With the support of AI and replacing manual work with robots, traditional enterprise warehousing logistics is evolving towards automation and intelligence.
In Xinchang, Zhejiang Province, there is an intelligent warehouse with area of 10 meters wide space, towering a 30-meter-high. Through the 3 levels of production workshops and production lines, robots work 24 hours a day, along with the rumbling sound, conveyor belts, production lines run in an orderly manner.
Xinhecheng is a fine chemical company, mainly engaged in nutritional products, flavors, fragrances and new polymer materials, and is one of the four global vitamin production giants. In order to achieve cost reduction, efficiency and management optimization of the warehouse, in 2021, Xinhecheng entered into a cooperation with Megvii, which took 8 months to build an intelligent three-dimensional warehouse.
"After adopting the intelligent AS/RS, the automation, intelligence and of the material in and out of the standing warehouse are realized. The warehouse management data and business software data are automatically connected, and the cargo handling is intelligently mechanized." Yan Hongyue, general manager of Xinhecheng, said.
Under the major trend of "integration of digital and real", all industries are being reshaped, and enterprises like Xinhecheng are all over the country to realize the upgrade of digital intelligence with the help of AI technology. As the driving force behind, Megvii is deeply involved in key vertical industries and plays an important role in the innovative "butterfly transformation" of traditional enterprises.
Upgrading and Development
"The pharmaceutical industry is one of the earliest industries doing warehouse logistics automation in China, and it is the most mature and the largest application scale." Li Shuai, head of product business solution of Megvii Logistics Business Division, mentioned that this is related to the policy background of the industry.
Strict quality control in the pharmaceutical industry requires companies to accurately grasp the import, export and inventory of each batch of drugs, and GMP, GSP and other management standards throughout the production and operation process. For companies in the industry, warehouse information management is an important way to comply with production and sales.
The traditional mode of operation, which relies on intensive labor, is inefficient and costly, and restricts the development of enterprise scale.
"Labor costs are getting higher, management is more difficult, and many pharmaceutical companies realize that it is difficult to improve the quality of their operations if they do not go on information technology and automation systems. In addition, because there is no underlying basic data, enterprises are unable to determine future business trends through big data analysis." Li Shuai said.
Specifically, in the case of Xinhecheng, there is also a need to expand production capacity and improve operational efficiency.
Yan Hongyue confessed that Xinhecheng's product line is rich, the goods warehouse is complex, the warehouse manager has to mark, view and transport the goods, and then enter the information into the system, the operational efficiency of the whole warehouse is all compressed to a single point of the individual.
In addition, due to the large production capacity, Xinhecheng needs to match the large inventory volume, and the heavy cargo, which requires high safety of transportation and stability of the system.
Previously, Xinhecheng deployed automated stereo warehouses in other factories and achieved good application results. When planning the new campus of Xinchang headquarters, Xinhecheng determined to build an intelligent three-dimensional warehouse to accompany the production workshop. The warehouse is about 10,000 square meters, with a building height of 30 meters, and contains a room temperature warehouse for storing raw and auxiliary materials and packaging materials, and a shade warehouse for storing finished products.
Megvii launched the "3A Intelligent Solution" (AS/RS+AMR+AI), which is based on the one-stop AIoT smart warehouse logistics platform Megvii HETU, and connects the traditional AS/RS automated logistics system with the emerging AMR flexible logistics system interface.
"The hardware is paired with 7 stacker cranes, as well as autonomous mobile robots (AMR), robotic arms, RGV, film wrapping machines, visual de-palletizing and other products to realize the automated handling process from raw material supply to finished product discharge, and the backend is paired with Megvii’s self-researched HETU scheduling system to support the management and production specification of back-end materials." Li Shuai introduced.
Source: 21ST CENTURY BUSINESS HERALD
