Port logistics is a comprehensive and multifunctional service provided by the port as the logistics center node. Port logistics activities are a part of the whole logistics system, which refers to services integrating warehousing, inland transportation, freight forwarding, unpacking, loading and unloading, packaging, processing and information processing.
Port transportation is divided into import and export, and the general transportation process is shown in the following figure:
The key of port transportation is container transportation, which is the most advanced modern cargo transportation mode with containers as transportation units. It has the characteristics of "safety, quickness, simplicity and cheapness", which helps to reduce transportation links. We can make comprehensive use of railway, highway, waterway, aviation and other modes of transportation to carry out multimodal transport and realize "door-to-door" transportation.
Container transportation is a modern and advanced mode of transportation, and improving efficiency is one of the difficulties in container transportation. How to shorten the stay time of container goods in the port is a difficult problem for port transportation to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Through industry analysis and product investigation, this paper summarizes an idea of optimizing port transportation through internet plus mode, and provides a product design method for container transportation.
Industry research
Survey sample
abstract
The pain points of the port transportation industry are as follows:
The obstacles of paper documents affect efficiency, so paperless transportation documents are needed.
The arrival information is not updated in time, which leads to congestion and queuing at the reserved port and wastes time;
Empty container scheduling is unreasonable, and making an appointment to pick up containers is still a very traditional offline work, which needs to be changed urgently.
The business nature of port container truck transportation is B To B business, and individual drivers can't directly undertake the transportation business of shippers, so they usually rely on truck fleets and transportation companies to organize and manage drivers. The motorcade has the qualifications of road transport license, business license, etc., and can issue transport invoice for shippers to bear the safety and reputation in cargo transportation.
The capital turnover of the whole container truck industry is slow, and the return period is one month on average. The roles that need to advance funds in transportation are: motorcade, transportation company and freight forwarder.
The container truck transportation market is relatively closed, with a low degree of informationization, and the influence of the vehicle-cargo matching platform is small. The exchange of freight information between fleets depends on the captain's point-to-point communication and does not form a network. The empty rate of container transportation is high, the market prospect of return cargo deployment is broad, and there is no influential capacity trading platform in the market for the time being, so opportunities and challenges coexist.
market survey
Research purposes: To understand the jargon of port transportation and the corresponding business behind it, the current business process (whether it can replace the key points) and the business dilemma (what is not done offline and what cannot be done). Finally, through the investigation, we can understand the current business and product opportunities and sort out the product functions.
Research sample:
Research results: At present, there are indeed many irregular links in port trade business, and information solutions are needed to improve efficiency and standardize the system. However, the import and export business involves many roles and the cooperation process is complex. In the short term, it is impossible to completely solve the core pain points only by purely online systems. It is necessary to combine offline sales methods with online system processes to better improve the workflow of port trade and ensure the maximization of the interests of both parties.
abstract
Freight forwarders are most concerned about the price, and drivers are most concerned about when the freight will arrive, so the core value of the platform is to provide low-priced and high-quality goods to ensure smooth capital flow; If the cash settlement mode is considered, the amount of advance funds and late collection are the tests;
Fleet management and driver management are the difficulties of offline management. We can make use of these two difficulties, join the thinking of the Internet, improve efficiency and optimize experience.
Freight forwarders have little control over the factory, and there are not many points that can cut into the whole process of the factory, which makes it difficult for us to improve the loading and unloading efficiency and save the waiting time of drivers. Therefore, in product design, we need to consider the field role to assist the system to complete the overall business process;
The bidding mode is feasible, but a large number of waybills are needed to optimize the bidding operation rules. Therefore, for the platform, scale and standardization are an important development goal.
In the port transportation industry, the transportation capacity basically comes from the locomotive, which is an organized enterprise rather than a scattered individual. Such enterprises can basically issue invoices, so the tickets are not very sure.
Exception handling cannot be ignored. It is suggested to adopt online customer service+offline customer service, and adopt work order mode to connect two workflows in series to improve the efficiency of exception handling.
