In recent years, along with the rapid development of e-commerce, is to maintain a high growth trend in the volume of express delivery business, in order to respond to the growing demand for delivery and time requirements, China’s express delivery enterprises continue to promote the network penetration, improve automation equipment investment, improve their own business capacity at the same time to achieve cost reduction and efficiency.
Therefore, more and more courier outlets to respond to the call of enterprises, choose to introduce automated sorting equipment to meet market demand and improve their competitiveness. In this process of transformation of traditional outlets to automated outlets, there are many people have raised such questions:
How should one choose among the three ways of supplying packages for loading, i.e. fully automatic, semi-automatic and manual? Why do most outlets use semi-automation? Can full-automatic save more labor cost?
This question, we need to combine the current market reality to analyze:
01 Difference in parcel supply structure
Fully automatic package supply, that is, in the process of package supply completely without personnel operation, from the beginning of the package unloading truck to enter the cross-belt sorter, are automatically completed by the system. And this automatic completion of the process, different from the semi-automatic package for the three-stage package for the table, the automatic package for the system needs to be added to the extra flow line, single piece of separation equipment, merging line, six-side dynamic scanning equipment, in order to ensure that the accurate supply of packages, the complement of these ancillary equipment, although reducing the involvement of manpower, but it often means that a larger footprint space and higher introduction costs.
Therefore, from the point of view of the structure of the package supply, its complexity: fully automatic > semi-automatic > manual.
02 The diversity of the structure of express packages
China’s express delivery package types are diverse, has not yet formed a unified packaging standards, in addition to cardboard boxes, soft packages, document bags, these relatively regular parcels, there are also overweight, shaped, rounded parcels, need to be culled in advance, can not be on the sorting machine, which means that, in the supply of packages on the pieces before, or need to manually intervene, if the removal of the culling of abnormal pieces of the link, it is easy to cause the wrong points, resulting in fines, and Impact on the efficiency of sending. Therefore, in the formation of a unified express packaging standards or a more scientific means of rejection before the fully automated way on the pieces does not fully mean that completely divested of personnel labor.
Therefore, from the parcel processing flexibility: semi-automatic = manual > fully automatic
03 Packaging efficiency
From the packet supplying efficiency, the more perfect the automatic packet supplying equipment is, the higher the packet supplying efficiency is, which can reach 2000-4000 pieces/hour; the semi-automatic packet supplying can reach 1500-2500 pieces/hour according to the operator’s proficiency; and the manual packet supplying can only reach 1400 pieces/hour due to the lack of buffer effect of packet supplying table, which restricts the speed of the line running, and the higher requirements for the standardization of the manual packet supplying operation. The efficiency of package supply can only reach 1400 pieces/hour.
From the point of view of package supply efficiency: automatic＞semi-automatic＞manual
04 Cost-effective
Fully automated package for the more complex structure of the equipment, the need for a higher one-time investment and subsequent maintenance, depreciation, site rental and other costs; semi-automatic package for the package is a relatively simple equipment attached to the manual operation, in order to achieve a higher efficiency than the manual operation of the package for the disappearance of the demographic dividend in our country, the cost of labor beyond a reasonable range before the semi-automatic package for the cost-effective choice.
Therefore, from the cost-effective point of view: semi-automatic＞manual＞full-automatic
Through the analysis of the above four perspectives, we can naturally understand why most outlets choose to use semi-automatic packet supply on the way.
Express automatic sorting for the package, although only a part of the express intelligent sorting solutions, but also the development of intelligent logistics is also a stage epitome of logistics equipment companies have never stopped the exploration of more scientific way of supplying pieces, but also to take into account the actual situation, down-to-earth to provide a more reasonable, more cost-effective, more grounded solutions.
