Lei feng’s network (search for “Lei feng’s network” public attention) by writer Frank, master of engineering, University of Pennsylvania, is now a United States logistics industry, focusing on modern warehouse, automated warehousing equipment, logistics system optimization design based on data. This is Lei Feng a net is exclusive to the first.
Labor costs higher as a logistics warehouse was hit in the rear area, so no silo can really save it? Jingdong unmanned bunker first video (click to watch)
If you see the above video, the first reaction must be cool! Yes, as the level of technological development, in particular in automation and control, more and more of the warehouse began to use machines to replace human. There are more and more people began to consider the concept of a new, unmanned positions.
No cartridge, by definition, do not need human warehouses. Generally speaking, people in accordance with the processes in the warehouse is divided into categories:
Discharge (inbound trucks)-> stock (shelf)-> delivery (orders)-> sorting (boxed)-> label (list of items + shipping address)-> load (outbound trucks).
So many processes, so many artificial, can really do not rely on human purely rely on machines to do it? This article, we will be based on some real-world data, from a technical and practical point of view to discuss United States existing automatic warehouse system and the feasibility of unmanned positions, provides the reader with a rational analysis perspective.
To be honest, in recent years, the United States really less traditional warehouses, most of them have been modernized, or are preparing to update. Large enterprises in particular, need to do dozens of k-order, simply manually it would be too expensive.
For chestnut, simple for everyone to see, before the author went to Urban Outfitter’s warehouse in Pennsylvania, about 2 hours drive from Philadelphia. Urban Outfitter five brands, namesake, Anthropologie, Free People,Terrain,and BHLDN. 400 retail stores around the world, 1400 dealership, as well as electric parts. Pennsylvania warehouse is responsible for logistics and supply of the three brands, each brand a layer of shelf, 3 floors, pickup people walking each layer, each layer is 1.5 km in length. About 100 workers every day to take delivery (simply take delivery of this part). United States General warehouse worker 35k a year salary, paid 3.5 million dollars a year! And this is a day shift, two shifts have to double.
In addition, seasonality (seasonal) is another question, wait until Thanksgiving (Chinese double-11) when orders usually 3-6 times 3-6 times pick up the link to the corresponding manual. More hate most of the warehouse is together (policy-oriented or geographical reasons), wait until the holiday season everyone is fighting for labour. One customer told me, their town population has reached its limits, not hire the people, also pulled a lot of ads last year to prevent too many orders.
Figure 1 Hebron KY, this small town is the major brand logistics warehouse, population less than supporting warehouse workers demand. Brands include Amazon,Toyota, Speedway, Kroger
Another aspect is the United States many enterprise’s e-commerce system is fairly mature. E-commerce order is very special, there are basically three major characteristics: large, small combinations. Every day there are many orders, but each order one or two things, but this thing could be various combinations of: you buy a piece of SOAP and cleanser, I buy SOAP and chocolate, and much more. Warehouse worker before moving things, spend half a minute walk, moving boxes, now also went over half a minute, take a, take half a minute to go to the warehouse to get another at the other end, too inefficient. And if a wide range of items, shelves longer and higher (such as Urban Outfitter’s 1.5 km), with an average delivery time up to 90 seconds.
Therefore, high labor costs and under mature e-commerce system on the basis of the premise and the rapid development of science and technology, United States using the great technological invention has a variety of automated warehousing systems:
ASRS automatic storage of the first generation: Ted Baker note 3 covers
This is the most simple system first, a crane in the middle (the Chinese seem to be stacking machine), you can move back and forth, the buffer can be moved up and down in the Middle, so that one can get all of the boxes. East of Beijing is also used in the video, is now more popular in China.
But the drawback is obvious, very slowly. Take one box at a time, with many such crane orders and how many columns to finish my day 50k times the throughput of 2 items? In the United States, this early generation of automation equipment have been abandoned by most enterprises, only some of the speed is not high, but very high corporate standards for weight (such as car large parts).
Second generation ASRS automated storage:
Shuttle system represented by Dematic, shuttle bus.
Each car is running in this business, you can take the box out, and sent to the front of the system, to transmit on the ladder, transmitting ladder sent to the conveyor belt. All of Figure 2 you can see more clearly the principle of operation of this system. Why this system is better than the first? Because the system + double speed by up to 10 times at once, if much more, you will have more of the shuttle, the corresponding time will get shorter.
This is the United States is popular systems, technology is quite mature, many large companies are doing and prices, market space left. But the system has problems, is the throughput bottleneck is delivery outside staircase. In other words, if the elevator speed is 1000 cases per hour, then the car faster throughput is 1000 boxes. Unfortunately elevators up and down again, also with unloading the box box throughput up to 300, good … … So clever of United States technology companies developed the third generation system.
Third-generation ASRS automated storage: Ted Baker note 3 cases
This system is called Perfect Pick, from the outside can not see how bad, stick a figure to explain:
This picture is a profile, white was placed in the middle of the box, both before and after, blue is the car. The system’s biggest innovation is that each car can go up or down left to right, you can get anywhere in the system. Unlike the first generation only one at a time, is not as tied down the line on which the second generation car, greatly increased the degree of freedom. So, if we are from the Picker’s perspective, that’s it:
A bunch of cars carrying something waiting for you. You don’t have any time to waste, don’t need no walking without waiting for the throughput much encyclopedia to see how fast you can get. If you 3 seconds to take a 1 second car transfer, your throughput is 3600/(3+1) =900 per hour, if you can get a 1 second, the throughput is 1800 … … This is a column on the first picture there are 10 columns, multiplied by the workers to work 10 hours a day, relax on tens of thousands of seconds to kill any other system.
However, where is the bottleneck in the system? People.
People are tired, people stretched, when supervision is not lazy, average 4 seconds a day can take an already good employees … … What to do? Machines changed … … Back to the beginning of the problem, the answer is Yes.
Since in reality need a change, economic change, why not change it? It raises another issue, the manipulator. Now United States there are two main arms, suction-cup and gripper type:
Ability to both arms now are not enough, suction-cup can handle multiple products, but limited, 5 pounds is the limit. Gripper-holding heavy objects, but on the regularity of shape and surface very high requirements. In addition, the two arms have a common problem is image recognition. The point object may be placed in the box, how can I find the point of extraction is a huge problem, recently, many companies have begun using artificial intelligence algorithms, deep learning, which seems to be progress soon.
We believe that in the near future, most of the manpower will be replaced by automatic equipment, not just because it’s cool, more because it’s faster, more accurate, more money. Although it is not known to the warehouse workers is good news or bad news, but the wheels of history should not stay.
Finally hope to show is that these systems are not cheap, and in the United States under such high artificial birth, ROI in 3 years or so. If in China, 1/6 of manual payroll does not necessarily hold (18/ROI believes no CEO investment), so may people find at last count cost cheaper. Behind any business decision, but it is still a question of return on investment.
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