Intelligent automated ecommerce parcel sorting system

Parcel traffic fluctuates greatly throughout the year, often peaking during Black Friday and Christmas. Global parcel volumes typically grow by up to 25% per year. The COVID-19 pandemic has also put on-time order fulfillment a test. Increased reliance on e-commerce has increased the need for capacity. This is not only related to the need to hire more employees, but also to ensure the correct sorting rate. In addition to throughput requirements and surges in demand, worker health and satisfaction are also challenges for manual sorting and e-commerce sorting. Employees may become bored with repetitive tasks or be injured from carrying irregular heavy objects. This can lead to workers' compensation expenses and reduced productivity.

Core challenges of e-commerce parcel sorting

• High SKU complexity: Products vary greatly in size, weight, and shape (such as clothing, fresh food, and 3C products), making it difficult for traditional sorting equipment to adapt.
• High timeliness requirements: Consumers' demand for "same-day delivery" and "next-day delivery" forces sorting to speed up.
• Cost pressure: With rising labor costs, the long-term ROI (return on investment) of automated sorting has become a key consideration.

What are the common sorting modes for e-commerce warehouses?

There are three main picking methods in e-commerce warehouses: 
1. Sorting by order - picking by sorting. When picking goods, the goods are placed in different picking containers according to the order, and then sent to the packaging place for packaging;
2. Aggregate sorting - sowing sorting. During the picking process, after picking by item category, they are directly sent to the packaging place, and then sown and packaged according to the order;
3. Sorting and sowing while picking - picking and sorting while picking. It combines the characteristics of picking and sowing, for example; multiple picking frames are placed on the same picking truck, one frame for one order, and orders can be placed front and back. The handheld PDA performs intelligent picking in the warehouse according to the order content, and after re-checking, the goods are packed and placed on the conveyor belt to complete the delivery process.

E-commerce sorting machine composition

1. Packing platform

2.Import station

• The package weight is lower than the minimum weight threshold set by the sorting system
• The package weight is greater than the maximum weight threshold set by the sorting system
• The package volume is too large and exceeds the volume range that the sorting machine can recognize
• The label/slip on the package is not turned up, the camera cannot recognize the wrinkled or damaged label/slip on the package, and the barcode cannot be recognized. Due to interface abnormalities, the package sorting task is not queried
• The package has no available slots, etc.

3.dws machine

As the name suggests, it automatically recognizes and calculates the length, width, height, weight, volume and other information of the package. Some sorting machines will measure and weigh the parcels when they are imported into the induction station. Some sorting machines will install DWS machines in the next link after the parcels are imported. The parcels will be transported at a lower speed after passing through this point, which is convenient for the instrument to identify.

4. Transport cart

The transport cart refers to the "grid" on the transport track. After the package is scanned successfully, the package will be transported to one of the carts by the track. At this time, the parcel sorting status changes to successful import
A cart can only load one corresponding package. The cart uses gravity sensing or light sensing to detect whether the cargo is successfully loaded. If it fails, it is an import failure and the corresponding package needs manual intervention to rescan.

5. sorting ports

The ports is also called the slot, which is at the end of the auto sorting machine and is equivalent to the exit of the sorting machine. It is usually connected to the cage car and sack, and is used to classify the parcels pushed out by the sorting machine trolley
The port types are: normal port, abnormal port, disabled port, etc. The port types can be maintained in the sorting management system. The abnormal slot is specifically used to receive abnormal packages such as weight and no slot judgment
The slot usually has business attributes: such as the same channel, consumables, order type, declaration method, country, volume, etc. The parcel conditions matching the slot can be set according to the needs of business parcel sorting. The optical sensing device can be installed at the connection between the slot and the transport trolley to sense whether the parcel is successfully pushed into the slot and whether the slot is full. When the optical sensing device senses that the parcel has successfully fallen into the slot, the corresponding sorting status of the parcel should automatically change to unloading success. If the optical sensing slot has a parcel overflow, the slot status can be automatically changed to disabled (it can be manually opened later after the fully loaded cage car is pulled away manually)

Mainstream parcel sorting technology and applications

1. Automated sorting system

2. Intelligent sorting technology

AI visual recognition + robot sorting:

Technology: through deep learning to identify the shape and barcode of the goods, the robot arm or AGV completes the grabbing and sorting.

RFID (radio frequency identification) sorting:

Applicable scenarios: high-value goods (such as luxury goods, 3C products).

Advantages: no need to scan codes, batch recognition, improve efficiency.

Conclusion

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