Yoshinoya: breakthrough from smooth logistics

For restaurant chains, in addition to superior taste, unique décor, excellent service, in order to break through in the fierce competition, the key also lies in a set of high-tech food and beverage information system to ensure that the flow of goods.

Yoshinoya, founded in 1899, has a history of more than 100 years, focusing on beef and rice, and actively developing and promoting other forms of food and beverage business, including a variety of operations, such as DQ's ice cream parlor. In addition, Yoshinoya is expanding its business to markets such as Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, New York, California, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia, and is actively engaging in global management.

As Yoshinoya envisions its future, it is also focused on the growth and advancement of the information systems that accompany it.

Increasingly Complex Distribution Business

The Logistics and Distribution Center is one of the core departments of Beijing Yoshinoya Fast Food Co. The logistics and distribution center is the core of the strategy of diversifying and establishing logistics centers for the entire group of companies. The distribution center owned by the company is one of the largest logistics distribution centers in China at present, with its own business area of more than 5,000 square meters, and more than two rented warehousing centers and low-temperature cold storage, many distribution vehicles, and many rented refrigerated vehicles. Daily distribution capacity of up to one million dollars, and has a specialized, high-quality logistics management team, responsible for the daily distribution of materials needed for nearly 100 stores.

The business type of the logistics distribution center is relatively complex, first of all, it is responsible for the company's own nearly 1,000 varieties of dry goods for logistics and distribution, the distribution in the Beijing region and the Gifu region of a number of brands of fast-food restaurant chains, cold drinks for daily distribution; secondly, it is responsible for a number of fast-food brands, cold drinks brand of fresh commodities processing and production management and product logistics and distribution; in addition to be responsible for the rented warehouse or refrigerated warehouse. In addition, it is also responsible for the management of leased warehouses or refrigerated warehouses and the allocation of goods, as well as the management of leased vehicles and line design and scheduling of the use.

With the rapid expansion of the number of stores and business scope, the logistics distribution center has begun to gradually transform from a single logistics distribution center into a hub, socialization and integration of logistics platform to provide a full range of logistics services for the company's stores. At the same time, the repositioning of the business model, the need for a sound logistics management system to maintain the smooth flow of corporate information and logistics. This requires companies to grasp the real and dynamic inventory status, rational allocation of capacity, warehouse, personnel and other resources, effective monitoring and feedback on the implementation of the order, effective statistics and management of stores goods demand information, timely grasp of the corresponding data to provide decision-making and analysis of statistical and analytical reports.

Deficiencies from three levels

Yoshinoya found a professional logistics and distribution information system development company - Beijing Fu Ji Chuanglian Company. 2004 July, Yoshinoya began planning, designing and establishing a complete set of modern technology means of logistics and distribution management information system.

Before planning, designing and implementing the logistics management information system for Yoshinoya's logistics and distribution center, the logistics management consulting experts from Fortune Group first worked with Yoshinoya to conduct an in-depth investigation and systematic analysis of the company's logistics and distribution center's organizational structure, business processes, internal management, and the main problems that existed at present. Research and analysis found that the company in the operational level, management and decision-making level there are a number of problems.

Problems at the operational level are mainly reflected in warehouse management and distribution scheduling. In the warehouse management, not only out of the warehouse, storage are only rely on manual operation, the workload is very large, but also due to the large variety of goods in stock, did not implement a unified bar code management, resulting in the exact location of the goods and goods can not be determined, so it can not be effective management of the warehouse area and warehouse position. In terms of distribution plan scheduling, due to the lack of good distribution scheduling control, the execution of operations is not effectively monitored and tracked, and due to the lack of management of transportation vehicles, it is not possible to accurately calculate the distribution costs.

Problems at the management level On the one hand, there is a lack of effective monitoring and feedback on order fulfillment, and on the other hand, there is a lack of effective statistics and management of real-time information about customers and goods in stores.

Problems at the decision-making level Because of the lack of timely understanding of the dynamic changes in the inventory situation, it is impossible to implement scientific and reasonable procurement, financial planning; lack of statistical and analytical reports of the corresponding data, which can not provide a reference basis for decision-making.

Unification of Purchasing-Production-Distribution

Based on the company's logistics and distribution business management needs, information system requirements, and future development strategy, Yoshinoya decided to adopt a set of procurement, logistics and distribution business needs and support the company's overall business development for the next period of time. The system was designed to help Yoshinoya complete the integration of its business and the optimization of its distribution processes.

