An Integrated Inventory And Transportation Study Under The Supply Chain Management Of Enterprise X

Facing the challenges of globalization and the intense competition among enterprises, Supply Chain Management(SCM) has become more and more popular. It plays an important role in the development of enterprises and the competition among enterprises has been gradually replaced by the competition among supply chains.Some large steel companies abroad have put SCM into practice since 1990s and achieved great success. ArcelorMittal, as the world's leading iron-steel company, has a complex supply chain with more than 6000 suppliers and contractors. On the basis of 'All-win in cooperation', they work hard together so as to improve the efficiency and satisfy the customers'needs better. As a result of its comprehensive operation mode, it manages to obtain the market all over the world. SCM has now become the key advantage of Chinese iron-steel companies as the combination of the whole iron-steel industry. After she entered WTO, China accelerated its step of internationalization. In this way, Chinese iron-steel companies face more competition, not only from home but also from abroad. Additionally, the price of iron-steel and the raw materials fluctuate a lot. In consequence, it seems particularly significant to build a high-efficiency supply chain characterized by less intermediate procedures and close cooperation with the partners up and down as to improving the competitive power.Enterprise X, the largest iron-steel company in west China, locates near large-scale mines and has the advantages of obtaining raw materials. On the contrary, raw materials and steel products are transported by railway, which leads to higher transportation cost comparing with those that transport the products by water. In addition, the development of railway fails to satisfy the needs of its production, which gives birth to the shortage of raw materials. Consequently, products cannot be delivered on time, which has a bad effect on the enterprise image.An overall research has been done on the logistics transportation system in order to solve the problems mentioned above. An integrated inventory and transportation model has been built with the object of optimizing the logistics net as well as minimizing the total operation cost in the supply-chain system.First of all, the strategy of inventory and transportation has been presented and the importance of integrated inventory and transportation study has been discussed.Secondly, the necessity and feasibility of implementing SCM has been explained as well as the challenges ahead. Besides, some advice is proposed basing on the actual management of inventory and transportation. At last, an integrated inventory and transportation model is set up after the layout of finished goods depots is optimized. Some calculations have been done by means of the model, using the data of Enterprise X.