At present, the main operation process in the warehouse still needs people to complete. The manufacturing plant has entered the industry 4.0 era, so how can our e-commerce warehouse meet the industry 4.0 standard? Let’s take you to compare the differences between the “human meat warehouse” and the smart warehouse from the aspects of unloading, handling, storage, picking, review, and packaging.
Loading and unloading equipment
At present, the general warehouse loading and unloading are mainly done by manpower. The ones that can really use the loading and unloading robots are the factories with a high degree of standardization. The part specifications are uniform and the mechanical fixture design is simple.
Difficulty
E-commerce warehouses have a wide variety of products, with different pieces of different sizes. The flexibility of the loading and unloading robot fixtures is increased, and the image intelligent recognition of the products is required, and the code plate can be easily realized even in irregular placement.
Handling equipment
At present, hydraulic pallet trucks and electric pallet trucks are commonly used. Unmanned intelligent handling equipment is less used in real e-commerce warehouses, and AGV production plants are used more. Kiva-type handling robots are currently relatively popular, and Amazon uses more deeply. It will take time to verify whether this model is the future development direction.
Difficulty
Path selection and obstacle avoidance in the handling process; the pallet is inserted and the pallet is in place after reaching the destination. The efficiency is too low, and the difference is too large when it is moved by a forklift.
Storage device
At present, warehouses commonly used stacks, partition shelves, and beam shelves have low storage density, occupy a large warehouse area, and high storage costs. The more mature high-density storage equipment is the three-dimensional warehouse (AS/RS). The e-commerce industry is gradually Popularization, goods-to-person equipment domestic and foreign companies are trying, Amazon uses kiva robots to realize the goods-to-person operation mode, goods-to-person mode is the future development direction of smart warehouses, whether it is suitable for e-commerce mode, it will take time to verify.
Difficulty
The balance of efficiency and cost is the key issue to be overcome in the later stage.
Picking equipment
Picking is a labor-intensive operation link in the warehouse. At present, the general warehouse is still a crowded tactic. The efficiency of equipment such as conveyor lines and electronic tags has been improved a lot. Robotic arms cooperate with image recognition technology to pick goods. At present, there are attempts at home and abroad, but many obstacles need to be overcome.
Difficulty
Insufficient flexibility, too many types of SKUs in the e-commerce industry, large differences in packaging specifications, image recognition, difficult to pick accurately, and low efficiency.
Smart wearable device
At present, it is common for PDAs in warehouses to carry out warehouse in and out operations. The next step is to liberate people’s hands. PDAs can no longer support the requirements for operational efficiency. Voice picking, wireless scanning rings, smart phones, Google smart glasses, etc., major manufacturers and E-commerce giants are trying frequently, and these should become standard equipment in warehouses. This is an inevitable trend.
Difficulty
The hardware comes out, mainly for application development, human-computer interaction, and interconnection and collaboration with other devices.
Review equipment
At present, rebin (seeding method) is a common method for processing multiple orders. By configuring the electronic label system and other auxiliary equipment, there is not much room for improvement in the efficiency of the existing operation mode. Does this link allow smart devices to replace people? That can only be achieved through a high-intelligence robot like the Terminator. There is still a long way to go…
Difficulty
This requires major breakthroughs in technologies such as artificial intelligence and image recognition, which can flexibly identify, grab, and release various SKUs to achieve the accuracy and efficiency of manual operations.
Packing equipment
The packaging operation still relies on manual labor at present. The automatic packaging and labeling equipment production factory is easy to use, and the parts are unified. For e-commerce’s medium-part original packaged goods, there are attempts to auto-label, and it is not difficult to achieve automatic packaging of a single small part. The automation of multiple small parts requires a breakthrough in the development of intelligent equipment.
Difficulty
How to increase the flexibility of packaging and labeling equipment to adapt to various types of goods?
