The author is Cai Jin, vice president of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing

Judging from the trend of China's logistics development in 2018, there are several aspects that should be worthy of grasping:

First, the development of China's logistics industry still maintains a stable and moderate development trend.

According to the statistics of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, in the first three quarters of this year (January-September), the total social logistics volume was 204.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.7%. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s GDP grew by 6.5% year-on-year in the third quarter of this year, and GDP grew by 6.7% in the first three quarters of 2018.

That is to say, in 2018, China's logistics industry development and GDP development are synchronized, and from the situation in the third quarter alone, it is slightly higher than GDP growth. From the perspective of the whole year, the individual expects that the total growth of China's total social logistics in 2018 should remain above 6.5%.

From this perspective, China's logistics development is still in a relatively stable, healthy, moderate development state, and even a relatively fast growth rate. Moreover, the trend of China's logistics and the Chinese economy's simultaneous development, personally believe that the future will continue. Therefore, for the development of China's logistics, we must first grasp this growth trend.

Second, China's logistics has shown a very important development direction in 2018, namely innovation and development.

The core of the so-called "innovative development" is the innovation of logistics mode or logistics organization. This is the supply chain.

How is it different from the past logistics development? In general, the past logistics development is limited to the internal enterprise, whether it is resource optimization, process optimization, resource integration, organizational collaboration, etc., all within the enterprise, mainly for the internal procurement, production and sales of the company. To do logistics integration, process optimization, and the coordination of the entire production organization.

However, today, when it comes to the supply chain, the role of logistics has expanded beyond the enterprise. The core of logistics is the resource integration, process optimization and organizational synergy between enterprises and enterprises, industry and industry.

This change is evident in the development of China's logistics in 2018. That is to say, the organization is innovating, and in the middle of the process of innovation, logistics is a vital link in the supply chain between enterprises and enterprises, industries and industries. I believe that this is also a must to grasp in the future development of China's logistics innovation.

Third, in the context of supply chain innovation, the focus of China's logistics development has changed significantly.

In the past, we developed logistics, and our focus was on improving efficiency. However, in the context of supply chain innovation, logistics development or logistics operations are not only about improving efficiency, but more importantly, focusing on synergy and focusing on various logistics links. Collaboration, focusing on the synergy between production and organization between enterprises and enterprises through the synergy of various logistics links.

According to observations, many enterprises this year, especially those with better development and more advanced supply chain management, have made great efforts in organizing synergies.

As more and more companies begin to pay attention to collaboration, the situation becomes more common. This is a rare opportunity for the future development of the pallet industry, and it also poses a huge challenge. We must pay close attention to and pay attention to this change.

Fourth, the close integration of advanced technology and logistics organization, this situation became more common in 2018.

In the close integration, there are many new things that are very visual, such as "four nos" - drones, unmanned vehicles, unmanned warehouses, unmanned ports. This is only superficial. In fact, behind the integration of advanced logistics technology and advanced logistics methods, it reflects a subversive change in the business model and organization of logistics.

In the past, we talked about logistics, mainly focusing on efficiency, safety and stability. Nowadays, the requirements of social and economic development for logistics do not stop there. It also requires logistics to be more agile, more flexible, and customizable. These are hard to do without new technology integration.

It can be said that behind the integration of new technologies and logistics, it is the new requirements of logistics for the whole production organization and the development of the whole society. It is more agile, more flexible, more customizable and more valuable.

The above four aspects are all we need to grasp. For the development of China's logistics in 2018, it is summarized as one sentence: China's logistics is indeed moving towards high-quality development, and is moving towards high-end development. This is a trend that we can see and feel, and it provides tremendous opportunities for the pallet industry.

China's logistics industry, which is growing in tandem with GDP, deserves our attention. The market demand generated by growth, the pallet industry must also be well grasped. In fact, the bigger opportunity lies in the change of production organization, the continuous practice and improvement of the supply chain organization model, which involves how to use the pallet to optimize the handling process.

