New Delhi: In preparation for this year’s Alibaba’s 11.11 event of Global Shopping Festival , Cainiao Smart Logistics Network, the logistics unit of Alibaba has upgraded its technology, bolstering its market-leading cross-border and “New Logistics” capabilities.
In China, Cainiao has just opened a new robotic warehouse, expanded its Internet of Things systems and built out its platform’s last-mile reach. For cross-border deliveries, containers and charter planes are ready to speed orders across the world. Overall, Cainiao’s network will be linking 30 million square meters of warehousing worldwide and involving more than three million logistics personnel, the company said in a statement.
With 700 automated guided vehicles, or AGVs, the new warehouse is located in Cainiao’s first IoT Future Park, in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu Province, and is the largest robotic smart warehouse in China, the company claimed. The IoT technology in the warehouse can automatically direct AGVs to drive, load and unload. The system will plan the best routing for the AGVs to avoid collision and intelligently distribute parcels. 50% more orders can be fulfilled by the entire warehouse than that of a traditional one within the same time period, the company said.
“It was only five years ago that parcel orders surpassed 100 million for the first time. Back then it took nine days to deliver the first 100 million parcels,” said Ben Wang, Vice President at Cainiao.
“Last year, it took less than three days (2.8 days) to deliver the same number of parcels. Consumers increasingly want faster, better delivery, so that’s what we’re doing. This year, we’re striving to achieve a new high, leveraging the beauty of scale and technology,” Wang further said.
Cainiao is also helping with big data analysis for 15 major national express courier companies in preparation for 11.11. The data is used to deploy manpower and transportation for 200,000 delivery stations, to maximize utilization and avoid bottlenecks, as well as managing inventories held locally.
The development was reported by retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com