Automation of enterprise logistics processes as one of the most effective tools to overcome the crisis. Business processes in logistics Automation of enterprise logistics processes

10.08.2017

For the literate and effective work It is not enough for today's organizations to simply improve products. This approach was relevant at the beginning of the 2000s. Now it is necessary to improve efficiency.

A business system of any kind is a group of business processes with one final goal. The goal is to sell a product, service or information end user and make a profit. The business process itself is a complex consisting of interrelated actions occurring within the business.

Key components of business processes in logistics

Internal processes are divided into the following four types:

profit from the sale of goods;

planning and management of internal data for sales implementation;

resource processes, in particular, the delivery and maintenance of products in the warehouse;

transformation.

Logistics is responsible for the following processes:

strategic planning of goods movement;

full control of commodity flows.

Optimization of business processes in logistics allows you to ship resources and reduce the cost of goods. To properly implement these tasks, logistics companies:

organize the delivery of goods: agree on dates, analyze the transport capabilities of the client, lay the route, develop route maps;

responsible for the goods: accept and ship the goods, organize warehousing;

keep track of documents: provide information to the recipient, record applications from stores and put marks on invoices.

Additional automation of business processes in logistics helps to achieve even better results.

Optimization and reengineering of business processes

Apart from improvement logistics processes , reengineering is used to optimize processes that are directly related to the business. This concept is used to refer to a complete restructuring of the organization of doing business.

The general scheme of reengineering processes looks like this:

managers carry out modeling of business processes in logistics and specific tasks of the company as a whole;

based on the data obtained, they develop new models and work on new technologies;

the model is carefully analyzed, after which they look at the positive and negative consequences of the implementation and evaluate the usefulness;

if the results are positive, the new model is introduced into direct production.

For competent reengineering, first of all, they recreate a large map, which shows all the components that eventually form internal processes. The map is drawn up in such a way as to graphically display all the necessary details and form levels, displaying the horizontal and vertical relationships of the processes.

After that, managers proceed to a total analysis of all the little things. If the final profit after the analysis pays for the costs of the analysis by more than 2 times, then the project should be declared expedient and the entire plan provided should be implemented in the near future.

The emerging market relations in Russia require a revision of approaches to the management of each business entity. Most enterprises are traditionally organized - on a functional basis, when a leader is at the head, who is subordinate to various departments. Such a management organization is based on the principle of division of labor and specialization, but such a structure has disadvantages:

the isolation of the work of each employee from the results of the work of the institution as a whole, i.e. the employee's idea of the effectiveness of the organization does not go beyond the scope of his unit;

the desire of employees to perform their duties in such a way that they satisfy the superior manager, i.e. there is no interest in making the results of the work convenient for general use within the company;

difficult exchange and possible distortion of information between departments due to their isolation.

The organization of institutions on a functional basis prevents the extraction of various benefits associated with the consideration of activity as a process and the allocation of various flows within this process (material, financial, informational, etc.).

The functional isolation of individual units, even in the presence of highly qualified personnel, can hinder the increase in the efficiency of the entire system as a whole. Therefore, one of the most important conditions for the successful functioning of the organization is the availability of such an information system that would allow to link together all activities and manage them based on the principles of a single whole. The solution of the outlined problems lies in the field of information logistics, the object of study of which is the information flows that accompany business activities.

As you know, the main task of information logistics is the organization and structuring of data flows that accompany the material flow. Let's look at this problem from a different angle, abstracting from material flow and present the document itself as a primary object, and not as information accompanying the cargo. In most cases, a document, like a certain product, goes through the stages of creation (“processing of raw materials”), formation (“production”), processing (“sales”), transmission (“transportation”) and storage (“warehousing”). Suppliers and consumers of documents are employees, business partners and clients this enterprise. Thus, we can call "planning, management and control" of the flow of documents at the enterprise "logistics of enterprise business processes" Gleb Popov Logistics for business processes //Director IS, #02/2004.

In an enterprise, "information flow" is a flow electronic documents, Email etc. It is the "paperless" workflow that is the only means of ensuring the minimum delivery time and processing of information with minimal costs. What, in fact, is the goal of the concept of information logistics Hessig K., Arnold M. Information logistics and workflow management // Problems of theory and practice of management. 1997. No. 5. Rodkina T. A. Information logistics. M.: Exam, 2001..

The implementation of a similar idea that allows you to manage and control joint work personnel and software, is "workflow management" ( workflow management), which is an IT-based enterprise business process logistics management. Koulopoulos Thomas M. Necessity workflow. M.: VestMetatechnology, 2000. Kalyanov GN Theory and practice of reorganization of business processes. M.: SINTEG, 2000.]. Workflow-systems are also sometimes referred to as "business management systems" ( business operating system) or "logistics management systems" ( logistics control system).

