Who says Amazon is the only tech company? See how JD.com’s “Shuhai” shows off its tech style

From powerful warehouse management systems to imaginative drone deliveries, international e-commerce giant Amazon seems to have always been the representative of the "technology flow" in the e-commerce field.

However, the rapid development of science and technology always brings us various surprises.

A year ago, JD.com, a leading domestic e-commerce brand, and chip giant Intel jointly established a joint laboratory. In August 2015, the two parties cooperated to complete the "Shuhai" project 1.0 for warehouse management, which was highlighted at the Intel IDF conference. Now, "Shuhai" has once again ushered in Shuhai 2.0. Starting from the most critical warehouse in e-commerce, "Shuhai" has become a weapon for JD.com to show its "technological style".

How to increase warehouse utilization by 50%?

For an e-commerce platform like JD.com that sells tens of millions of products, managing warehouses is definitely a big deal. Fortunately, the "Shuhai" project has been implemented in JD.com's warehousing link at this stage.

Shuhai is the name of a god of complex measurement in ancient times. The "Shuhai" project connects Intel's RealSense technology with JD's warehousing application links, and completes the collection of two important logistics attributes of goods: the volume occupied and their own weight through three steps.

"Shuhai" appears in the warehouse in the form of a cart. First, the object to be tested is placed on the cart. Next, the manager scans the product barcode to determine the product type. Finally, through sensor detection, the packaging size of the product will be displayed in a yellow box on the device screen.

Of course, it is impossible for all commodities to be regular shapes. It is inevitable that there will be many commodities with irregular shapes, so an optimized solution is needed to calculate a "box" for the commodity. Through algorithm optimization, the "Shuhai" cart can calculate the "box" for the commodity within seconds.

Li Baojie, senior manager of warehouse hardware design at JD Group, said that the implementation of the "Shuhai" project has greatly increased the utilization rate of JD warehouses, which is also the original intention of the project. After obtaining the basic data of the goods, the early warehouse planning and the amount of goods that can be stored in each shelf and each cargo compartment can be obtained. It is roughly estimated that the utilization rate can be increased by more than 50% compared with the original.

"Shuhai" 2.0 takes measurement a step further

"Shuhai" 1.0 is mainly used to measure single items, but if there are many items piled together, how to calculate the total volume of the goods as quickly as possible? "Shuhai" 2.0 solves this problem very well.

The situation where goods are piled together is most common during logistics transfer. A merchant has a pile of items that need to be transferred. How big a vehicle is needed, how much is the transfer fee, and the volume and quantity are all closely related to logistics and business costs.

"Shuhai" 2.0 can realize combined volume measurement. Just place the items to be measured under the sensor, and the sensor can instantly capture and measure the combined volume of a pile of items, and even give the best combination plan, so that the items can be stacked in the car with the optimal combined volume, greatly improving the operational efficiency of warehousing and logistics.

Create low-cost and high-efficiency warehousing solutions

In fact, before the emergence of "Shuhai", related products had appeared in the industry. According to Zhao Gang, director of the group architecture department of JD Group's R&D office, JD had previously purchased an imported device using infrared scanning, which cost about 200,000 yuan. However, the device uses relatively traditional scanning technology and requires manual labor to push the goods. The operation time is long and the degree of automation is not high. Overall, the cost of use is very high.

In comparison, the accuracy of "Shuhai" in scanning objects can reach the millimeter level. In addition, the cost of each device does not exceed 10,000 yuan, and it can indirectly save 80% of labor costs.

Zhao Gang also emphasized that the implementation of "Shuhai" in JD.com's warehouse does not mean that this technology will become exclusive to JD.com. Many logistics companies are currently in contact with JD.com. JD.com's purpose in developing "Shuhai" is not only to manage its own warehouses, but also to promote low-cost and high-efficiency warehousing solutions to more usage scenarios and application scopes.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.