DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF LOGISTICS PLATFORM BASED ON A WEB SERVER

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to develop a logistics system intended to solve the problem of Sanhan Constructional Material Limited Company. The aim of this system is to provide the clients an order tracking service and introduce the case company’s service in order to increase the business. Moreover, this research demonstrates implementation solutions of the basic functions of the logistics system. This research focuses on finding out how the computer science is applied on the transitional enterprise, and the impact it brings to business. Moreover, the implementation of the logistics system in the case company illustrates the importance of computer science in enterprise management and increases the case company’s motivation to Active Server Page (ASP) development. The constructive research method is the methodology of this research. The constructive method is used to specify the practical problem technically in order to achieve an outcome for the case company. The expected outcome of this research is a logistics management system which is easy to manage and maintain for the case company staff without IT background. In addition, future improvements are suggested as an outcome of this research.

Keywords: logistics platform, ASP, JavaScript, SQL, order tracking

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background information and motivation

In the trend of economic globalization, technology integration, the huge potential of China’s logistics market has provided a good environment for the development of China’s logistics industry. “China’s logistics industry demonstrated robust growth in 2011. The total logistics value reached 158,400 billion yuan, up by 12.3% year-on-year (yoy) in real terms”. (Li & Fung Research Centre 2012.) Moreover, “in 2011, the logistics demand coefficient was 3.4, up from 3.2 in 2010. And the value-added was 3,200 billion yuan, up by 13.9% yoy in real terms”. (Li & Fung Research Centre 2012.)According to the surveys done by CEVA and Li & Fung Research Centre, the market size is huge (Li & Fung Research Centre 2012). In order to survive in the logistics field, the enterprises need to improve the efficiency and the management of current service. Information management (hereinafter IM) is critical for the logistics, as it can be leveraged to gain more visibility and integration. In addition, IM also can give a good impression to the client group if the goods can be delivered more efficiently and more accurately. (Janakiraman 2011.)

In this thesis, the name of the case company is Sanhan Constructional Material Limited Company. In the text to follow, Sanhan Company will be used instead of the official name. Sanhan Company is a medium-sized company which was founded in 2009. The company is located in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, China. Manufacturing constructional material is the main business of the company. Within 2 years’ development, the company has grown big enough to supply many construction companies inside the province. Instead of focusing on the production capacity, the delivery management has become an urgent issue for the company. The feedback from customers shows that 55% of the customers are not satisfied with the quality of transportation. A total of42% of the customers complained about the delivery time.

These issues do not only exist in Sanhan Company but also in most of the Chinese enterprises. According to the survey of Global Supply Chain Council and CEVA logistics in 2012, the outsourcing of Chinese logistics industry was facing a new challenge concerning varying factors. In the survey, almost half of the respondents pointed out the high cost and reliability of local logistics providers as significant issues. Another major problem reported by half of respondents was the transportation quality. (CEVA & Chain 2012.)

Sanhan Company saw that outsourcing to external partners is no longer an option for the business. They decided to build up their own transportation system to improve their business. Therefore, a transportation management system is needed to increase efficiency of the transportation system.

1.2 Objective and research questions

The objectives of this thesis are to analyze the system requirement, design the logistics platform and design the logical structure of the database for Sanhan Company. The logistics platform should meet the varied needs of the company business and allow for possible future development. This thesis focuses on finding answers to the following research questions:

1. What kind of functions and structure should the system have to meet the case company’s needs?

At the design phase, the requirements are necessary to be specified at the beginning. The requirements shape what the system is capable of. The information system is aiming to serve the users’ demands. Thus, the requirements analysis is processed by analyzing the business process of Sanhan Company. The requirements cover all the possible operations of information management concerning the business and its administration. Following the requirements analysis, the functional structure is gained by analyzing the business process of Sanhan Company.

2. How can the suggested system be implemented?

The programming language and operating environment are selected by comparing different programming languages and operating system. The performance, compatibility and reality are the key factors of this selection. The aim of this question is to make the designing scheme into an entity. One of the main activities are choosing the programming languages, development tools and operating system. Following the selection phase, the implementation is processed by the suggested scheme with the selected tools and language.

1.3 Thesis structure

This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter 2 describes the methodologies which are used in the research. Chapter 3 focuses on analyzing and designing the system. Chapter 4 and chapter 5 focus on discussing the design and implementation of the system in detail

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