Research On Performance Evaluation Of Product Cold Chain Logistics In China

With the rising of people’s living standard and the improvement of consumption level, the demand for aquatic product is gradually transforming from quantity-type to quality-type. Owing to the feature of high perishability, Aquatic product has high circulating temperature and time requirements, therefore the whole process of aquatic circulation need to be supported by the cold chain. However, the development of cold chain logistics is still at the initial stage in China:the lag of infrastructure construction; the inefficiency, the high cost and the high damage rate of cold chain circulation; the third-party of cold chain logistics is lack of strong comprehensive strength; the standards of cold chain logistics need to be improved; the poor capabilities and inefficiency of collaborative operation under the cold chain logistics; the food safety can not be availably guaranteed. As the proportion of aquatic product in people’s food consumption structure gradually raised, how to meet people’s demand for aquatic product with best quality and low cost becomes an important issue related to people’s livelihood.Under this background, based on a national science and technology support program subject" aquatic product logistics technology integration&development and demonstration of comprehensive service platform"(No:2012BAD38B08), this dissertation mainly studies on the performance evaluation of aquatic product cold chain logistics systematically and measures the development level of aquatic product cold chain logistics comprehensively, with a view to identifying the problem of cold chain logistics’development in China and putting forward several performance improving measures, there by realizing the rapid and good development of aquatic product cold chain logistics. Therefore, this dissertation has high theoretical significance and practical value.This dissertation uses various research methods, which combines induction and deduction, logical model and mathematical model, qualitative analysis and quantitative research. It also studies on the present situation of production and consumption of aquatic product in China, the present situation of development of aquatic product cold chain logistics, as well as the functions, the features and the goals of aquatic product cold chain logistics. Meanwhile, it establishes the theoretic framework of performance evaluation and the performance evaluation indexes of aquatic product cold chain logistics. Besides that, it uses different mathematical models to evaluate the performance of each links during the aquatic product cold chain logistics and the overall operating performance (among these links, this dissertation does an empirical study on cold chain processing and storage by analyzing an enterprise’s operation in Yantai) Whereafter, this dissertation put forward several corresponding performance improving measures and simulate the improvement measures.Through a systematic research, this dissertation draws the following conclusions:(1) This dissertation considers that the primary target of aquatic product cold chain logistics is to ensure the product quality and food safety in the process of logistics. In addition, cutting the cost and improving efficiency should be another important target.(2) In the performance evaluation of aquatic product cold chain logistics, we should give consideration to the balance between economic benefits and social benefits, the balance between each participations and the object of the logistics and the balance between each links of the cold chain logistics and the overall operation. Performance evaluation should break the enterprise boundary, the flow boundary and the functional boundary as well as emphasize the supply chain collaboration.(3) This dissertation considers that the end of performance evaluation is not the end of performance management. Consequently, the formulating and simulation of performance improvement measures should be an indispensable part of the performance evaluation system of aquatic product cold chain logistics.(4) The determination of index weight is the emphases and difficulty of performance evaluation, because using the same evaluation data and evaluation method can draw a different conclusion with different index weight. This dissertation considers using quantitative analysis methods to determine index weight can be subjective and arbitrary, qualitative analysis methods can’t reflect preferences of decision makers. Therefore, methods that combine quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis are more suitable, for example the method of entropy weight combination.(5) Rapid response and postponement tactics play an active role in operation performance of aquatic product cold chain logistics. VMI plays an active role in compressing circulating time, ensuring product quality, cutting circulating cost and enhancing upstream and downstream members’cooperative relationship. Optimizing supply structure of aquatic product cold chain logistics and strengthening the strategy, information, flow and technique coordination of supply chain plays an important role in improving management and operational efficiency of China’s aquatic product cold chain logistics, and it is also conducive to reduce cost and improve service quality.(6) Temperature is a decisive factor, which affects the quality of aquatic product and the cost of cold chain. The cold chain infrastructure, the cold chain logistics technique and supply chain collaboration are closely around this factor. But, there’s a "benefit antinomy" between the temperature and the cost. This dissertation introduces the concept of quality loss cost, and finds that the benefit increase of maintaining a suitable temperature is more than the benefit reduction owing to cost raise.In the course of the study, the following innovations have been achieved:(1) By combining with some related theories and the framework of performance evaluation, this dissertation formulates a four-dimensional model of the performance evaluation of aquatic product cold chain logistics,"SISP", which maintains the evaluation subject, the evaluation index, the evaluation standard and the evaluation phase. The evaluation subject includes cold chain processing, cold chain storage, cold chain transporting and distribution, cold chain sales and the overall operation of cold chain.The performance evaluation standard includes longitudinal standard, transverse standard and expected standard. The "SISP" model break the limit of the traditional performance evaluation that only focus on results rather than improvement, and then it separated the performance evaluation into two different phases which are the present performance evaluation and performance improvement&simulation. The SISP model is a further improvement and development of the performance evaluation system of aquatic product cold chain logistics.(2) This dissertation puts forward "ACSSN" performance evaluation index model of aquatic product cold chain logistics. It is proposed to face the aquatic product, the customer, the society, the supply chain, and the node enterprise of supply chain. Based on this framework, this dissertation builds the performance evaluation index for the above five evauation subject separately. The "ACSSN" conveys the development objectives clearly and embodies the appeal of each subject in cold chain logistics. Meanwhile, it also stresses the role of supply chain collaboration, the balance of the economic benefit and social benefit. It makes a great guiding significance for the operation practice of aquatic product cold chain logistics in China.(3) This dissertation brings the improvement of performance into the performance evaluation system of aquatic product cold chain logistics. Not only does this act in accordance with the original intention of this dissertation to develop aquatic product cold chain logistics in China but as a vital innovation of this dissertation as well. The aim of performance evaluation is to improve performance. This dissertation simulates the measures of performance improvement that has been brought up by related models, so that it is a reference for those corporations which engage in aquatic product cold chain logistics to adjust business philosophy and make reasonable strategies.(4) This dissertation establishes a system dynamics model of aquatic product cold chain sales and draws a system flow chart of aquatic products cold chain sales. With key parameters based on the actual operating circumstances of cold chain sales, the simulation led to this conclusion that quality priority tactics should be persist in by the aquatic product cold chain sales and even the overall operation of aquatic product cold chain logistics.