Becoming the richest man starts with making complaints

An area of ​​200,000 square meters is covered by three "integrated" buildings spliced ​​together.

Huge big squares, as far as the eye can see.

In front of this huge volume, people seem to be just a small point.

In the future, this place will be filled with goods and there will be an endless flow of trucks.

When money was exchanged for the behemoth in front of him, Cao Shen felt money for the first time.

It turns out that you are this thing...

Tao Qian stood next to Cao Shen, looking at his masterpiece with emotion.

He also didn't expect that he would be able to do this one day.

Both of them looked at their "territory" quietly, and for a moment they forgot to speak.

The system tugged at the corner of Cao Shen's clothes:

[Host, it’s time to work! 】

I'm still anxious to transform and come back.

Only then did Cao Shen come to his senses, haha, he was quite positive.

That's good……

He pushed the system to Tao Qian and introduced:

"This is our Haina engineer, Fan Da. He is here to be responsible for deploying automation equipment."

Only then did Tao Qian see "Little Douding" being pushed out from behind Cao Shen.

You really can't blame him for his poor eyesight, it's just that Fan Da... is too young.

Looking at Fan Da's plaid shirt, the backpack he is carrying, and his balding hair...

This must be a technical expert!

Sure enough, everything is concentrated in essence!

Tao Qian quickly stretched out his hands: "Hello, Mr. Fan, I am Tao Qian!"

The system also stretched out its hand, shook it casually, nodded and urged:

"Let's start working! I'll go check out the equipment first."

Watch this system complete it in minutes, and then go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!

"Okay, okay!" This way, Tao Qian quickly led the way.

As he walked, he introduced:

"We are divided into three areas here.

The first building in front is the small parcels area, which is for daily small express delivery.

The middle one is the middleware area, mainly home appliances, such as microwave ovens, mother and baby toys, etc.

The last and third floor is the large items area, which houses TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, etc.

Each warehouse has a three-dimensional storage area, a multi-story attic picking area, a production operation area and a shipping and sorting area.

Now, according to the documents you gave us before, all the automation equipment has been purchased and placed in three warehouses.

I'm just waiting for you to see how to deploy these devices.

In addition, the steel shelves of the three-dimensional warehouse have been installed. Mr. Cao will check if there are any problems..."

While talking, several people entered the three-dimensional storage area of ​​the first warehouse.

This is the storage area for future goods, with a total of 12 floors.

Using a three-dimensional warehouse system with 32 lanes and 65,000 pallets, the storage efficiency will be five times that of ordinary storage.

Cao Shen looked at the densely packed 24-meter-high steel frame, which was neatly lined up, and the metal and rivets gave off an orchid light.

Robots line up.

Metal and machines fill the space.

This is the automation industry...

Still a bit shocking.

Tao Qian introduced:

"Based on the current shelf density, this warehouse can store 60,000 boxes of goods at the same time. Infrared rays have been deployed at each node of the shelf."

Cao Shen nodded. Because it is an unmanned warehouse, no one is involved in the process of transporting goods. Infrared rays are needed to determine the location and distance of the goods to ensure the orderly discharge of the goods.

Tao Qian pointed to the "block" robots lined up in the shelf lane and said:

"Mr. Cao, this is the first batch of customized robots. It has been equipped with cameras and WiFi according to your requirements. How do you use this?"

Cao Shen squatted down and looked at the "little square". Oh, it's not bad. At least the "visual" and "network" modules are added to the hardware as required.

He touched his chin and said to Tao Qian:

"This smart warehouse will use a "goods-to-person" system. These robots are used to carry shelves."

Traditionally, e-commerce companies have several common order sorting methods:

Fruit picking method, sowing method, compound method.

The so-called fruit picking method is to ask the picker to take an order and search back and forth in the storage area according to the requirements on the order until all the goods on the order are picked out and matched.

Then, put the prepared goods together in the designated location for packaging and other follow-up work.

The so-called seeding method is to divide the orders into batches and summarize the same products in each batch of orders.

Then take them out in one go and move them to a temporary storage location.

After that, sorting is done according to the requirements on each order.

This method takes less time to tour the storage area than the fruit-picking method, but it generally needs to wait until the orders accumulate to a certain number before order sorting, which has a lag in timeliness.

