The mainstream of EC (electronic commerce) is "cheap and fast". But the bottleneck lies in the logistics of handling 5 billion units. An executive of a major logistics company is talking about the predicament that it will not be possible to carry it as it is. Eliminating this bottleneck will give you an edge in this industry. The hint for solving this problem lies in the loading ratio. The loading rate of commercial trucks in Japan fell below 40% in FY2020. This means that we are transporting 40% of the load and 60% of the space. The reason for 60% of the wastage is to run even if there is empty space on the carrier to deliver quickly. If there is enough time in the delivery schedule, we can fill the empty space. Both the number of trucks required and the burden on drivers can be greatly reduced.
The trend of turning partial optimization into total optimization is progressing across industry boundaries. Sunstar and Kewpie are joint delivery. Since the volume of Sunstar is mainly a light toothbrush, they have used 60% of the limit value on a weight basis and used 80% of the volume of the carrier. In this case, the loading rate of commercial trucks is about 40%, and the loading capacity is not fully utilized. By loading Kewpie's seasonings together, they were able to utilize 90% of the weight on a weight basis. An increasing number of companies are making joint deliveries in order to secure loading capacity. They have achieved two birds with one stone: management efficiency and carbon-free.
Businesses hate waste. Waste is a concept that cannot be determined by defining three things: "purpose", "period" and "position". An example of this can be seen in ants carrying food. About 30% of ants skip feeding when they go back and forth between the feeding area and the nest. It is clear that feeding is more efficient if everyone makes a serious trip between the feeding area and the nest. For the purpose of transporting food from the feeding grounds, the movement of lingering ants is criticized as wasteful. But from a certain point of view, the slacking ant's wandering is never wasted. While wandering around, they seek out shorter routes between feeding grounds and nests. Also, while wandering around outside, they may find new feeding grounds by chance. For the purpose of survival of the entire nest, it becomes clear that the lingering is not wasted at all. What we can see from this case of ants is that the concept of waste can change depending on how the goal is taken.