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Файл:TOPICAL ISSUES OF LOGISTICS. Учебное пособие для студентов-магистров направления «Экономика»
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Task 1. Answer the questions
1. Why does customer service also have to be upgraded?
2. How does a network generally change during a
company’s lifetime?
3. How is consolidation of market position of a company
achieved?
4. What objective is dominant both when the business is
going well and when there is a “crisis looming?
5. What do the nodes of a distribution network include?
6. What are the types of retail stores?
7. What is the difference between traditional retail stores
or service providers and a consumer cooperative?
Task 2. Give terms according to the definitions
1. …......is a large building that stores bulk quantities of
product or ecommerce inventory
2. ……… name is popularly used for private and family-
owned businesses
3. …….. sell all products at a good discount which attracts
the customers.
4. With ………, the large load is broken down into smaller
batches to make it easier and quicker to transport to
customers.
5. …….. have a lot of products under their roof.
6. ………. exists to deliver goods or services rather than to
maximize profit from selling those goods or services.
7. ……… accumulates orders from several employees and
user groups within the same organization over a defined
time period – the more orders, the lower the unit price
all buyers in the group pay for their portion of the order.
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Task 3.
Grammar Revision Find the sentences with for-phrases and
translate them into Russian
Unit 4. Blockchain in Logistics
For centuries, businesses and in some cases entire
industries have been built on the simple principle of trust
between multiple parties. However, this business of trust is
about to be disrupted and transformed with the advent of
blockchain technology.
Blockchain can be defined as a distributed ledger
technology that can record transactions between parties in a
secure and permanent way. By ‘sharing’ databases between
multiple parties, blockchain essentially removes the need for
intermediaries who were previously required to act as trusted
third parties to verify, record and coordinate transactions. By
facilitating the move from a centralized to a decentralized and
distributed system), blockchain effectively liberates data that
was previously kept in safeguarded silos.
Global supply chains are highly complex, with diverse
stakeholders, varying interests, and many third-party
intermediaries – challenges that blockchain is well suited to
address. In the logistics industry, blockchain can be harnessed
in two key ways, namely, to drive efficiency and enable new
business models:
Drive efficiency: Blockchain can potentially improve
efficiency in global trade by greatly reducing bureaucracy and
paperwork. For example, a multi-stakeholder process with a
lengthy paper trail could be replaced with an automated process
storing information in a tamper-evident digital format.
Enable new business models: Micro payments, digital
identities, certificates, tamper-proof documents and much more
can be introduced and radically improved using blockchain-
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based services. For example, driver training organizations
could replace easy-to-fake paper-based certificates with
tamper-proof digital versions that can then lead to new identityrelated services. Just as the Internet began a revolution of
communication, blockchain technology could disrupt current
business practices and models.
The transformative power of blockchain comes through
the unique combination of its differentiating features and
characteristics. Below is a summary of the four key features –
these are data transparency, security, asset management and
smart contracts. 1. Data transparency – Blockchain
technology includes mechanisms to ensure stored records are
accurate, tamper-evident, and from a verifiable source. Thus,
instead of multiple parties maintaining (and altering) copies of
their own dataset, now every stakeholder receives controlled
access to a shared dataset creating a single source of truth. This
gives confidence to everyone working with this data that they're
using the most recent, accurate, and reliable dataset. 2. Security
– Traditional ledgers typically provide a blanket layer of
security which, once breached, allows access to all stored data.
In a blockchain-based system, the security mechanisms make
sure that individual transactions and messages are
cryptographically signed. 3 This ensures essential security and
effective risk management to tackle today’s high risks of
hacking, data manipulation, and data compromise. 3. Asset
management – Blockchain technology can be used to manage
the ownership of digital assets and facilitate asset transfers. For
example, it can be used to track the ownership of titles (e.g.,
land titles and diamond certificates) and rights (e.g., copyright
and mineral rights). It can also be used to manage the digital
twin of a physical object in the real world. 4. Smart contracts
– Manual processes that are normally guided by legal contracts
can be automated with a type of self-executing computer
program called a smart contract. A smart contract is a
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component of a blockchain-based system that can automatically
enforce stakeholder-agreed rules and process steps. Once
launched, smart contracts are fully autonomous; when contract
conditions are met, pre-specified and agreed actions occur
automatically. These capabilities can be deployed across two
types of blockchain-based system: public permissionless
blockchains where anyone can participate (e.g., the bitcoin
network) and private permissioned blockchains where
participants must be safelisted.
Task 1. Answer the questions
1. What is blockchain?
2. How can blockchain be harnessed in logistics?
3. What are key features of blockchain?
4. How can blockchain improve efficiency in global
trade?