The system design is based on Yoshinoya's procurement business and logistics and distribution business processes, with the aim of completing procurement and distribution work conveniently and efficiently, accurately preserving procurement and distribution data, and with the core of the distributed inventory management and monitoring system, transportation route design, and optimization of the distribution service system, and at the same time realizing the integration of corporate business activities and logistics systems through the logistics operation support system, contract supplier management, and the business intelligence analysis system. The integration of business activities and logistics system helps enterprises to carry out comprehensive dynamic monitoring of related logistics processes in the course of business, effectively improve the operational efficiency of procurement, logistics and distribution, while reducing production costs and achieving the harmonious unity of procurement, production and processing, and logistics and distribution.

In the main aspects of the overall implementation of the project, as the project provider of the company actively involved in the management of the consulting, including system setup, rights allocation, supplier management, contract management, commodity management, operation configuration, procurement management, acceptance management, distribution management, processing management, fresh management, warehouse management, cargo space settings, bar code settings, wireless devices, line design, cost sharing, loss handling, and so on. design, cost sharing, loss processing and cost accounting.

Segmentation of Business Centers

The Yoshinoya Logistics and Distribution Information Management System is logically divided into five business centers:

The Store Contact Center (Store Customer Department) realizes the functions of logistics and distribution staff to contact and interact with store customers. The company headquarters procurement can confirm the identity and service request through Web/VPN interactive services, through the management of suppliers and contract management, commodity management processing, timely generation of detailed purchase order requirements, transmitted to other sub-systems, to complete the various functions and respond to the request of the relevant departments. Every day from the store to receive the material order by e-mail and inspection of the import, generate the store needs the delivery order, improve the efficiency of the store operations and production costs.

The Processing and Distribution Center (Processing Management Department and Transportation Management Department) issues processing and production tasks according to the goods required by each store every day, allocates the distribution plan to each distribution department, and generates store distribution orders and distribution route summary sheets according to the store's receiving order, combines its own transportation and distribution capabilities with those of external companies to provide effective logistics services, and provides a delivery service platform. Through real-time service tracking of the entire logistics and distribution task operation process, it improves the service quality and customer satisfaction of the entire distribution process.

Warehousing and logistics center (Logistics Management Department and Warehouse Management Department) logistics information system is a multi-level management system, respectively, from the level of the organizational structure, categories, management of the regional operating parameters, operating configuration, different library categories of goods area, cargo space, inventory in and out of the batch, a single piece and a single product, etc., from different perspectives to reflect the number of items, inventory costs and capital consumption, so as to help warehouse This helps the warehouse management to carry out comprehensive control and management of the inventory of goods in storage, out of storage, redeployment of movement and inventory counting, cost accounting, report analysis and other operations, in order to reduce the inventory, reduce the use of funds, and eliminate the phenomenon of material backlogs and shortages.

Marketing Management Center (Headquarters Purchasing Department) Headquarters Purchasing Management is the core control of the entire system where the data of the company's various departments are aggregated and used to control and monitor other parts. According to the company's operation department store development plan and the store's weekly and monthly $1,000 usage, with reference to 1.5 times the safety stock and 0.5 minimum inventory coefficients, to establish effective inventory management. At the same time, the establishment of the market store development preparation plan, financial management, analysis of reports, performance appraisal management and other auxiliary decision-making support.

Information Management Center (Headquarters Information Department) As the management of the entire system, for the normal maintenance of the system, the use of play a key role in ensuring that the system from the overall parameter settings, rights allocation, organizational structure settings, operating configuration, data backup and recovery, virtual network management, to specific business operations, to do the system's multi-faceted support and maintenance, to ensure that the system normal operation and business information flow. The system can support and maintain various aspects of the system to ensure the normal operation of the system and the smooth flow of information of the business.

Supporting the needs of suppliers and stores

After a period of operation, Yoshinoya's logistics and distribution system can conveniently receive orders and deliveries from suppliers and replenishment and distribution of stores, carry out various business processes in a timely manner, support the development needs of multiple stores, and at the same time, establish a complete warehousing management and transportation management functions to ensure timely response to stores and monitor order execution. At the same time, it establishes complete warehouse management and transportation management functions to ensure timely response to store demand, monitor order execution, and efficiently complete distribution operations.