Competitive product analysis
Collect and analyze the existing competing products, and summarize them from three aspects: design field, main functions and product end selection, as shown in the following table:
product innovation
(1) The core pain point of freight forwarders is price.
Freight Forwarder's work: Dealing with transportation-related issues such as goods, ships, ports and customs.
Freight forwarders' fields: LCL, container, bulk cargo, air transport and express delivery.
The main problems of freight forwarders are: imperfect laws, poor service attitude, enterprises without long-term goals and illegal operations.
Generally speaking, freight forwarding can be divided into three types: pure freight forwarding, captain upgrading to freight forwarding, yard dispatching upgrading to freight forwarding, and door-to-door mode of shipping company, which is also a function of freight forwarding (instead of freight forwarding).
To do:
Grasping the price sensitivity of freight forwarders, we can attract freight forwarders to enter the platform through low prices when designing products. Through various inputs and services, reduce the transportation price of upstream sources and ensure the core interests of freight forwarders. The core of reducing freight rate is to have special resources, such as fast collection of goods at ports, abundant container supply and guaranteed account period (with long-term cooperation with shipping companies).
It can be seen that when our platform products are collected, we can control the upstream supply price in our hands through the quotation mode. Through the way of "eat the difference", re-price and release it to the platform. Low-cost methods can be considered: general cargo stowage, packing, light and heavy collocation.
(2) The driver's core pain point is the billing cycle.
Through interviews, we learned that almost all drivers are most concerned about the problem during transportation: "When will the goods arrive?" The most acceptable way for drivers is to pay now. The last thing drivers can't accept is that the account period is too long, or they break the contract.
To do:
Using the expectation of the driver's reconciliation period, we can consider the existing rules to "squeeze" the freight rate in product design. For example, the settlement cycle of supply can be varied, such as: cash settlement, one week, half a month, one month, three months. If the current freight can be appropriately provided with cash deduction, cash card voucher deduction, etc. It will be "negotiated" in disguise. At the same time, it can provide IOUs to drivers to make up for the long account period.
(3) The fleet management is difficult, the fleet profit is low, and freight forwarders often don't support their own fleet.
The current situation of the fleet is: high maintenance and management costs, frequent transportation accidents and low transportation profits.
To do:
The work of managing the fleet should gradually evolve into being managed by the platform, because only large-scale platforms can supplement the consumption of fleet management through other capital flows and realize the positive capital flow of the platform. Therefore, as a platform product, managing the fleet should be an important but not urgent need.
(4) Use containers rationally and reduce the empty container rate.
There are four kinds of container transportation costs:
FCL/FCL: container handling fee+terminal operation fee+freight+port unloading terminal operation fee+container towing fee.
FCL/LCL: towing fee+terminal operation fee+freight+unpacking fee provided by shipping company.
LCL/LCL: packing fee+freight+unpacking fee.
LCL/FCL: packing fee+freight+dock operation fee+towing fee provided by shipping company.
Based on the standardized flow, it is the trend of port transportation to make rational use of the container utilization rate in the empty driving stage through the way of cargo assembly. The high-income mode of container transportation is to seek the best income structure in the process of effective transportation. So as to improve the transportation value of drivers and reduce the rejection rate of empty containers.
The basic idea is as shown in the figure:
(5) Port pre-recording and abnormal transportation are two irregular jobs, which are most prone to congestion.
For too many non-standard long-chain products. It is necessary to specify a standardized process. Port transportation also faces the difficulty of standardized design.
To do:
Off-line coordination (off-line operator) is essential for the work related to the shipping company, such as box lifting, ticket exchange and booking. Simple systematization and online short-term can't completely replace this complicated operation. Therefore, when designing platform products, we can consider designing some offline operation coordination roles to supplement the problems that online systematization cannot solve perfectly.
At present, abnormal handling (claim for loss and damage of goods, emergency cargo transportation, overweight cargo transportation, etc.). ) is a common problem in the transportation industry. Online customer service personnel alone can't solve the on-site problems. It is necessary to have a standard online exception tracking and handling process to liberate redundant offline labor.