Traditional e-commerce generally chooses a combination of the two models based on specific product types.

But whether it is the fruit-picking method, the sowing method or the compound method, this is the "people arrive, goods come" model.

This model requires pickers to "tour" the shelves all day long, paying equal attention to both hands and eyes. The repetitive work is repetitive and boring, and people are extremely tired.

The so-called walking with broken legs, raising useless hands, and seeing blindly.

Not only is it inefficient, it is also error-prone.

The "goods-to-person" system requires the extensive use of this kind of AGV robot (Automated Guided Vehicle) "intelligent handling vehicle".

This kind of robot has a certain load capacity, and it finds the shelf where the items in the order are located through the order system.

Then, the shelves are "carried" to the sorter, and the sorter picks out the goods before carrying the shelves back and putting them away.

In the original world, AGV cars were first used in e-commerce warehousing and logistics by Amazon.

In 2012, Amazon acquired Kiva Systems, an automated logistics provider, for US$750 million, and used this robot named "Kiva" to promote the e-commerce warehousing and logistics industry.

Now, Cao Shen plans to promote this "goods to people" model in the world.

AGV robots have actually been used very maturely in the automotive, electronics, and tobacco manufacturing industries.

But in the field of e-commerce, at least in this world, this is the first time it has been adopted.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Tao Qian is a little confused.

Moreover, to apply AGV robots to e-commerce, traditional AGV robots are not enough, and the hardware functions and system functions must be modified.

Taking the Kiva robot of the original world as an example, compared with the traditional AGV robot, there are four key new core technologies.

First, cruise positioning technology.

There is a camera on the bottom of Kiva that reads the grid visual marks on the ground to determine "where it went."

This is different from traditional AGVs, which must rely on wires, coils, etc. buried in the ground, which greatly limits the robot's freedom and adjustability.

Moreover, this kind of robot does not require the installation of any additional expensive infrastructure in the warehouse and can be used anywhere.

In addition, there is a camera on the top of Kiva, which is used to identify the barcode or QR code of the shelf to confirm that "the goods I want are on this shelf."

This innovative cruise technology critically relies on the development of "machine vision" technology.

"Machine vision" is the "eyes" of smart industry and is divided into imaging part and image processing part.

In the imaging part, there are three key modules: light source, lens and industrial camera.

Compared with civilian lighting sources, machine vision light sources have higher requirements on the three core indicators of illumination, uniformity and stability.

In the early days, the market was dominated by companies from the United States and Japan. In recent years, domestic manufacturers have gradually emerged, and their technology is sufficient to compete with international manufacturers.

The lens is the most critical imaging component in the machine vision system and the "eyeball" in industrial vision.

Its function is to image the target on the photosensitive surface of the image sensor.

The key indicators of imaging quality are resolution, contrast, depth of field, aberration, etc.

Compared with ordinary lenses, industrial lenses require higher clarity, stronger spectral transmission capabilities, and distortion rates as low as 0.1%.

Optical lenses have high production requirements and complex processes, requiring years of accumulation of technology and production processes.

In the original world, even in 2020, high-end lenses in the machine vision industry will still rely on imports, and established foreign lens manufacturers have an absolute advantage.

However, domestic companies are also developing rapidly and have the advantage of high cost performance in the low-end market.

The essential function of an industrial camera is the process of converting optical signals into electrical signals.

Compared with ordinary cameras, industrial cameras require higher transmission capabilities, anti-interference capabilities, and stable imaging capabilities.

According to the chip type of the image sensor in the industrial camera, it is divided into two types of image sensors: CCD and CMOS.

CCD image sensors have higher image quality and stronger noise resistance, but the imaging speed is relatively slow and the price is high. They are generally used in high-end situations.

CMOS image sensors have low image quality and high noise, but have high integration, fast imaging speed and low cost, and are gradually replacing CCDs.

The cameras we usually use on our mobile phones are basically CMOS sensors.

In the field of industrial cameras, foreign manufacturers still occupy the main market. North American brands account for 62% of the global industrial camera market, and European brands account for 15%.

These domestic manufacturers started relatively slowly, starting from the low-end market and gradually penetrating into the high-end market.

