Express logistics intelligence upgrade from digital to digital intelligence

On the automated assembly line of JD Logistics, intelligent robots are the main force.

After the "Double 11", the automatic sorting area assembly line of Zhongtong Express Shanghai Transit Center is busy.

"This year's "Double 11" receipt is faster than usual!" The 11th "Double 11" e-commerce promotion has just passed, and the whole country is still immersed in the sense of "buy, buy, buy" "Hand clan" sent out such emotions.

Corresponding to the record high of the trading volume of the major platforms is the continuously increasing volume of logistics orders. The data shows that the logistics orders of the Tmall platform alone amounted to 1.292 billion. At 10 a.m. on November 13, the 100 millionth parcel of Tmall's "Double 11" 2019 has been delivered in 2.4 days. This record is about 4 hours faster than last year and nearly 7 days faster than 2013. At the same time, JD.com also announced that this year's "Double 11", JD Logistics will deliver 24 hours in 90% of the country's districts and counties.

"Double 11" parcels, "Double 12" have not been delivered. Once upon a time, express logistics is a short board that affects the online shopping experience. Problems such as long waiting time, violent sorting, and high loss rate continue. Nowadays, the rapid development of logistics technology and the denser and denser logistics network have made express delivery "burst" become history. From the initial anxious waiting after placing an order, to the next day, the same day, and 1 hour, the faster and smarter express logistics industry has also brought consumers a better delivery experience.

Express automated assembly line, equivalent to the total mileage of the national subway

Donghai Crystal City, located in Donghai County, Jiangsu Province, is the world's largest distribution center of natural crystal raw materials, receiving more than 350,000 tourists and wholesalers from home and abroad every year. "Post-90s" Zhang Fuxi is the owner of one of the shops. In the past week, he has been busy handling the hot business of his crystal online store.

"On the day of "Double 11" this year, my two online stores shipped more than 4,500 pieces." Zhang Fuxi said happily while packing crystal products. The express delivery in Jiangsu Province shipped before 6 in the morning, and the package could arrive at 12 noon. , The surrounding Zhejiang and Shanghai areas can also be reached the next day.

There are 14 courier service companies in Donghai County with 205 outlets, which has realized a "zero gap" layout for crystal and agricultural product e-commerce farmers. Shi Wenjuan, director of the Donghai County Post Bureau, said that in recent years, the county's annual express delivery volume has increased by about 75%, and the delivery efficiency has also been greatly improved.

The East China Sea is not alone. According to the monitoring data of the State Post Bureau, all postal and express delivery companies handled 535 million express shipments on the day of "Double 11" this year, which is three times the daily processing volume since the second quarter, a year-on-year increase of 28.6%. The peak period of express delivery is expected to continue from November 11 to 18, and the volume of mail express business handled by the entire industry will reach 2.8 billion.

How to ensure that the "chop hands" receive the package in time? It turned out that in late October, the courier companies have completed the joint commissioning of the entire network of automation equipment, ready to go to meet the peak of parcels.

"Through the automated assembly line, the package can be automatically and intelligently circulated across the country, avoiding manual manual sorting, effectively improving the efficiency of package operation, and improving the timeliness of fast delivery." Zhao Jian, chief commander of Tmall's "Double 11" logistics, said, Digital intelligence is the trend of logistics development. Currently, the number of automation equipment in the industry continues to surge, and parcels have jumped from the previous "take the country road" to "take the high-speed rail."

The express delivery volume of the "Double 11" is refreshing every year, and relying solely on the "human sea tactics" to improve efficiency can no longer meet the needs of consumers. Big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence are making great strides in the warehousing, transportation, and distribution of the express delivery industry. Face scanning and barcode scanning also improve the timeliness of parcel pickup and delivery, bringing convenient and intelligent services to the "Double 11".

At present, the total number of automated pipelines in China's express delivery industry has exceeded 5,000 kilometers, which is equivalent to the total mileage of China's subway. Taking Yuantong as an example, the number of new automation equipment in the first half of 2019 has nearly doubled the sum of the previous years.