5. What mechanisms are included in blockchain data
transparency?
6. What new business models does blockchain enable?
7. What ensures security and effective risk management ?
Task 2. Fill in the gaps
1. By ‘sharing’ databases between multiple parties,
blockchain essentially removes the need for ……
2. Every stakeholder receives ……. to a shared dataset
creating a single source of truth.
3. In a blockchain-based system, the security mechanisms
make sure that individual transactions and messages
are …..
4. Blockchain technology can be used to manage the
ownership of ….. and facilitate asset ……
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5. Micro payments, ……., certificates, tamper-proof
documents and much more can be introduced and
radically improved using blockchain-based services.
6. A smart contract is a component of a blockchain-based
system that can automatically enforce …… rules and
process steps.
Task 3.
Grammar Revision: Find the sentences with modal words and
translate them into Russian
Unit 5. Five Technologies That Will Self-Orchestrate
the Supply Chain
From unmanned mobile robots in warehouses to drones
for online fulfilment, the current supply chain is undergoing a
major transformation. With the possibilities in artificial
intelligence, the future supply chain holds the promise of being
completely autonomous and self-orchestrated. A fleet of trucks
using a swarm algorithm could increase throughput in cargo
yards; a trusted peer-to-peer ledger on the blockchain
architecture could revolutionize the meaning of compliance in
the industry, and a host of wearables, mobile robots, as well as
machine learning approaches, could rapidly fasten the pace of
order fulfilment. Furthermore, IOT platforms for e-brokerage
could connect retailers to couriers and transporters with a single
click.
The supply chain of tomorrow will be leaner, faster and
most importantly, self-orchestrated. This unprecedented pace of
change will be driven by a few radical technologies that will be
cautiously adopted by industry participants over the next 15
years. Here is a view of the top five Frost & Sullivan has
identified from its comprehensive analysis on the Future of
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Logistics. While the study looks at three scenarios for the
industry—technology, business and market/industry, this post
will detail the research’s key findings on the technology-driven
2030 logistics scenarios.
Technology Scenario 1: Autonomous Fleet Brings
Greater Efficiency
Drones are definitely the poster child at the moment and
have stirred up a lot of conversation since Amazon announced
its plans to launch drones for last-mile deliveries. While this is
and will be an integral part of our view of the future, I would
like to focus on the other types of fleets within the industry that
could become completely autonomous. Before drones were
experimented with, the first “vehicles” to become autonomous
in the supply chain were actually forklifts. Man travel is among
the most unproductive, time-consuming tasks within a
warehouse; the new forklifts, called “vision-guided fully
autonomous mobile robots,” not only address this specific
issue, but also have the ability to process orders (pick and onboard for delivery) four times faster than a human.
There is a real possibility of fleets becoming totally
autonomous as well. Truck platooning and autonomous trucks
could be a reality by 2030. Semi-autonomous trucks will reach
a penetration rate of 5 percent by 2030. Rolls Royce has
announced plans to launch autonomous cargo ships (or as The
Economist called it, “Ghost Ships”) by 2030. While replacing
or aiding man was a critical criterion for autonomous
technology in material handling, for fleets, the value of
autonomy centers around fuel economy. Truck platooning, for
example, could mean saving as much as 20 percent on fuel
costs.
While fuel is still the most overbearing influence on the
assets and fleets of the industry, with all this autonomy and
technology, a new influence is emerging that could have a far-
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reaching impact on the supply chain— Big Data, well not only
Big Data, but “Good Data.”
Technology Scenario 2: Data Replaces Fuel as the
Biggest Influencer
With Big Data we are seeing the conversation shift from
estimating the volume of data, or Big Data, to the variety and
value of data. This is a useful conversation to have because an
unbelievable 90 percent of data sometimes captured is pure
spam. Amazon, for example, is building capabilities to cull out
that spam and create predictive analytics around your shopping
behaviour
Amazon wants to ship your products even before you
know you want it. In its current model, Amazon receives an
order and delivers the order through UPS or UPSS. It has been
trying hard to compete with brick and mortar stores to provide
instant gratification, the one thing it cannot provide right now.
All of its efforts with drones and robots have been focused on
cutting that delivery time and getting you what you want as
soon as you want it. Last year, Amazon said it is working on
drones that could make deliveries of small packages directly
from warehouses to homes.
Its current patent on “anticipatory shipping” exemplifies
a strategy where Amazon will send out deliveries to partial
street addresses or zip codes to get the products as close as
possible to the consumer and then in-transit complete the
address and route it to someone who has placed the order. This
might work well for new product launches such as the iPhone
7s. How many people have searched for the iPhone 7 recently
using the keyword “launch rumors"? Interest in the item is
shown even before any sort of buying decision. Anticipatory
shipping is coming; predictive models combined with new-age
fleets could lead to zero fulfilment time.