According to the system design of the organizational structure, management area, library, library area, storage space, category and code, to achieve the goods out of the warehouse, storage, transfer, move the warehouse and other data statistics, supervision and control of the management of goods inventory, sorting, packaging and processing of the production process.

According to the store's request, divided into morning, afternoon, evening three time periods, select the optimal scheduling and distribution methods, can develop a reasonable line design scheduling and store sub-order, distribution line summary plan, reduce human error, improve the efficiency of distribution scheduling.

Through the establishment of supplier management, contract management, goods management, with the order as the main line of work, based on the operating plan, the amount of thousands of requests and the actual supply cycle, 1.5 times the safety stock or 0.5 minimum inventory factor, you can choose the optimal scheduling method of ordering plan, to formulate a reasonable order plan. Automatic replenishment as well as perpetual orders to improve the efficiency of purchase orders, reduce human error and improve the inventory turnover of goods.

Transparent supplier partnership management can ensure the lasting development of the partnership, according to the demand for effective response and implementation of the supplier to improve the quality of customer service, reduce the workload of customer service personnel, customer service to achieve "one vote in the end". In addition, the use of effective data and information from supplier relationship management can assist market developers in analyzing customer needs, discovering more valuable customers, and providing assistance for the company's customer orientation and market expansion.

The entire business process of orders, vehicles, and goods are under full business control, and each business link is monitored for delays and errors to ensure the correct and timely execution of customer orders and the smoothness of the entire business process.

According to the formulation design of the processed products, the processing task order is issued according to the collaterals demand of the stores, the collaterals are processed, the materials are returned and the processing cost is calculated after the completion of the process, and the completion of the processing task is supervised. The application of wireless network, bar code and other data collection technology, making the site data acquisition accurate, timely, and can adapt to the logistics of a large number of and high-speed requirements.

Through the management of vehicles and personnel, the company utilizes its own transportation resources and external transportation resources to achieve reasonable distribution of operations, improve personnel efficiency and reduce operating costs.

It is also more accurate in costing, which can realize costing by customers, goods, orders, and other types of costing, analyze the composition of logistics costs, and provide a basis for decision-making to realize open-source and cut costs. In addition, the automatic statistics on related data, generate all kinds of statistical reports, to provide a basis for decision makers.

Yoshinoya's logistics and distribution system is a good implementation of the effect is also reflected in:

Make full use of resources In logistics management, the greatest cost variability is inventory, so the management of inventory in logistics management and even the entire supply chain is an important link. This system adopts the design of dynamic inventory management, so that managers can understand and control all aspects of inventory business and data in a timely manner, and multi-level management system, can reflect the inventory of items from a variety of perspectives.

Reasonable deployment of capital turnover Capital turnover plays a very important role in the operation of the enterprise. The use of logistics management systems, managers and manufacturers and their agents can understand the corresponding inventory statistics, but also able to monitor the implementation of each order, according to the latest market dynamics and timely deployment of funds to run, the development of store development plans.

Improving customer service In the process of providing services to store customers, the purchasing and distribution departments work closely together to reassure store customers of the quality, safety, accuracy, and timeliness of items. Considering the practical needs of the purchasing department, Yoshinoya's purchasing department provides a dedicated window, special privileges and passwords so that customers can monitor the process of order fulfillment and delivery of goods in an online manner at headquarters, as well as checking the status of previous orders

Saving Logistics and Distribution Costs Among the operating costs of a logistics company, the cost of contacting and exchanging information with the customer is also not negligible. Traditional means of communication such as fax, telephone, long-distance communication costs are very high, this logistics management system uses Web mail and VPN network technology, not only saves the time of the order running, but also avoids a variety of errors that are prone to manual operation, improves the level of management, but also reduces the cost of expenditure.

Find the most suitable for their

KFC and McDonald's in the domestic foreign fast food market for each other as competitors, reduce costs has been the focus of competition between the two sides. 2004 October, KFC's parent company Yum Brands, Asia's largest logistics distribution center settled in Beijing. The Beijing distribution center covers an area of 15,500 square meters and will provide logistics support for more than 250 KFC restaurants in Beijing, Tianjin and North China. The center will distribute products ranging from cooking utensils to chicken wings, fresh vegetables, cooking oil, paper cups, straws, etc. The center will deliver to each KFC restaurant three times a week. This move saves KFC at least 10% of the cost, and at the same time can not be subject to third-party logistics companies, can be based on market changes to respond quickly.

