The biggest hot spot in the logistics industry in 2017 is intelligence. Smart logistics will completely change the current logistics management system, but also contains huge opportunities, not just the logistics express industry, many industries will share the cake of smart logistics, for entrepreneurs, the wisdom of logistics is a new outlet, resulting in A large number of unicorn enterprises will be inevitable.
Smart logistics has become a new outlet
New technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and robotics are changing all walks of life, transportation, retail, manufacturing, and logistics. Among them, the labor-intensive logistics industry was changed more obviously. Before this, the application of electronic face sheets, hand-held muskets, and information systems enabled data collection in all aspects of logistics, and logistics big data laid the foundation for smart logistics. Today, as the AI, Internet of Things, and robotics technologies mature, the logistics industry is undergoing enormous changes. From storage to transportation to distribution, every link is intelligent.
Logistics companies have already acted. For example, SF Express uses machine learning technologies to predict express shipments. The forecast granularity can be refined to each distribution network, and more rational and efficient resource allocation can be performed. However, the most important application of smart logistics is the unmanned operation - improving the efficiency of logistics operations, reducing logistics costs, and innovating business models through unmanned operations.
During the double 11 period this year, many logistics companies introduced robots and IoT technologies in warehouses, intelligently sorting, and improving efficiency to reduce the labor intensity of pickers. In the distribution process, drones and other unmanned distribution systems have also been put on the agenda. After the successful flight of the AT200 logistics drones, companies such as Shunfeng invested heavily in unmanned distribution and set a clear timetable. The technology-driven e-commerce giant is more interested in smart logistics, and has increased its smart logistics to a strategic level.
In September, Alibaba announced an increase of 5.3 billion yuan in the rookie network and became the controlling shareholder of the latter. It plans to invest another 100 billion yuan in the next five years to promote the core of intelligent warehouses, intelligent distribution, and global e-hub hubs. In the area of ​​construction, after e-commerce logistics has been electronicized through electronic means and other means, "intelligence" is the next stage in the rookie network.
At the recent logistics conference, JD.com announced that it is necessary to increase intelligence to a strategic level. Following the normal operation of unmanned warehouses, drones, and distribution robots, JD Logistics’ unmanned light trucks and unmanned distribution sites are also Will begin operations. Jingdong has established a global logistics headquarters in Xi'an and established a global unmanned system industry headquarters to establish a converged and smart logistics platform and lay out a smart logistics.
Suning established the Logistics S Lab last year, focusing on lean manufacturing and artificial intelligence, such as warehouse automation technology, green packaging technology, intelligent picking robots, intelligent distribution robots, drone campus smart inspection, AR/VR Technology and so on. At the 818 Shopping Festival, Suning demonstrated black technology such as smart delivery robots.
With the rise of China's e-commerce industry, China's logistics industry has come alive later, and logistics costs, efficiency, and service levels are among the highest in the world. Undoubtedly, Smart Logistics China will continue to lead: In terms of AI and Internet of Things technologies, China already has a strong underlying technology strength, and has accumulated talent, technology, data, and scenes as much as the giants of Silicon Valley, while China’s technology The positive layout of the company also occupies the first-mover advantage, so we often see China can turn over lanes in the AI ​​era. The market is huge, smart technology is not lacking, giants are actively planning, and AI-driven smart logistics will become an opportunity for China's logistics industry. The data shows that the market size of China's smart logistics in 2016 is 200 billion yuan. By 2025, the scale of smart logistics market is expected to exceed trillions.
Which industries will benefit?
The rapid growth of the smart logistics market is not only the dividends of logistics companies, many industries will benefit from this.
First, storage robots.
The most important application of smart logistics is unmanned. The biggest beneficiary is the robot industry. Speaking of robots people will think of humanoid robots such as Boston or Pepper, but the most widely used is industrial robots. Different from the automation of industrial robots in traditional manufacturing industries, intelligent robots can use machine vision, path planning, mechanical control and other technologies to achieve more Complex anthropomorphic operation.
In the logistics industry, warehousing, sorting, packing, transmission, and other aspects of the distribution of the last kilometer, can be applied to the robot, is now expected to be the first to use the storage robot. "Machine substitution" can greatly increase efficiency, reduce labor costs, and avoid errors at the same time. Logistics companies can provide cheaper, faster, and better logistics services through the use of robots.
