The hottest product Jun express makes great effort

On March 21, the 8th China Logistics Technology Summit 2019 (ltsummit2019) was grandly held in Beijing. Mr. Tang Yizhi, senior vice president of vipshop and general manager of pinjun express, delivered a wonderful speech with the theme of the application and development direction of AI in logistics automation

the following is an excerpt from Mr. Tang Yizhi's speech on logistics automation:

what is logistics automation

our logistics automation mainly focuses on three aspects, mainly solving the problems of storage system, conveying system and sorting system. Take the example of storage system. A project of coloring and water resistance vipshop is honeycomb intensive storage system, which is indeed a new technology. I have a comparison here. In terms of storage, what exactly is automation? Taking vipshop's commodity structure as an example, we can see that the two storage systems of attic shelves and intensive storage will increase the intensive storage capacity by about 15%

at present, sorting equipment or automatic sorters are really used in China's logistics sorting. Frankly speaking, they are still relatively few, but they may be used a little more in the front. Millions of people in China are still manual sorting or violent sorting

four pain points of logistics automation

first, our warehouse is getting larger and larger. In the field of e-commerce, our warehouse is in the forefront, that is to say, a 100000 square meter logistics e-commerce logistics warehouse in foreign countries is relatively large, but in China, a 100000 square meter e-commerce logistics warehouse is relatively small. Take vipshop as an example. We build a logistics park with four warehouses with an area of more than 700000 square meters. Such a large warehouse, such a large area is not available abroad

second, we have more and more types of goods. The number of goods in each e-commerce is one million, and some even reach ten million. What is the concept of ten million SKU? For example, traditional retailers such as Carrefour and Wal Mart have about 20000 SKUs in a larger store, while vipshop now has a warehouse and a logistics park of tens of millions, which is not an order of magnitude. At the same time, we have a large number of orders, and the distribution capacity of traditional logistics is limited. Our convenience store delivery, the delivery of convenience stores in days is relatively good, but our customers are also tens of millions, that is, one day you face orders of more than 10 million, it has 10 million destinations to go

third, the project construction cycle is short. Due to the rapid development of e-commerce, the project distribution is also very wide. The whole cycle from design to warehouse construction, automatic equipment installation, input and production is very fast. During this cycle, there are many variable requirements that will change, and the business model will change, because the outside world is changing rapidly, Therefore, it is very difficult to automate the traditional construction mode. I have visited many top automation companies abroad, and we have visited some top automation manufacturing companies in Europe. I have also seen many automated warehouses they do. The average cycle of doing automated warehouses is basically two years. In China, we basically compress the time by more than one year, because we are developing too fast

fourth, many enterprises adopt automation equipment and automation solutions, but mechanically graft business, and the efficiency is not high. For example, there is no internal connection between business operation and automation equipment and automation solutions, or there is very little internal close and high coordination

when we operate a huge automation system, there are four things we don't understand. How can we do a good job in logistics automation? It's too difficult

the core of logistics automation

when we talk about these logistics intelligence, please be clear that it is the innovation of the human brain before the implementation of the computer. In other words, the core of logistics intelligence is still in the human brain. After thinking things clearly, we can divide them into small pieces. We can do simple imitation, let the computer execute them, and let the machine execute them. We cannot hope that AI can solve all problems without thinking

facing the whole logistics system, my core idea is the construction of logistics intelligence and automation. As the owner and the customer, you must think about every detail clearly before you can go to the automation manufacturer to discuss with you how to realize the requirements. In this regard, we have our own core computing system, which can also be called AI. There are two major problems under the AI system. One is the high-level control software platform. Let's see WCS. Then there is the unified platform of monitoring software, which can visualize alarm monitoring. All these interfaces are reserved in our system. What we need in the front end is what we want. After we think about it, we will implement it at the top level of the equipment manufacturer

we have intelligent distribution of sorting system, intelligent optimization of storage system and dynamic calculation of conveying system. The first point is that we should regard the whole world as a warehouse. Whether the goods are placed in the United States or in China, whether in warehouses or stores, or even in customers' homes, any point is a warehouse, so we should have the concept of a world warehouse, We should consider this aspect when planning the system

on the other hand, once the order is generated, the traditional method is to flow from front to back, and locate the inventory of the order to this or that place, which needs to be changed. How to change? When placing an order, customers should check the inventory. Checking the inventory is not to check the inventory of a warehouse, but to check the inventory of the world warehouse. Check where the inventory is. Use the most accurate algorithm to see how to locate the inventory to the most accurate position. It is necessary to calculate the inventory at the front end when the order survives. This allocation should be accurate

in the final analysis, automation system is an execution system, so just now it is more about software system than equipment. As a device, it only executes a certain instruction, but in the process of executing instructions, you run smoothly, safely and reliably, and understand accurately. This is definitely to be done, but fundamentally speaking, you are only an executor

the development direction of logistics automation

where is the development direction of logistics automation? The first is technological innovation, such as image recognition and commodity information carrier

in addition, chain everything. This book includes the analysis of the composite material market and material potential, making commodities a carrier. Now the only information of commodities is barcode information, origin and so on. These information are now on the label of this product. How to realize a logistics information in the future? Commodities have logistics information, and commodities should become the carrier of this information. In the past, when it came to RFID, I remember that about 20 years ago, 100 suppliers said that the first phase of woma's goods. The use of RFID in the logistics field is still relatively simple, or relatively limited. Now our automation technology is good. It should be said that it is developing every day in this field

intellectualization should rely more on AI and big data for order optimization analysis. We should greatly improve the operation efficiency of the current automation system, do not rely on automation equipment, and first use our own brain to operate, so we should do work in front-end and pre analysis

at present, artificial intelligence only increases the breadth of intelligence, but cannot increase the depth of intelligence. In a word, it is impossible to invent at the government level. It is very simple that these things we do can be replaced. For example, sorting, which was taken down by people before, is now taken down by machines. No matter how clever the algorithm is, it still depends on bar code sorting so far. If logistics really plays a revolutionary role in logistics operation in the process of logistics automation, we must innovate in technology. Now, of course, we just do some simple actions to let machines help us do it. Now it is a direction worthy of consideration. Now when it comes to artificial intelligence, logistics intelligence is a direction

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