In the age when every manufacturer is looking for a way to optimize their manufacturing process, even logistic system cannot avoid such trend.
It is undeniable: to err is human. Works done by humans cannot avoid mistakes and there are also a shortage of human labor and other problems which take place in many parts of the world. Due to the fact that the transportation system has grown rapidly, there is a higher demand of transportation both locally and internationally. When there are many challenges at the same time, it is important than logistic system has to be developed and improved in order to increase its potential for faster and more effective delivery with the least error. Therefore, algorithms are necessary for investment in automation. Robots have been widely used in factories and the effectiveness has increased enormously. This is recounted in the case of the warehouse center which is located on the area of over 3,000 square meters (0.7 acre) in the city of Huiyang, Guangzhou, in the southern part of China. It is the owner of T-mall, subsidiary of Alibaba, one of the world’s largest online retail seller.
Smart Warehouse
When the online market is booming considerably all over the world, especially in China, one warehouse decides to use robots and automation as part of its system in order to control the process. These 60 robots have to find products in each location and move them in the warehouse as well as send these products to the packaging area and deliver them to their customers in any part of the world. The control and the data transfer are done using Wifi system. Each robot has a sensor to detect any movement so that they will not crash into each other during the delivery. They can work for at least 8 hours. They can recharge their batteries by themselves and they can deal with products up to 600 kilograms (1,322 pounds). In the past, when a human works, they can organize around 1,500 items in 7.5 hours with 27924 steps. However, this robot can organize over 35000 items within the same amount of time. Moreover, there are only 2563 steps. When the overall effectiveness is considered, the use of robots can increase the effectiveness by 3 times in comparison to the traditional way done by humans. Moreover, robots occupy 30% less space because they can work in 4 directions. Therefore, the robots can cope with e-commerce effectively.
Operating In Real-Time Is the New Standard
With the Smart Warehouse system, all persons related to the task from the entrepreneur to the receiver at the end of the line will get the right data in real-time at any time and at any place. The main factor is RFID system (Radio-frequency identification) which is a method of automatic data collection and data identification by receiving the signal from the tag to the IoT system. Every station, from the beginning station, the warehouse which is the center of distribution and the final destination station, can use barcode scanner and send the information to the IoT system so that every party who is related to such issue can check the status of the product immediately and as such there is the least error from the working process. Besides, it is found that such procedure, from the product delivery to the product verification, can be done continuously 24 hours 7 days a week on every device which is connected to the internet. This approach will increase the speed and the effectiveness of the work greatly.
It can be seen that at the moment logistics all over the world can meet diverse requirements and it is flexible as well as effective. Every line of work which is related will be like a jigsaw puzzle which is connected or linked together through different technologies. They are distributed rapidly and therefore, if you are in this line of business, you can no longer use the Stand Alone approach for your work!
