainly refers to improving the ability of analysis, decision-making and intelligent execution of the logistics system and improving the intelligence and automation level of the entire logistics system through intelligent technologies and means such as intelligent hardware, Internet of things and big data. Smart logistics is characterized by advanced technologies such as informatization, digitalization, networking, integration, intelligence, flexibility, agility, visualization and automation.

Three、Solution of Integration

Let's first look at the status quo of traditional logistics storage: they use more forklifts, in addition to labor, forklift maintenance costs are more, there are also some hidden dangers in terms of safety; Ground stacking easy to lead to low space utilization rate, can not guarantee first-in, first-out; There is no information management, repeatedly looking for goods, inventory, information is not accurate, difficult to find goods.

Summary of pain points: Traditional warehousing logistics has delivery delay, goods loss, low efficiency, order errors, access errors, goods damage and safety accidents, information islands and so on.

The outstanding advantages of Anhui Etown integrated solution:

（1）The logistics efficiency of automatic, mechanized and intensive storage mode is 3-5 times that of other storage modes；

（2）Make full use of high space, storage capacity per unit area is 5-10 times that of other warehouse modes；

（3）Systematic, automatic, mechanized stacker and conveying system, warehousing and warehousing operations, greatly reduce manual labor；

（4）Automatic three-dimensional warehouse system, can be easily and seamlessly connected with the production logistics system, improve the strain and decision-making ability；

（5）System automatic storage, real-time tracking mechanism, not easy to lose goods, and production, procurement, sales and other docking, easy to achieve enterprise logistics integration.

Four、Conclusion

Smart logistics is an important link in the supply chain system, and plays a decisive role. Nowadays, logistics technology has entered into a stage of high automation and high information technology, and is rapidly advancing toward the intelligent goal. The smart logistics mentioned today is not a full sense of smart logistics, or even just the primary smart logistics. There is still a long way for us to develop in the future. The future intelligent logistics must be characterized by the ability of thinking, perception, learning, reasoning and judgment and the ability to solve problems independently by combining artificial intelligence and other technologies.