Today more and more logistics warehousing are using robots. According to statistics, the global market size of the storage robot industry is about US$20 billion, ranking first in China and second in the United States, accounting for 80% of the global market capacity. The global growth rate in 2016 was 38%, and China’s growth rate was 88%. With the rapid growth of China's smart logistics market, the Chinese storage robot market is expected to lead.
In the video on the opening of the JD Logistics Conference, the robots in the warehouse can work with the warehouse administrator to complete the sorting task. They can follow the picker to move around and accept the task. After completing the task, the robot can automatically return to the original position. The robot was provided by a start-up company named Smart Technology, and public information showed that Smart Technology was established in 2016. Within one year, it completed the seed round, angel round, and A round of financing with a financing amount of tens of millions of dollars. Its first vision-based Perceived storage cooperative robots will be put into production in early 2018. In addition to the smart technology favored by JD.com, the domestic robot startups that specialize in warehousing also have players such as “love radishâ€. At present, the storage robot market is still a blue sea, and it is expected that many unicorn enterprises will be born in the future.
Second, self-driving cars.
The nature of a self-driving car is a moving four-wheeled robot. In the transportation and distribution link of smart logistics, a large number of self-driving cars will be used to save the manpower cost of a large number of drivers. At the same time, the accident rate can be reduced and the transportation efficiency can be improved through cloud dispatch. In the "last mile" link, no express delivery will also appear. Prior to this, the two founders of Skype established the "Starship" company to solve the last mile delivery problem. The car can deliver express delivery within 5 km within 20 minutes.
From the perspective of the self-driving car industry, it is still unrealistic for the unmanned vehicles to be accepted by the public in the short term, and restrictions on traffic laws and regulations cannot be solved in the short term. Chris Urmson, former head of Google’s unmanned vehicle project, once pointed out that autopilot technology will inevitably be commercialized in vertical areas. Now, there are two vertical areas that are most favored. One is commuting in specific scenarios, such as airport shuttle buses and park commuter buses; the other is unmanned delivery.
Smart Logistics is a vertical field that is ideally suited for self-driving cars. In September of this year, Jingdong announced its joint research and development of SAIC Chase and Dongfeng Motor SAIC Datong EV80 New Energy unmanned trucks and Dongfeng electric unmanned goods vehicles. This is a domestic e-commerce business. In the area of ​​logistics and logistics, the company unveiled its first product for unmanned goods vehicles. Jingdong said that the current unmanned trucks have begun road tests within the fixed sections designated by the traffic control department. In addition to JD.com, there are other entrepreneurs such as Tucson Technology, which has invested in Sina.com, and Smart Technologies, which was mentioned earlier, plans to extend its reach to delivery robots based on vSLAM (Visual SLAM) technology platform.
Third, drones.
Drones are not an emerging market, and this area has produced the Dajiang Super Unicorn. However, Dajiang and its followers are mainly engaged in aerial photography and occasionally involved in fields such as agriculture. Many drones deliver news, but most of them are just gimmicks. In remote and remote areas, it is not impossible to use drones to deliver goods. These areas are inaccessible, and traditional delivery methods are costly. At the same time, there is no need to worry about obstacles, noise, or problems that must be considered in urban applications.
At present, logistics giants such as JD.com and Shunfeng are all increasing investment in drone delivery. SF Express adopted the “three-stage air transportation network†layout, which includes large-scale manned transport aircraft, large-scale drones and small drones to form different levels of air transport capacity. The total investment for large-scale drone projects is as high as 740 million yuan. The ultimate goal is The capacity of drones covered the national highways, urban trunk lines and the last kilometer of transportation demand in remote areas, achieving 36-hour express shipments throughout the country. Jingdong established a global unmanned system operation headquarters in Xi’an and obtained drone flight licenses in various regions to deploy drone delivery.
Fourth, automated logistics equipment.
The handling system will use a large number of robots, and some links will require large-scale automation equipment, such as transportation links, to automatically identify millions of SKUs, and then transfer them to different sorting or packing work areas; or vice versa. The package is delivered to the corresponding product area to load the product.
