The rapid growth in the scale of e-commerce business has put Semir's original logistics system, the one-warehouse-wide delivery model, under tremendous pressure in terms of resources, costs, and timeliness. Semir re-planned and laid out the logistics and distribution system of "national main warehouse + front-end sub-warehouse", and invested more than 1 billion yuan to build the high-standard and modern Semir Pinghu Logistics Park in Pinghu, Jiaxing in 2016. As the Semir e-commerce national logistics center, the park has a construction area of ​​460,000 square meters. It mainly focuses on warehousing and distribution, e-commerce logistics, and service settlement. It is responsible for the storage of Semir's full range of goods, goods turnover, and reverse processing.

Semir Pinghu warehouse has introduced a variety of automation equipment including turning machines, conveying and sorting lines, DPS and DAS. As the brain of the automated logistics center, FLUX WMS unifies the scheduling and coordination of various automation equipment, and adopts a centralized deployment method to conduct refined and intelligent management of Semir's single-point multi-warehouse with a total area of ​​more than 400,000 square meters, achieving efficient collaboration, flexibility and intelligence in Semir's logistics center.

Relay type fruit picking

To B orders have few batches, a single order has a large volume, and there are many order lines. The order delivery time ranges from 3 hours to 48 hours. To B orders generally adopt the relay-type fruit picking method in the zero picking area. To C orders can be divided into two types: single product orders and multi-product orders, with different picking strategies set for each.

Single product wave total increase

For single product orders, the WMS system will generate single product pick-up waves according to rules and automatically allocate inventory. Since the warehouse storage area is very large, the storage area is divided into multiple work areas. Each work area is equipped with a workbench to facilitate pickers to obtain picking tasks in the corresponding area. WMS allocates the parts that satisfy the "full box" requirement in the storage area, and the parts that cannot satisfy the "full box" requirement in the demolition area.

Multi-item large wave to small wave

For To C multi-product orders, a large wave (a single wave can handle 10,000 to 20,000 pieces) is first organized for manual picking. The picked turnover boxes are sent to the feeding port of the flap sorter via the conveyor line. The sowers scan the goods in the box one by one and put them into the flapper one by one. The flapper reads the bar code of the goods, and then the flapper follows the conveyor line to the small wave delivery area.

Each crossing corresponds to a small wave (the size of the small wave can be set in the system according to factors such as the volume of goods, generally 18-28 orders per wave). When the flap passes through the corresponding crossing, the flap automatically flips over and puts the goods into the crossing. When the goods of all orders in the chute (i.e. a small wave) are collected, the chute lights are on, and the staff packs the sorted SKUs, scans the turnover box number and chute slogan, completes the binding of the turnover boxes, and transports them to the electronic label DAS seeding area after the packaging is completed, and then sows them to each order through secondary seeding.

For different types of orders, different picking strategies can be flexibly adopted to greatly improve the efficiency of order picking and sales outbound delivery.

Semir Pinghu Warehouse has launched a variety of automation equipment according to the original plan, but in actual operations it was found that the operating efficiency of the hardware was often lower than expected, and there was still room for improvement. Based on the rich professional experience of the Fuller project team and the flexible configurability of FLUX WMS, the Fuller and Semir project teams jointly discussed and explored based on the actual business process and finally formulated a process optimization plan for the flap sorter.

According to the originally set process of the flap sorter, after processing a large wave, the site needs to be cleared (that is, all goods on the flap need to be put into the corresponding crossing) before the next large wave can start. Clearing the site often takes a long time, and at this time the flap machine is in an idle state, causing waste.

Fuller's optimization plan re-planned the operation process. When the first large wave is about to be completed, the second large wave of operations will begin. The goods that need to be cleared in the previous wave are circulated in the turning machine, and the second wave of operations will be carried out at the same time.

The new solution reduces the waiting time between the two waves and improves the utilization rate of the turning machine and the picking efficiency.

E-commerce To-C orders often have the characteristics of large changes in order structure and large differences between peaks and troughs. Faced with this uncertainty, existing automation equipment and fixed process strategies alone cannot efficiently handle massive orders, nor can they adapt to the challenges brought by changes in order structure. Therefore, it is very necessary for warehouses to have sufficient "flexibility".

Fuller's scheme is a good example of this flexibility. Fuller has developed multiple operating modes for Semir, and automatically analyzes the order type and structure through the WMS system to match the optimal operating mode.

Multiple operating modes run in parallel in the picking area. The WMS system analyzes the orders and automatically matches the corresponding operating modes according to the preset rules. Single product orders are picked in single product waves. ； For multi-product orders, the large wave is divided into small waves by the flap sorting machine for seeding and sorting. Due to the increase in business volume, orders that exceed the processing capacity of the sorting machine will be generated by the WMS system in small waves for combined picking and secondary sowing operations. The picking personnel in the picking area only need to automatically obtain the work tasks through the RF terminal and carry out the work under the guidance of RF. Flexible application of multiple operating modes optimizes overall operating efficiency and makes full use of equipment and human resources.

Due to changes in business models, original processes and equipment may no longer be applicable. In order to maximize equipment utilization, reduce idle waste, and protect investments, Fuller provides Semir with on-demand solutions.

For example, Vipshop's JIT was transformed into JITX. Due to the change in model, the planned transportation and sorting line utilization rate and practicality for Vipshop's To B large order outbound review and outbound collection dropped.

Without changing the original equipment layout, Fuller integrated the actual business and transformed the process to use the conveyor sorting line for sowing box collection. WMS split the wave picking tasks of the sowing wall into multiple picking areas. The pickers completed the picking and automatically completed the sowing box collection through the conveyor line. In this way, it can not only reduce cross-area operations and walking paths for pickers, but also effectively utilize the conveying and sorting lines to improve overall operating efficiency.

• By reengineering the operation process of automated equipment such as turning machines, we can further improve equipment operation efficiency and increase equipment flexibility to adapt to changes in business models. ；
• Combined with the application of handheld terminals, full-process barcode management is realized, greatly improving the efficiency and accuracy of warehouse operations. ；
• Various sorting methods such as the car picking and sorting at the same time and the turning machine sorting to collect the goods and re-seeding are applied flexibly in parallel, which greatly improves the order picking efficiency.