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the.world.is.flat-第43章

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〃It really was a small town。 If you wanted to go to a third party for logistics; it 
was impossible。 It was pure survival。 Now with all the attention we are getting there 
is an assumption that our low prices derive from our size or because we're getting 
stuff from China or being able to dictate to suppliers。 The fact is the low prices 
are derived from efficiencies Wal…Mart has invested in…the system and the culture。 
It is a very low…cost culture。〃 Added Glass; 〃I wish that I could say we were brilliant 
and visionary; 'but' it was all born out of necessity。〃 
The more that supply chain grew; the more Walton and Glass understood that scale and 
efficiency were the keys to their whole business。 Put simply; the more scale and scope 
their supply chain had; the more things they sold for less to more customers; the 
more leverage they had 

with suppliers to drive prices down even more; the more they sold to more customers; 
the more scale and scope their supply chain had; the more profit they reaped for their 
shareholders。 。 。 
Sam Walton was the father of that culture; but necessity was its mother; and its 
offspring has turned out to be a lean; mean supply…chain machine。 In 2004; Wal…Mart 
purchased roughly 260 billion worth of merchandise and ran it through a supply chain 
consisting of 108 distribution centers around the United States; serving the some 
3;000 Wal…Mart stores in America。 
In the early years; 〃we were small…we were 4 or 5 percent of Sears and Kmart;〃 said 
Glass。 〃If you are that small; you are vulnerable; so what we wanted to do more than 
anything else was grow market share。 We had to undersell others。 If I could reduce 
from 3 percent to 2 percent the cost of running my distribution centers; I could reduce 
retail prices and grow my market share and then not be vulnerable to anyone。 So any 
efficiency we generated we passed on to the consumer。〃 
For instance; after the manufacturers dropped off their goods at the Wal…Mart 
distribution center; Wal…Mart needed to deliver those goods in small bunches to each 
of its stores。 Itmeant that Wal…Marthad trucks going all over America。 Walton quickly 
realized if he connected his drivers by radios and satellites; after they dropped 
off at a certain Wal…Mart store; they could go a few miles down the road and pick 


up goods from a manufacturer so they wouldn't come back empty and so Wal…Mart could 
save the delivery charges from that manufacturer。 A few pennies here; a few pennies 
there; and the result is more volume; scope; and scale。 
In improving its supply chain; Wal…Mart leaves no link untouched。 While I was touring 
the Wal…Mart distribution center in Bentonville; I noticed that some boxes were too 
big to go on the conveyor belts and were being moved around on pallets by Wal…Mart 
employees driving special minilift trucks with headphones on。 A computer tracks how 
many pallets each employee is plucking every hour to put onto trucks for different 
stores; and a computerized voice tells each of them whether he is ahead of schedule 
or behind schedule。 〃You can choose whether you want your computer voice to be a man 
or a woman; and you can choose 

English or Spanish;〃 explained Rollin Ford; Wal…Mart's executive vice president; who 
oversees the supply chain and was giving me my tour。 
A few years ago; these pallet drivers would get written instructions for where to 
pluck a certain pallet and what truck to take it to; but Wal…Mart discovered that 
by giving them headphones with a soothing computer voice to instruct them; drivers 
could use both hands and not have to carry pieces of paper。 And by having the voice 
constantly reminding them whether they were behind or ahead of expectations; 〃we got 
a boost in productivity;〃 said Ford。 It is a million tiny operational innovations 
like this that differentiate Wal…Mart's supply chain。 
But the real breakthrough; said Glass; was when Wal…Mart realized that while it had 
to be a tough bargainer with its manufacturers on price; at the same time the two 
had to collaborate to create value for each other horizontally if Wal…Mart was going 
to keep driving down costs。 Wal…Mart was one of the first companies to introduce 
computers to track store sales and inventory and was the first to develop a 
computerized network in order to share this information with suppliers。 Wal…Mart's 
theory was that the more information everyone had about what customers were pulling 
off the shelves; the more efficient Wal…Mart's buying would be; the quicker its 
suppliers could adapt to changing market demand。 
In 1983; Wal…Mart invested in point…of…sale terminals; which simultaneously rang up 
sales and tracked inventory deductions for rapid resup…ply。 Four years later; it 
installed a large…scale satellite system linking all of the stores to company 
headquarters; giving Wal…Mart's central computer system real…time inventory data and 
paving the way for a supply chain greased by information and humming down to the last 
atom of efficiency。 A major supplier can now tap into Wal…Mart's Retail Link private 
extranet system to see exactly how its products are selling and when it might need 
to up its production。 
〃Opening its sales and inventory databases to suppliers is what made Wal…Mart the 
powerhouse it is today; says Rena Granofsky; a senior partner at J。 C。 Williams Group 
Ltd。; a Toronto…based retail consulting firm;〃 in the 2002 Computerworld article on 
Wal…Mart。 〃While its competition guarded sales information; Wal…Mart approached its 
suppliers as if they were partners; not adversaries; says Granofsky。 By implementing 
a col… 


135 
laborative planning; forecasting; and replenishment (CPFR) program; Wal…Mart began 
a just…in…time inventory program that reduced carrying costs for both the retailer 
and its suppliers。 'There's a lot less excess inventory in the supply chain because 
of it/ Granofsky says。〃 Thanks to the efficiency of its supply chain alone; Wal…Mart's 
cost of goods is estimated to be 5 to 10 percent less than that of most of its 
competitors。 
Now Wal…Mart; in its latest supply…chain innovation; has introduced RFID…radio 
frequency identification microchips; attached to each pallet and merchandise box that 
comes into Wal…Mart; to replace bar codes; which have to be scanned individually and 
can get ripped orsoiled。 In June 2003; Wal…Martinformed its top one hundred suppliers 
that by January 1; 2005; all pallets and boxes that they ship to Wal…Mart distribution 
centers have to come equipped with RFID tags。 (According to the RFID Journal; 〃RFID 
is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify 
people or objects。 There are several methods of identification; but the most common 
is to store a serial number that identifies a person or object; and perhaps other 
information; on a microchip that is attached to an antenna…the chip and the antenna 
together are called an RFID transponder or an RFID tag。 The antenna enables the chip 
to transmit the identification information to a reader。 The reader converts the radio 
waves reflected back from theRFID tag into digital information that 
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