Another interesting prospect this creates is the possibility
of logistics becoming a data-centric industry where information
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takes precedence in logistics services’ value propositions over
the actual ability to move cargo.
Technology Scenario 3: New Breed of Technology
Players is Less Asset-Centric
To say the logistics industry is becoming non-asset based
or less-asset centric is a stretch because someone has to own
and operate the assets; however, what is interesting to see is the
rise of the new breed of logistics providers that own no
asset (fleet or warehouses), but are able to provide logistics
services by aggregating “information about assets” from people
who do own them through leveraging data. For example, Shyp
and Zipments are logistics companies that provide logisticsrelated services like offering freight quotes or trucking
capacity, but neither own assets and are therefore able to offer
more cost-competitive services at almost 50 percent less than
industry averages, because they don’t have the costs associated
with maintaining assets or dealing with the pressure to ensure
economies of scale.
This is indicative of an interesting future where your
typical logistics provider and vendor in the market will evolve
to a more consulting-driven approach and become more like
project managers, rather than actual movers of cargo, leading to
new models such as E-Brokerage.
Technology Scenario 4: E-Brokerage Platforms (Uber
of Trucks)
Growth in e-retailing, coupled with connectivity
technologies, will usher in new solutions for freight and
logistics firms. The proliferation of digitalization in trucking
will force traditional freight brokers to align their business
model toward mobile-based, freight brokerage-type solutions.
Mobile apps are critical to a seamless, on-the-move brokerage
system, also known as the “uberization of trucking.” In the
future, mobile-based freight brokers are expected to develop inhouse software solutions by creating potential synergic
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partnerships with traditional freight brokers, OEMs and
telematics providers to facilitate this change.
Imagine a scenario where a mobile app is incorporated to
match truck drivers to shipper needs on rates, routes, and
schedules. This is expected to automate a number of processes
pertaining to delivery status, dispatch, load-finding and driver
payment, apart from providing critical real-time information on
consignments right from pickup to delivery. With
approximately $20 billion lost in revenue from empty miles and
excess capacity issues, the payoffs arising from such business
models will result in minimizing operating costs by improving
asset utilization and fuel efficiency. The future will witness
online services, eliminating traditional freight brokerage firms
by offering more agile services in this space.
As new players emerge and the industry unbundles to
niche pockets, general operational hurdles of commerce and
trade could multiply. For a 150-year-old industry that has been
trading in “trust,” this herd of new players will cause new
compliance complications. The industry will look toward
smarter ways of doing business to avoid paperwork, such as the
use of blockchain, which is quickly emerging as a great tool for
driving quicker compliance.
Technology Scenario 5: Smart Commerce with
Blockchain
Just as the Internet has triggered the evolution from
client applications to web-based apps, cloud solutions and
SAAS, the peer-to-peer model of blockchain is exhibiting the
potential to generate new innovation channels on how
logistics applications can be developed and deployed. In that
sense, the blockchain technology could emerge as the new
operating system for supply chain networks that combines
B2B connectivity with software apps.
For instance, if you are the warehouse head responsible
for flow of goods, there could be occasions where suppliers
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fail to deliver goods intact or on time, leading to potential
time-consuming disputes and punitive legal recourse
measures. Blockchain technology will avoid such scenarios as
it would allow you to negotiate smart contacts with suppliers
that clearly define terms, conditions and the mode of
functioning between the two parties, while further mandating
the sensorization of all goods to generate critical information
on the state of goods and the time of delivery. A pre-condition
percentage fine is levied and the amount is withheld from the
final contacted price in case there is a delay in delivery if
goods are not found intact.
The blockchain implication is expected to have a wider
reach when compared to any other supplier management tools
given that it is expected to track details right from order
initiation at the customer level to shipment information,
resulting in creating more visibility within a supply chain not
seen before and further allowing all parties to access accurate
real-time information anywhere, anytime.
With the evolution of blockchain expanding its
applications to future supply chains, another prominent aspect
is the possibility of supply chain becoming more compliant,
transparent and having innovative payment processing that is
expected to create more traction in new types of services, such
as mobile freight brokerage systems.
The Future: Self-Orchestrated Supply Chain
These five technologies showcase that in today’s
dynamic world, intelligence-embedded supply chains offer a
competitive advantage. In this digital age where the mantra is
“transform or be redundant”, companies will leverage these
technologies to create a self-orchestrated supply chain and
previously unimaginable efficiencies. Some predictions we
could make on these gains are enumerated below. Imagine:
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