China's labor advantage has been lost. The rising labor costs and the declining labor population are causing headaches for Chinese companies. In particular, Chinese traditional warehouses rely heavily on low labor costs. The current situation is for traditional warehouse management companies, the future can only be Transform to a smart warehouse to reduce dependence on manpower.
According to the data given by Yao Jingyuan, a special researcher in the Counselor's Office of the State Council of China and the former chief economist of the National Bureau of Statistics, the population of the post-80s generation in China is 228 million, but the post-00s population has dropped to 120 million. Post-00s are 100 million less than post-80s.
According to data released by the Bureau of Statistics in January 2016, at the end of 2015, the working-age population of China between the ages of 16 and 59 was 911 million, a net decrease of 4.87 million from the end of 2014. This is also the fourth consecutive year that the working-age population has declined. The net decrease in the working-age population in the first three years was 3.45 million, 2.44 million, and 3.71 million. Based on the data of the past few years, China's labor force population has decreased by more than 10 million, so it is directly reflected in the economy to cause China's labor cost to rise sharply, and it will only become more severe in the future.
Most warehouses in China are in a very primitive stage, relying heavily on low labor costs and moving goods back and forth through manpower. However, with the increase in labor costs year by year, it has reached an unbearable level, so the transformation of traditional warehouses to smart warehouses is already inevitable.
At present, there are many kinds of equipment such as handling robots (AGV), unmanned forklifts, sorting robots, composite robots, etc., which are all indispensable equipment for the transformation of traditional warehouses to smart warehouses.
The handling AGV equipment developed by Meiwei Robot has been used in domestic smart warehouses. At the same time, Jingzhi can customize the handling and movement of goods weighing up to 1 ton according to user needs. Through the docking with the warehouse management system, it can monitor warehouse inventory in real time. The operating status of the equipment realizes intelligent warehouse management.
Unmanned forklifts can realize cargo stacking and movement. For traditional forklifts, unmanned forklifts can realize unmanned operation, autonomous movement, intelligent obstacle avoidance, cargo handling and stacking operations, and help optimize the management of unmanned storage in and out. At the same time, labor input is reduced to avoid accidents caused by work injuries.
The cross belt sorter and oblique wheel sorter can realize the rapid movement and classification of products, and the classification management is carried out through the 3D visual recognition system and the weight weighing system to save manpower to the greatest extent.
In recent years, most of the world's fastest-growing e-commerce companies are based in China. Some e-commerce centers have already begun to introduce intelligent warehousing systems. By handling AGVs and sorting AGVs, the work efficiency of retail picking areas can be greatly improved. At the same time, the introduction of three-dimensional warehouse equipment, through the use of cross-belt sorters, oblique wheel sorters, shuttles, unmanned forklifts and other equipment, to create unmanned intelligent storage equipment to increase the throughput of the warehouse.
According to a recent report by Xinhua News Agency, a man-machine competition was held in Shanghai, where six driverless forklifts competed with six experienced forklift drivers in two major links: warehousing and exit. Under the unified command of the dispatching system, the fleet of unmanned forklifts drove smoothly and cooperated tacitly. In the end, with a maximum speed of 3 meters per second, and good stability, coordination and safety, the unmanned fleet won.
Behind the human-machine battle, high-tech transforms the traditional logistics industry, making the latter more efficient and smarter.
The development of artificial intelligence technology will promote the development of smart warehouses to higher-level smart warehouses. After the smart warehouse production plan is made, material and manpower requirements are automatically generated, inventory lists and purchase orders are checked, and logistics is planned and completed. If the materials are not enough to meet the production requirements, the system will automatically recommend to modify the plan in order to produce equivalent products.
Of course, the transformation of traditional warehouses cannot be achieved in one step, but it needs to gradually transform to smart warehouses. In the future, traditional Chinese warehouses will face two situations: one is being eliminated; the other is the transformation of enterprises with strong capital to smart warehouses. The future smart warehouse needs talents with high-quality skills, and simple and repetitive tasks will be replaced or assisted by robots. Building smart warehouses will get rid of dependence on low-end labor, which is what Chinese companies urgently need to do.