According to reports, before, the rookie platform upgraded the electronic four-segment code to make the package path planning to community-level precision and improve the sorting speed of the package at the very end. Today, the application of these digital intelligence technologies has accelerated the average time of parcels running on the rookie platform by nearly 5 hours compared to the same period last year.

In order to efficiently respond to the massive logistics orders generated by Tmall's "Double 11", several courier companies have also innovated for automated assembly lines.

Best's R&D storm automatic sorting system combines various technologies such as intelligent terminals and image processing to achieve full intelligent sorting; Yunda introduced a cross-belt automatic sorting system, which only needs to scan the code once throughout the process, greatly improving the sorting efficiency ; Shentong "Little Yellow Man" sorting robot and Yuantong "Little Blue Man" sorting robot all use more convenient deployment methods to promote automation; Zhongtong upgrades the single-layer automatic sorting line to double-layer automatic sorting throughout the country Picking the line, the efficiency per unit area continues to rise.

Integration of "5G+AI", continuous innovation of intelligent logistics platform

Hundreds of robots, through automated line planning, complete the sorting to the corresponding stations; the first domestic IoT (Internet of Things) sorting system can sort 4000 bags per hour, and get a 50 kg bag only It takes 0.9 seconds, and the sorting accuracy rate reaches an astonishing 99.99%... These intelligent scenarios have become a reality in Jingdong Logistics Park.

On October 29th, the 2019 Global Intelligent Logistics Summit held by JD Logistics became a small "parade", including a new upgrade of the last mile delivery drone, a personal exclusive delivery and delivery product cloud box, and a mini car. Many intelligent robot products including unmanned warehouse "intelligent logistics station", etc., all made their first public appearance.

At this summit, Wang Zhenhui, CEO of JD Logistics, revealed that the 5G Smart Logistics Demonstration Park located in Beijing’s "Asia No. 1" Smart Logistics Operation Center has been basically completed, and a 5G Smart Logistics Park will also be constructed in the "Asia No. 1" warehouse in Dongguan. Build a 5G intelligent logistics joint innovation laboratory.

"Through the 5G high-definition camera, it can not only realize the positioning management of personnel, but also can sense the congestion level of the production area in the warehouse in real time, and optimize the scheduling of resources in a timely manner, which greatly improves the production efficiency." Zhang Zhitong, a senior researcher at the Big Data Institute of Jingdong Group, told reporters that The combination of 5G and AI can help manage and coordinate the personnel, resources, and equipment in the park, and promote the integrated interconnection of all people, machines, vehicles, and equipment. For example, the intelligent identification of vehicles can guide trucks to the platform recommended by the system for operation, so that the vehicles in the park can be standardized.

It is worth mentioning that JD Logistics also officially announced the LoMir 5G intelligent logistics open platform.

"Luomei has realized the in-depth integration and innovation of 5G technology, Internet of Things platforms and logistics applications, combining technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and augmented reality, and is oriented to a variety of intelligent logistics application scenarios such as intelligent parks, intelligent transportation and distribution, and intelligent package parts. Support the efficient automatic perception of logistics information, the accurate collection of data, the optimal scheduling of resources, and the intelligent decision-making of operations, so as to comprehensively promote the digitization and intelligence of the logistics business, and realize the cost reduction, efficiency increase, transformation and upgrading of the logistics industry." Zhang Zhitong said.

As early as the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference held at the end of August this year, the Ministry of Science and Technology announced the latest list of national artificial intelligence open innovation platforms, clearly relying on JD to build an intelligent supply chain platform.

The industry believes that the value of building a new generation of artificial intelligence open innovation platforms in smart supply chain countries is mainly reflected in two aspects: from the upstream perspective, it can improve industrial resource allocation capabilities, coordination capabilities and service support capabilities, promote supply-side structural reforms, and help The transformation of traditional enterprises to intelligent and digital; from the consumer side, it means that consumers can easily enjoy "good products", "good prices", "good services" and "good experience", and even more personalized products and services. Fully meet the needs of modern consumers.