Xia Hui is McDonald's global logistics service provider, from 1974 in Chicago, the United States began to cooperate so far, the two sides have had nearly 30 years of friendship. Like the phenomenon of "*** birth" in nature, if McDonald's is compared to a shark, Xia Hui is with it *** birth of the fish, the two sides live in harmony, each take what they need. McDonald's go where, Xia Hui will follow to where, McDonald's to fight the world, Xia Hui also have logistics business to do. At the same time, because of Xia Hui's help, McDonald's has been able to realize the development in the world. Whether it is McDonald's third-party logistics, KFC with 12 distribution centers and six secondary operations center in the country to build their own logistics network, or Beijing Yoshinoya Fast Food Co., Ltd. set up a logistics and distribution center, how to find the most suitable way is the key to the problem.

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Related: Chinese fast food discussion

A Chinese fast food development outlook

Chinese fast food is a piece of the sunrise industry has not been paid enough attention to: China's food and beverage products are colorful; low-fat, low calorie, healthy and tasty, with a reasonable, nutritious; Balance human health with the principle of mutual growth and development of all things in heaven and earth.

The 5,000-year history of Chinese food culture is an important and inseparable part of Chinese civilization, and there are 8 major cuisines, 56 nationalities, and uncountable dietary genres in China, which provides a deep and broad resource for the development of Chinese fast food.

Two, China's fast food industry analysis and the key breakthrough point of Chinese fast food

In 2004, the national catering industry retail sales of 748.6 billion yuan people's money. Fast food accounted for about 180 billion yuan,

numbered that China has a fast food industry development of a huge potential market.

But the Chinese fast food so far there is no one like KFC, McDonald's as a successful brand.

Fast food requirements: fast, delicious, safe and healthy.

The biggest Achilles' heel of Chinese fast food is that it is not "fast" (it can't leave the bowl and can't go out of the store); secondly, it is unhygienic (unsafe);

The selection of Chinese fast food products and the transformation of processing technology are the bottlenecks of the development of Chinese fast food. The short life of Chinese fast food is usually low technology content, the lack of "inimitable or difficult to imitate" core competitiveness.

Fast food is a product of industry, standardization throughout: standardization of product ingredients for food production, production and production process of standard procedures, the quality of products produced Lei consistent. If the damage problem (conversion technology) is solved, to copy the model for the root of the characteristics of the chain has the possibility of scale expansion, there is every reason to believe that Chinese fast food will be more advantageous than Western fast food.

Capital and business management is also the weakness of the development of Chinese fast food:

Three, based on the long term, positive and steady to seize the development opportunities given by history:

To develop, but not a "great leap forward", the fast food industry development more than a curve upward (or accelerated upward), rather than a straight line up!

KFC China's first store opened on November 12, 1987 in Beijing Qianmen, to the end of 1997, 10 years in China opened 100 stores; and accelerated development in recent years, to January 2005 has accumulated more than 1,200 stores.

KFC was created by Colonel Sanders in 1939, and it was not until 1950 that it came out of the state of Kentucky, and it took another ten years before it spread throughout the United States. (McDonald's also developed Lei after Crocker bought the McDonald brothers' fast-food restaurants in 1955.)

Their success has given us a useful revelation: the characteristics and trends of the fast-food chain industry's "rapid development" are likely to "leave the back behind forever," and "the first can easily become the first forever. "KFC, McDonald's and Burger King are still famous today.

Recognized from the stage of development, Chinese fast food is still in its infancy. To become China's KFC, McDonald's, depends on whether you can seize the opportunity to actively and steadily build, timely development.

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Book Recommendation:

The Economics of Yoshinoya

Author: Shuren Abe/Motooshige Ito Publisher: China Economic Press

Publication Date: 2004-7-1 ISBN: 750176258

Brief Introduction:

This book is based on the book "The National Fast Food", which can be called the "National Fast Food" in Japan. Based on Yoshinoya fast food brand, which is called the "national fast food" of Japan, this book takes the famous economic reporter Motooshige Ito and Yoshinoya's President Shuren Abe as the material, and discusses the microeconomic topics that ordinary people are concerned about with great passion, which is very affordable and enlightening for the operators of the catering, retailing, and other service industries. The book details the historical evolution of Yoshinoya, a 77-year-old chain of 800 stores, from boom to bust and vice versa, through the words of Yoshinoya's president, Shuren Abe. It describes the advantages of chain management as well as the risks of both prosperity and loss, and the store's ...