By connecting business process participants with the help of IT, workflow management becomes an effective means of implementing the concepts embodied in business process logistics. When IT tools are included in this scheme, new components are formed: software and hardware; systems operation; ensuring the operation of data transmission channels, etc.

To manage the actions of personnel defined by the business process model is not the task of information logistics. It's a task workflow- a system that integrates and manages software at the workplaces of personnel.

Figure 3.1. - Relationship between workflow system and information logistics

Otherwise, logistics covers all levels of business process information support, including support for the operational properties of computer systems, on the basis of which workflow management is built.

Verbatim workflow stands for “workflow” and is defined as “a technology for computerized support or automation of business processes in whole or in part”. The basic principle of technology is to ensure the performance of functions by specific employees at the right time.

technology issues workflow an international organization Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) -- www.wfmc.org). In ee standard workflow- the system is described as “a system that completely defines, manages and ensures the execution of business processes in the form of “workflows” using various software tools(PS) in accordance with certain procedural rules.” The purpose of such systems is to automate processes involving combinations of operations performed by a person, especially those in which he interacts with IT tools.

Thus the system workflow automates a process, not a function. The emergence of the system and PS workflow is the reaction of the IT market to the introduction of new principles in enterprise management and the migration of the management system from function-oriented to process orientation. Virtually all previous solutions have been able to quite effectively automate individual operations and functions, rather than a process (for example, a sales function that is part of the customer service process). Compared to them, the system workflow provides the following real benefits:

for the organization: control over the performance of information tasks is strengthened, confidentiality is increased and access control is tightened;

for client: the quality of service improves, its efficiency increases, access to company representatives is simplified;

for staff: each worker sees the list of functions and can organize his work accordingly, which results in flexibility in work, speed of execution and a high degree of comfort;

for guidance: workflow allows decisions to be made at the right moment and provides sufficient information so that management can effectively intervene in the process; workflow enables managers to act faster and more competently, providing constant access to information about the status of each order, and the monitoring system allows you to keep the situation under control and make this function more efficient;

for analyst: automation of procedures based on workflow provides him with all the necessary statistics and information for analysis.

Implementation workflow is one of the most effective ways to reorganize and improve business activities based on the application of information logistics methods. At present, there is a positive experience with the use of technology workflow for industrial automation. At the same time, class software workflow provides a container of data and documents for each unit of work and automatically routes the movement of such containers according to business rules to the users or “roles” specified in the Overview process definition workflow //http://www.kit.ru/website/DWC_lotus.Nsf. This especially well reflects the technology of processing the initial information when creating information products.

Workflow management begins with building a business process model. The most commonly used family of methodologies IDEF Mark D. A., McGowan K." SADT- methodology of structural analysis and design". M.: Metatechnology, 1993 p. graphic notation, which visually determines the interaction of business process participants with information resources. Workflow management systems in many cases include visual tools for building process models. At the same time, standards for internal notation workflow- the system does not exist - the main primitives are usually a certain "block" as the execution of some function by the performer, and a line with an arrow as a condition for the transition from one block to another. Analyst working in workflow-system, similarly models a business process.

An example workflow-system is a comprehensive system for managing workflows and organizing confidential document management OPTIMA Workflow, which is designed to manage the processes of creating, processing, replicating, storing documents and other information objects, as well as to organize and automate the execution of basic office work procedures. The use of the system provides the organization as a whole with the achievement of a new quality in solving such issues as:

creation of a fully functional system for monitoring the execution of instructions with a single repository of documents and its optimal systematization;

formalization technological processes formation, approval and processing of documents, the relevance and reliability of their distribution schemes;

improvement of control over the implementation of the processes of formation and processing of documents, regulation and management of the document management system;

increasing the degree of security of data involved in document flow, ensuring their confidentiality through the use of FAPSI-certified systems digital signature and encryption;

independence of work on documents from the personal qualities of the staff due to the automatic execution of most formal actions;

the possibility of adapting accounting and analytical systems in the organization to the processes of movement of documents along their technological routes;

the possibility of obtaining statistical and analytical reports characterizing various aspects of the activities of performers and the results of work on processing documents.

Competition among service providers transportation, is growing year by year. but competent work with transport logistics is needed not only by carrier companies. Any company that needs to regularly transport something (for example, an online store) faces the difficulties of planning work and financial accounting, and hence the difficulties of document management. In other words, if the company's logistics process is not optimized, it suffers losses.

The most common logistics problems are easy to list:

Irrational use Vehicle. Empty mileage and downtime of vehicles is a common problem in companies with their own vehicle fleet.
Difficulties and losses in communications. As a rule, without automation, the dispatch department is overloaded, and even then it can be difficult to satisfy all incoming requests. If the information is not stored centrally, in one system, the operator has to perform a lot of extra steps to receive it and transfer it further.
Negative influence human factor. Entering and transferring data manually takes time and generates errors. Also, if the processes are not automated, the company has to resort to intuitive decisions and manual calculations - usually inaccurate.