"At present, 5G almost only uses the characteristics of ultra-high bandwidth in the field of mobile phone communication, and the application in the industrial field can really bring out the full value." Zhang Zhitong said that the open 5G intelligent logistics open platform announced by Jingdong Logistics is the supply of The latest achievements in the field of chain.

"Blockchain + Supply Chain" may become a new direction for logistics upgrade

The reporter sorted out and found that the recent re-ignition of blockchain technology has actually been explored and applied in the logistics industry.

“Due to its long chain and multi-link industry characteristics, the logistics industry has long suffered from difficulties such as coordination, traceability, credit reporting, and financing. Blockchain technology, as a new model for trust creation, is distributed and cannot be tampered with. , Traceable technical characteristics just provide a technical solution to solve these pain points. "Jingdong Logistics R&D department chief architect Wenming said that under this background, Jingdong Logistics led the establishment of the first "logistics + block in China "Chain" technology application alliance to promote the use of blockchain technology to solve practical problems in the logistics industry.

In January this year, JD Logistics, China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, and the "Logistics+ Blockchain" technology application alliance jointly released the "Blue Book on the Integration and Application of China's Logistics and Blockchain".

The Blue Book lists process optimization, logistics tracking, logistics credit reporting and logistics finance as the four major application directions of my country's blockchain technology in the logistics industry. Through the innovative combination of blockchain and supply chain, it can help the logistics industry to develop in a more efficient, collaborative and intelligent direction.

For example, COSCO SHIPPING uses blockchain to solve cross-border logistics issues, Sinotrans integrates blockchain technology into smart logistics construction, and JD Logistics joins Fuyou Truck to create a blockchain solution for express reconciliation, which uses technology to solve logistics reconciliation. Typical case of business.

The reporter learned that, taking Fuyou Truck, JD's largest trunk transportation service provider, as an example, in order to optimize the process, it used the "chain signing" product developed by JD Logistics. Through the express reconciliation blockchain solution, Fuyou Trucks realized the paperless settlement of transportation vouchers with electronic signatures, ensuring the authenticity of data collection in the logistics distribution process, realizing the real-time settlement of transaction data on the chain, greatly reducing time and reducing The entire reconciliation cost.

In terms of logistics tracking, relying on the traceability source code as a window to display the full supply chain traceability information of goods for consumers, so that each product has its own unique blockchain "identity card", offline through anti-counterfeiting code to achieve offline One code, and each piece of information is attached with the digital signature and time stamp of each subject for consumers to query and verify.

The same is true for credit reporting and finance in logistics. When employees represent the company in their personal capacity, misconduct will damage the image of the company, so it is extremely important to inspect the quality of employees. On the basis of blockchain technology, JD Logistics has established a logistics credit reference alliance platform. Logistics companies within the alliance can regulate the industry's professional credit standards together, maintain the professional credit data of logistics practitioners according to the standards, and form a shared ecosystem .

"From the perspective of current industry development, the key to the application of blockchain is to strengthen the deep integration with the real economy. Logistics is a basic industry that supports the development of the real economy. The application of blockchain in logistics helps to establish multi-party trust and high efficiency. The convenient logistics ecosystem helps the construction of the logistics infrastructure network." said Zhou Ping, director of the Software Engineering and Evaluation Center of China Electronics Standardization Institute, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Using technology to promote innovation in the logistics industry, the trend of openness and symbiosis is a consensus. Experts in the industry generally believe that it will take some time before the large-scale application of blockchain technology in the logistics industry requires the joint efforts of all parties in industry, academia, and research to work together in scene exploration, benchmarking, standard setting, talent training, and policy support. To promote the in-depth integration of blockchain with the real economy and logistics supply chain industries.