Express delivery extends to service production with "iron, land, and air" support, making express delivery "fast" to the extreme logistics | manufacturing | express delivery

CCTV News: For the express delivery industry, safety and efficiency are key. Next day delivery, next morning delivery, current day delivery, and limited time delivery are all very important. Nowadays, express delivery is really striving for timeliness. There is no fastest delivery, only faster delivery. The reason why we can compete for speed is because our country has a complete infrastructure, a complete industrial system, a super large market, and of course, the ability of everyone to buy. Meanwhile, there is something that everyone is not very familiar with, which is the technology and intelligence behind this industry.

In order to verify the speed of the express delivery, the reporter placed an order for a box of lychees on the e-commerce platform. It is about 2000 kilometers from Maoming, Guangdong to Beijing, but the day after placing the order, the reporter received this box of seasonal fruits from afar.

Simply put, a package of express delivery starts from placing an order, from assigning delivery personnel to pick up goods at the front end, to formulating the optimal transportation route and matching corresponding transportation tools, all of which are decision plans given through calculation.

Technology empowers "iron, land, and air" support to make express delivery "fast" to the extreme

Firstly, when placing an order, we can choose different products to match our delivery time requirements. According to your choice, your package can be delivered by plane, car, or high-speed rail. However, freshness is the most important factor for seasonal fruits, and courier companies generally choose to ship them by air.

After the lychees we purchased are delivered to the receiving destination city, they will be delivered together with other goods to the courier for further segmentation. Here, the parcels are sent to the automatic sorting machine, and each parcel looks like it has "eyes" growing, finding its own direction through hundreds of compartments and accurately bagging it to the next destination.

Better algorithms, finer sorting, more efficient delivery

This transit venue covers an area of approximately 78000 square meters and requires processing approximately 1.15 million parcels per day. If it is a peak period like 618 or Double 11, approximately 1.9 million parcels need to be processed daily. In order to facilitate the fast transfer of fresh parcels, green channels and priority transfer are used. However, achieving priority transfer is not easy, and algorithm engineers need to make a reasonable sorting plan for the entire sorting system.

Whether the goods run one or half circles on the sorting machine, and which gate they fall into, all require algorithm engineers to calculate an optimized and most efficient sorting plan, which is then recorded into the computer to command the automated sorting machine to work.

Each grid represents a direction, which can correspond to different cities or various branches of local streets. There is also a QR code on the burlap bag under the slot, and after the burlap bag is loaded, the sensing device below the slot will scan the QR code on the burlap bag, so that the slot and burlap bag are associated.

Next, the sorted parcels will be delivered to the nearest delivery point to the consumer, located near your community or company. The distribution of express delivery outlets is determined based on the volume of packages and regional attributes, and in some places, there will be more outlets to allocate resources reasonably.

It is not difficult to see from the transportation process of a box of lychees that the express delivery industry not only relies on the physical strength of delivery guys, but also relies on technological assistance. Efficient and convenient express logistics enable faster circulation of goods and improve consumer experience. The performance data of express delivery companies in the first half of the year also directly reflects the vitality of the consumer market.

The change of express delivery industry format extends to service production

With the continuous innovation and development of technology, the express delivery industry is also gradually changing. In the past, express delivery only served daily life, but now it is extending to serve production.

Patients urgently need blood transfusion with drones, saving time and efficiency

At the Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat sen University, a patient undergoing emergency treatment urgently needs blood and needs to be transferred from the central blood station in Bao'an District. It is approximately 41 kilometers from the Central Blood Station in Bao'an District to the Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat sen University located in Guangming District, with complex road conditions and heavy traffic along the way. In order to buy time for the patient's rescue, a drone took off from the central blood station in Bao'an District, Shenzhen and headed to the hospital.

Drone blood delivery can leverage its advantages of speed and timeliness, greatly improving the efficiency of medical treatment.

Technology Empowerment Promotes from Single Logistics to Integrated Supply Chain

Faced with the diversified logistics market demand, express delivery companies are no longer limited to the traditional "point-to-point" transportation mode, but by vigorously promoting "express delivery to the factory", extending services to the production process, and achieving better integration with the manufacturing industry.

This lighting enterprise located in Zhongshan, Guangdong has an annual sales revenue of hundreds of millions of yuan through e-commerce channels. Such a large sales volume requires not only matching production capacity, but also ensuring that no link in the supply chain service, logistics, warehousing, order delivery, etc. can be left out. For enterprises, some value-added services in the express delivery industry also promote their production and development.

How to make the warehouse closer to customers and minimize inventory while ensuring production? This requires the use of artificial intelligence and operations research algorithms to analyze production and sales situations and make replenishment predictions, so as to put goods in the forefront. At the same time, linking logistics services at the backend to support the demands of front-end consumers.

Technology empowers the advancement of single logistics transportation towards integrated supply chain management services, from end effectors to entry into production lines. This not only helps manufacturing enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, but also enhances their competitiveness.