All this inevitably leads to a decrease in productivity, and hence - turnover and income. What is the way out here? Of course, automation. Proper implementation of specialized products allows you to solve all these problems and "tame" logistics schemes of any complexity.

What are the benefits of transport logistics automation?

First of all, the automation of the logistics system makes the movement of all your goods and vehicles transparent and predictable. This is possible thanks to the fine tuning of business processes and workflow, accurate accounting, tax and management accounting at the automated facility. This is the most valuable and, perhaps, the most expected result, but behind its predictability there are hours of studying the specifics of the client's business and processing suitable software solutions in such a way that they correspond to these specifics. It is impossible to find two completely identical businesses, and therefore there are no two completely identical implementations. We understand how important it is to work with the problems of each client individually, and this gives tangible results.

Here is what else our customers got after logistics automation:

We were able to save. Automation improves communication between different services and departments - this is especially noticeable in large companies with a large staff and an impressive structure. About improvement economic indicators Many of our clients say that automation is the key to automation - WETT Group, Arzamassky Khleb CJSC, Schenker logistics holding, Nizhny Novgorod Vodokanal.
They work faster. Well-coordinated work allows you to reduce the time for one operation. This leads to greater productivity - and hence to more bandwidth your company or division.
Use material resources more efficiently. This advantage is felt most strongly by enterprises with their own vehicle fleet: after automation, customers can monitor fuel consumption and vehicle use (for example, determine the degree of wear and quickly select vehicles in need of repair).
Introduced KPI for employees. The Schenker logistics holding began to evaluate the effectiveness of its employees based on IT system data. This is a great idea, because the indicators in a single system allow you to assess the real picture of performance. So you can not only figure out the idlers, but also encourage modest productive workers.

In many areas of business, the need to be faster and more accurate than competitors is no longer a goal to strive for for the sake of a comfortable existence, but a guarantee of maintaining market positions. This is why automating the logistics system is a critical step in maintaining the competitiveness of any transportation company (even within the organization itself).

For high-quality automation, which will really solve the company's problems and bring economic benefits, it is very important not only to select the right products, but also to correctly implement them. Very often, the specifics of the work of the enterprise dictates requirements that simply cannot be met by mass products “out of the box”. That is why it is worth ordering automation only from experienced practitioners who know how to adapt the product to meet the specific needs of your business.

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The logistics system of the enterprise includes a whole list of commodity distribution functions. The problem is that functions often run in isolation. For example, when planning production, the constraints of purchasing and marketing activities. As a result, the unaccounted procurement factor entails production failures and end-user receives the goods with a delay and / or not in full.

Proven approach to problem solving in logistics

System solution for effective management logistics is the transition from the management of commodity distribution functions to within unified system enterprise logistics management. Designing and automating end-to-end business processes in logistics is a necessary condition for business development in a rapidly growing production environment and a high pace of technological change. Business process reengineering in logistics provides:

a significant reduction in stocks of products in supply, production and marketing
distribution cost reduction
turnover acceleration working capital
improving quality and customer satisfaction

To achieve these goals, the business processes of the logistics department must be designed as end-to-end and cross-functional and automate them.

More about end-to-end and cross-functional processes in logistics

End-to-end business processes are called "from and to" - from the very beginning to the very end, for example, from the client's request to shipment, payment and a control call of the sales manager in order to get feedback from the client and make sure that he has no complaints (or accept the claim and start working on it).

End-to-end business processes, as a rule, are cross-functional, i.e. go beyond one structural unit. Key elements methodologies for managing end-to-end “from and to” business processes:

the result of the process is linked to the goals of the company and is of value to the client (customer orientation)
the process has an owner from among the company's management, who is responsible for its optimality and has at its disposal the necessary resources and power levers
the process manager is responsible for passing process instances—specific customer requests, delivery orders, and so on.
process management is based on measurable indicators

Highlighting end-to-end processes provides management with an understanding of the company's work as a system, helps staff see the processes as a whole and understand their own role in meeting customer needs, improve employee interaction and achieve a synergistic effect.

When the end-to-end business processes of the company are determined, you can proceed to logistics. IN modern world optimization implies automation - without computers it is impossible to achieve the required level of labor productivity, performance discipline, quality of service, objective and reliable reporting and real-time monitoring necessary for making accurate management decisions.

Logistics business process automation in action

For organizations that have taken a course towards automating logistics business processes and implementing end-to-end business processes, we are pleased to offer. The solution based on the Comindware Business Application Platform automates the entire process of cargo delivery, from receipt of a delivery request to the receipt of cargo at the customer's warehouse, and also helps to route requests between departments as part of end-to-end business processes.

Elena Gaidukova, marketing analyst, brand manager of solutions based on , partner relations specialist.

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