Last year I visited the rookie Guangzhou automated warehouse. The rookie warehouse uses a large number of conveyor belt technology. The entire warehouse is equipped with automated conveyor belts. The barcoded packages are transported to different commodity areas. One area. This conveyor belt and behind the automation system is provided by the Austrian company KNAPP, and the rookie investment has reached 100 million. Automation equipment like this will also be used in a large number of warehouses. It is believed that Chinese entrepreneurs and smart logistics service providers can use China's leading information technology and cost advantages to develop more competitive automated logistics equipment and realize warehousing in collaboration with robots. Unmanned.
It can be seen that every aspect of smart logistics will be transformed by unmanned, intelligent and automated. Robots, unmanned vehicles, drones and other industries will benefit from this, and each area is expected to have a unicorn company. .
What are the challenges of smart logistics?
Smart logistics means that many aspects of logistics will be staged as "machine substitutions" - this will happen in many industries such as manufacturing, finance and service industries. The BBC even predicts that 800 million human beings will be replaced by robots by 2030. . Therefore, the logistics industry will also face a problem: Where are the people who have been replaced?
In the long run, as Ma Yun said, after the machine has done something, people will do more valuable things, such as artistic creation. The example of Ma Yunju is the logistics industry. “As early as the Qing Dynasty, railways appeared. People resisted the railway. They worry that the porters will lose their jobs and affect social stability. However, there are now more than 2 million railway workers; and after the emergence of containers, porters are worried that they will lose their jobs. However, many port workers have appeared in the port."
When advancing the wisdom strategy, the employees of Jingdong Logistics did not decline. Jingdong’s explanation was: “The scale of China’s entire logistics industry has surpassed that of the United States, and the cake has been continuously expanding; new industry forms have continued to come in, thus solving the problem. Many people’s employment problems.†The reduction in personnel brought by intelligence is more reflected in the micro-levels of energy efficiency improvement and efficiency improvement. The entire logistics industry does not have to worry about machine substitutions, and people can do nothing. On the one hand, logistics industry cannot be completely eliminated. Humanization, on the other hand, machines need people to manage. Some jobs disappeared but new jobs emerged. Moreover, smart logistics further stimulated logistics demand, and logistics cakes would become very large.
The second challenge of smart logistics is technology
Is the technology mature enough? Technology maturity is not only available, but also in line with economic costs, adapting to different scenarios, and being safe enough to be used in a production environment. For example, storage robots, previously used in the industry were based on laser radar to achieve positioning and understanding of the environment, this solution is costly and can only achieve positioning and navigation under two-dimensional maps, can not work with people, so even if technically feasible, practical But it is difficult to be applied on a large scale.
The rapid development of AI technology makes machine vision more and more powerful. It can simulate humans to understand the three-dimensional environment to solve the above problems. As mentioned above, the Smart Wheel Technology's visual wheeled robots, a special feature is based on the instant positioning of machine vision and Environmental understanding technology (VSLAM), not laser sensors. The main sensor it uses is the camera. Combining deep learning and other technologies, it can understand and locate the three-dimensional space and even identify the face. Therefore, according to the face information of the staff in the logistics warehouse, the picking list can be obtained and the picker can be tracked. Location picking collaborative picking. This solution has low cost, many application scenarios, and does not require a large-scale change of the storage structure, and is expected to be used on a large scale. In fact, the self-driving car industry is also making such changes, after the radar sensor-based program is being replaced by the machine vision program, not long ago dedicated to machine vision, Shang Tang Technology and Honda reached a cooperation layout of the autopilot business.
The third challenge of smart logistics is the system
Only technology can not support the unmanned vehicles on the road. Li Yanhong’s driver’s license is divided by the unmanned vehicle on the ring. In the longer term, how can the responsibility of the unmanned vehicles hit people? Does the algorithm of the unmanned vehicle give priority to protecting itself or protecting passers-by? In the face of major technological changes, the systems of human society must also be adapted accordingly. In the smart logistics industry, when drones or unmanned vehicles hit people during delivery, or were hijacked, what should be done? Where can drones be delivered and how can they be controlled? What area can an unmanned delivery vehicle enter and how can I avoid being used to pry into privacy? These are questions that require people to answer.
Of course, any technological changes that change the world are not accomplished overnight. The intelligence of the logistics industry is the general trend. The above challenges will eventually have corresponding solutions that are unstoppable. After the Internet took 20 years to completely change the flow of information, human factors such as people flow, logistics, and capital flow will also be changed by smart transportation, smart logistics, and financial technology, respectively.
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