Of course, cost-effectiveness has always been the advantage.

The image processing part is the key to the machine vision system.

The identification, positioning, measurement, detection and other functions of the measured object are completed through image algorithms.

In the original world, the underlying algorithms of image processing software were basically monopolized by foreign manufacturers.

Domestic machine vision image processing software is basically based on the open source software OpenCV or third-party commercial algorithm library for secondary development.

The combination of light sources, lenses, industrial cameras, image processing software and other components is a traditional PC-based industrial vision system.

In recent years, with the development of embedded technology, smart cameras have begun to attract attention as a new alternative.

This solution is highly integrated, low cost, versatile and easy to use.

However, there is still a big gap between it and the traditional PC vision system in terms of accuracy, speed and complex computing capabilities, but it is already suitable for price-sensitive small and medium-sized private enterprises.

Kiva’s second core technology is power supplement technology.

The Kiva robot is battery-powered and lasts eight to 10 hours between charges.

Once the power is low, the built-in drive system will drive itself to the charging station to find an interface for charging.

It is said that not only can they work by themselves, but they can also "eat" by themselves.

Third, communication technology.

Kiva has WIFI wireless connection and can be integrated or separated with the entire warehousing intelligent system.

Fourth, software system related technologies.

As the order is allocated, Kiva will proactively find the goods and move the shelves. At the same time, it will automatically choose the shortest path to deliver the goods to the "idle" staff.

When encountering urgent orders, it will also know how to avoid "you are in a hurry, you go first".

This function relies on artificial intelligence algorithms.

Of course, Cao Shen's "smart warehouse" will be fully automated and will not have picking staff.

The AGV robot will carry the shelves to the "sorting robots" that are still empty.

The above is the "picking" process after receiving the order.

On the other hand, when the goods arrive in stock.

The robot will place the goods on the machine pallet, and the robot with the pallet will automatically place the goods on the designated shelf in the warehouse.

The shelf has an automatic lifting function, which will "slide" the goods to the designated position in the shelf.

AGV robot, used to carry shelves?

Goods-to-person system?

Tao Qian found it very refreshing. When he thought about the future robots "having fun" all over the warehouse, Tao Qian found it quite interesting.

Cao Shen forcefully patted the system on the shoulder:

“AGVs, unmanned forklifts, shuttles, lane pushers, sorters, six-axis robotic arms, and magnetic levitation balers required for smart warehousing are all here.

Come on, get to work! "

The e-commerce companies in the original world are represented by JD.com and Suning, and smart warehousing has achieved a high degree of automation.

JD.com's "Asia One" located in Jiading, Shanghai, was put into use in October 2014, with a sorting capacity of 16,000 pieces per hour and a sorting accuracy of 99.99%.

If manual operation is used, the sorting speed is 150 pieces per person per hour, and the error rate is more than 3%.

Suning's Nanjing Logistics Center, which was put into trial operation in August 2016, has realized full-process automation.

From the time the goods are put in to the time they are shipped out, they only need to be touched manually twice at least.

Inside the warehouse, Suning uses a high-density automatic storage system, SCS rotating warehouse system, high-speed sorting line and automated distribution system.

It can handle 1.81 million parcels every day, and a single order can be shipped out of the warehouse in as little as 30 minutes.

30 minutes seems like a long time.

However, when the sorting requirements for millions of items are piled up, the complexity increases exponentially to ensure that each item is completed efficiently and without errors.

It can be seen from this that these two companies are really good at warehousing and logistics...

A lot of money was spent! Especially JD.com.

Of course, this is also closely related to technological progress.

Cao Shen had always wanted to visit this kind of fully automated logistics park in his previous life, but before he could, his life was "locked".

Therefore, he was also interested in seeing how the smart warehousing system he had sacrificed his life would look like after it was finally deployed and all the goods were running in and out.

The system looked at the towering shelves and the machines that covered them. The whole system was in bad shape.

Starting to look blue...

Is this something that can be done in just a few minutes?

Staring at Cao Shen with fire in his eyes, this is something a human being can do!

Go shopping with me!

Let me buy a bag!

Eat out!

I knew it! This is a pit! Sinkhole!