Abstract:Warehousing is an important part of the national economy and the core link of modern logistics. With the economic and social development of the mainland, the warehousing industry will continue to maintain a steady growth trend. From the perspective of the warehousing index, China's warehousing index will basically remain at about 50% in 2023, and the China's warehousing index will be 51.2% in January 2024, down 0.4 percentage points from the previous month, mainly because of the impact of the approaching Spring Festival, the overall demand for warehousing in downstream industries has declined, and business activities have slowed down significantly. However, on the whole, the warehousing index in January 2024 will remain in the expansion range, indicating that the warehousing industry as a whole has maintained a good operating momentum and achieved a stable start.
1. Definitions and Classification
Warehousing is the storage and custody of goods and items through warehouses. Warehousing is a comprehensive place that reflects the material activities of the factory, and is a transfer station connecting production, supply and sales, which plays an important auxiliary role in promoting production and improving efficiency. At present, warehousing is mainly divided into special warehousing, general warehousing, and dangerous goods warehousing.
Second, industry policies
1. Competent authorities and regulatory system
The competent departments of warehousing mainly include the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, etc. The National Development and Reform Commission is mainly responsible for formulating industrial policies, putting forward medium and long-term industrial development plans and guiding opinions, and fulfilling macroeconomic regulation and control. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is mainly responsible for formulating and organizing the implementation of industry technical specifications and standards, guiding the quality management of the industry, organizing and coordinating the promotion and application of relevant major demonstration projects and new products, new technologies, new equipment and new materials. The Ministry of Science and Technology is mainly responsible for formulating plans and guidelines, policies, and laws and regulations for the development of science and technology, coordinating research on common technologies, and organizing program demonstration, comprehensive balance, evaluation, and acceptance in the implementation of major science and technology projects in conjunction with relevant departments.
The self-regulatory organization of the industry is the China Warehousing and Distribution Association, the association takes "based on warehousing, improving services, grasping the key points, and building a brand" as its working policy, focusing on the construction of various warehousing facilities, the development of various distribution centers, warehousing and distribution services and technological innovation, etc. to create an information and statistical platform (collecting industry information, carrying out enterprise surveys and statistics), a policy and regulation research platform (participating in the drafting of warehousing industry management measures, guidance and other industry normative documents and special work guidelines), a standardization platform (organizing the preparation of national, Industry and group standards), resource sharing and business cooperation platform (to create a comprehensive or professional Internet platform for the warehousing industry), training and consulting platform (to provide internal training, consulting, feasibility study and other services), conference exchange platform (to provide members and industry communication, display and interactive services) six platforms.
2. Industry-related policies
In order to promote the development of the warehousing industry, the mainland has issued a series of industry policies, such as the "14th Five-Year Plan" for the Development of Modern Logistics released in December 2022, which proposes that new technologies such as mobile Internet, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things are widely used in the logistics field, and new models and new formats of "Internet +" efficient logistics such as online freight, digital warehouse, and contactless distribution continue to emerge. In the Action Plan for Further Promoting the Construction of New Infrastructure in Shanghai (2023-2026) released in September 2023, it is proposed to support the construction of a number of domestic first-class smart warehousing facilities in the fields of cross-border e-commerce, pharmaceutical cold chain, commercial circulation, and manufacturing, and promote the integrated application of automated, unmanned, and intelligent logistics technology and equipment, as well as intelligent management technologies such as automatic perception, automatic control, and intelligent decision-making. With the continuous release of policies, the mainland warehousing industry will continue to develop in the direction of intelligence.
Third, the development process
From the perspective of development history, the development process of China's warehousing industry can be divided into four stages: manual warehousing, mechanized warehousing, automated warehousing and intelligent warehousing. From 1950 to 1970, the transportation, storage, management and control of materials were mainly realized by manual labor, and the industry entered the stage of manual warehousing. From 1970 to 1980, the industry entered the stage of mechanized warehousing by replacing labor with mechanized equipment such as conveyor cars, stackers, and elevators. From 1980 to 2015, the automated warehousing stage began, and the industry integrated a large number of technologies to reduce manual operations and improve efficiency through the application of automatic equipment (such as automatic shelves, automatic three-dimensional warehouses, automatic identification, automatic sorting and various AGV robots). Since 2015, the industry has entered the stage of intelligent warehousing, and the application of science and technology at this stage is the highest, with a high degree of integration of various new generation Internet technologies, automatic sorting technologies, light guide technologies, radio frequency identification technologies, and voice-controlled technologies to form an intelligent whole for effective planning, execution and control of warehousing.
Fourth, industry barriers
1. Financial barriers
The warehousing industry requires a large initial investment, including building warehouses, purchasing equipment, recruiting personnel, etc. For new entrants, these investment costs are high and require a certain amount of financial strength. In addition, with the continuous upgrading of the warehousing industry, the market demand for advanced equipment such as automated three-dimensional warehouses and logistics information processing systems is increasing, and a team of high-quality professionals is also needed, which is based on a strong supply of funds, so that new enterprises face high financial strength barriers.
2. Comprehensive service capacity barriers
With the increase and deepening of the demand for warehousing in mainland China, commercial enterprises have shown a trend of diversification, integration and integration of warehousing services. Enterprises that only provide a single warehousing service can not meet the needs of the gradually developing social logistics, and only enterprises with diversified, integrated and integrated service capabilities can have core competitiveness and gain market share in the increasingly competitive industry. Therefore, with the development of the modern warehousing industry, new entrants will face high barriers to comprehensive service capabilities.
3. Talent barriers
The development of modern warehousing industry relies on advanced information technology, automation equipment and intelligent management systems, and the application of these technologies puts forward higher requirements for the comprehensive quality of employees. High-level compound talents are essential for the development of the modern warehousing industry. Not only are they able to understand and apply advanced technologies, but they are also able to integrate these technologies into warehouse management to improve warehouse efficiency and reduce costs. At present, the leading enterprises in the industry have accumulated certain advantages with years of experience in talent training, and it is difficult for new entrants to cultivate high-quality talents in a short period of time, so they face high talent barriers.
Fifth, the industrial chain
1. Analysis of the industry chain
From the perspective of the industrial chain of the warehousing industry, the upstream mainly includes hardware equipment suppliers and software service providers, hardware equipment suppliers include shelves, forklifts, sorting machines, etc., software service providers include warehouse management system (WMS), warehouse control system (WCS), etc., the midstream refers to the warehousing industry, and the downstream refers to the application fields, including real estate, e-commerce, automobiles, retail, medicine, etc.
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