Professor Wu Qingyi has been actively promoting the development of unitized logistics, and the more developed unitized logistics, the more obvious the demand for pallets. For the development prospects of unitized logistics, full of expectations, but while China's logistics is moving towards high-end, high-quality development, the pallet industry should also think about it.

1 The first thought is how pallet companies and industries can adapt to innovation and practice in the supply chain.

Supply chain innovation and practice require pallets to flow constantly. According to my observation, in the Chinese market, the mobility of the pallets is not very good. More is that the pallets are lying in the warehouse and the warehouse doors cannot be found. In this case, the effect of the pallet on the supply chain is difficult to play. Therefore, with the development of the supply chain, the pallets have to go out of the warehouse door more and more, and to move to the terminal, they must move.

Then, when we move, we need to think about some issues. For example, our pallets are not only suitable for warehouses, but also for warehouses. In addition, pallets are also suitable for a variety of transportation modes, various logistics links and logistics operations derived from various modes of transportation. The tray should also be adapted.

At present, everyone is working hard to promote the construction of pallet industry standards. In my opinion, the so-called "standards" are not only standards such as pallet size, but more importantly, there is a complete pallet service standard system for supply chain services. It is also what we need to focus on and work hard at the moment.

2 The second thought is to dominate the market for pallets. Who is it? This is also worthy of serious consideration in the domestic and international pallet industry.

Judging from the situation in China, in the era of economic shortage in the past, it was mainly led by production, that is, the production enterprises of pallets to dominate the market and dominate the development and operation of the entire pallet industry.

In the environment of excess economy, it is theoretically dominated by the market, or called consumer-led. How many pallets to order, how big the pallets are, what kind of pallets to wait for, etc., are all dominated by consumers. In today's supply chain innovation practice, the market-led forces are also changing, and individuals believe that they are synergistic.

In the current pallet industry, it will be difficult if the production enterprises are still leading, because the production companies cannot afford the social responsibility and historical mission of supply chain innovation on the development of pallets. In the context of supply chain-based, it is only feasible to do collaborative coaching between suppliers and customers.

In the past, the pallet industry conference was mainly attended by manufacturers and sang a one-man show. Today, I am very happy to see that the situation is changing. There are many demand side representatives from the pallets, that is, more and more customer companies are involved in this field. However, in the middle of synergy, how to open the tray field, how to accommodate it, how to share it, we need to explore.

In general, the production-oriented closed pallet development model has not adapted to the development of the supply chain, and is not suitable for the development of modern logistics. China is so, and the whole world is like this.

For ourselves, how to build our conference platform into a platform for suppliers and customers to work together, an inclusive platform, an open platform, and a shared platform. This is also required by the China Logistics and Purchasing Association Pallet Professional Committee. A historical proposition that is solved.

3 The third consideration is how the operation mode of the pallet changes in the process of sharing a flexible and personalized supply chain and logistics system.

In fact, whether it is flexible or customized, the essence is that customers are not interested in the single function of the tray. Just as customers are no longer satisfied with the single transportation function of commercial vehicles, they need a package of services, pallets, commercial vehicles and so on are just one element of a package of services.

Such changes will cause subversive changes in the marketing model of the pallet companies. If the company just sells the pallet as a product, it will be difficult to have the desired benefits because the functionality provided is too singular. We must put the pallet in the whole service plan and use it as an element in the whole service to do marketing. Only then can the role of the tray be realized and the value of the pallet can be revealed.

From this perspective, we do need to think seriously about the development of the pallet industry, especially in the market model. If it is only sold directly in the market after the production of pallets, such a market model is likely to have a question mark in the future. Personally believe that the future will be the mode of "send products, sell services", and the current popular tray leasing is only a transitional model.

As a supplier in the pallet industry, whether it is the supplier of the pallet or the demand side, it is now necessary to start the collaborative work, and everyone is looking for a market model for pallet development. How to put the pallet in the supply chain service plan to maximize the value of the pallet is a direction that we must grasp in the future development of the pallet field.