Nike's top-secret warehouse RFID smart logistics

Ambitious local sporting goods brands Li Ning and Anta have always dreamed of surpassing Nike in the Chinese market. However, Nike has added a new level of difficulty to this challenge. In early 2011, Nike China logistics Center (CLC) was opened in Taicang, Jiangsu Province. This is also its seventh and second largest logistics center in the world. When Nike's annual sales in Greater China reach US$1.864 billion (the financial report discloses the figures from December 2009 to November 2010), what is its highest priority and most important thing to do now? Not the brand, not marketing, It is a powerful logistics support system that can efficiently manage inventory and quickly replenish goods.

The following figures are enough to make Li Ning and Anta envious. This giant square box has a construction area of 200,000 square meters, has more than 100,000 cargo pallets, and an annual throughput capacity of more than 240 million pieces. It can simultaneously load and unload 79 container trucks. More importantly, Nike will use this to shorten delivery time by 15% - it will only take a few hours for an item to be shipped from the Store.

This is like a giant central processing unit. The foundation of all commodity sorting and management relies on powerful digital collection and processing capabilities. All goods are embedded with electronic tags and scanned one by one. Workers sort and distribute the goods based on the information on the electronic display. The information is connected to Nike globally through a dedicated data port, and complete shared data is fed back to relevant departments every day. There is so much information that computers require almost as much coding as Amazon, the world's largest shopping site - a playground for logistics experts to turn their love of numbers and technology into results.

Many logistics technologies and equipment, including a total length of 9 kilometers of conveyor belts, sequential order pickers, radio frequency scanners, and automated warehouse management systems, allow this warehouse to achieve the highest standards in distribution efficiency, throughput, and elasticity. The highest level in the world.

Intelligent world

This Nike's first large-scale logistics center in China has two buildings, which store footwear and clothing goods respectively. The two are connected by a conveyor belt device. The storage area is divided into two major units: the full container area and the pallet area, with the bulk pallet area distributed in between. If a large order arrives, the full container area can be delivered directly; small order replenishment can be directly extracted from the bulk goods in the pallet area. According to the distribution and sorting needs, the clothing distribution floor is divided into three floors: the top floor is a shelf area with 45,000 independently coded shelves, the second floor is two sets of automatic sorting systems, and the first floor is a packaging and loading distribution area.

Surprisingly, the coding of the top shelf area, which has 45,000 independent codes, is actually irregular. This is mainly to prevent operators from memorizing the codes due to frequent operations, thereby causing misoperations. The pick-up operator uses the machine voice system to talk to the computer and check the inventory information - before picking up the goods, the automatic control system will inform the operator of the pick-up area. After the operator arrives, he first reports the shelf area code and pick-up information to the computer system through the microphone and earphones. Quantity to confirm. This voice recognition system was independently developed by Nike. It can recognize languages of various countries, even dialects. The system will collect and record the audio information of each operator in advance. Just in case, Nike has also equipped an emergency device. Once the voice recognition system fails, the picker can use a handheld scanning device to provide emergency relief. This is another use of shelf coding.

At the same time, the angles at which these shelves are placed are designed in accordance with ergonomics to minimize lumbar muscle strain for employees. Nike stipulates that when the shelves are sufficient, the goods must be stored in the middle layer first to facilitate employees to pick up the goods. At the bottom of the shelf, the gap between the bottom shelf and the floor can accommodate temporarily expanded shelves to facilitate storage of materials during peak shipping periods.

The storage area on the top floor of CLC3 is more than 10 meters high. In order to maximize space utilization and increase cargo capacity, Nike has adopted a narrow lane system. The width of the lanes between shelves has also been compressed to a minimum, which is almost the same as the width of a forklift. Nike installed a special magnetic wire system under the floor for forklift towing. This intelligent guidance system allows the driver to enter the pickup lane with the most precise driving posture under the automatic guidance of magnetic lines, completely avoiding any collision. When automatically guiding to pick up goods, the forklift can only go straight back and forth along the distribution of the magnetic wires, without swinging left and right; after the pickup truck is loaded, turn off the magnetic wire switch, and then the truck can turn left and right.

The general process of CLC delivering goods is: receiving the order, distinguishing the size of the order, and picking up the goods from the storage area. The entire box of order goods in the storage area is transported to the sorting area on the second floor via a conveyor belt. The operator and the conveyor belt will check and sort twice; the remaining number of order goods will be manually replenished by the operator on the third floor, and the automatic sorting machine will inspect and load the goods. After boxing, they are transported to the first floor for scanning, verification, loading and shipping.

In the operation process, the most critical factor is accuracy. Taking clothing sorting as an example, when the entire box of goods in the storage area on the third floor is sent to the second floor through the conveyor, the operator will scan the labels with a handheld scanning device. There are strict regulations on the placement position and height of all product labels to improve verification efficiency. After verification, when the conveyor belt is sent to the first floor, scanning equipment is installed every few meters along the way to scan the barcode of the packaging box and record the location information. This information is connected to the automated sorting equipment distributed in various functional areas of the logistics center, so that products can be quickly transferred to different operating areas. Once there is an error in sorting, the transmission belt will automatically throw out the incorrect goods and enter a special channel for handling by dedicated personnel.

When the goods go through layers of verification, from sorting to packaging, CLC's system will automatically print a product label sheet, clearly indicating the product number and number of pieces. The computer can also estimate the volume of the goods and prompt the operator about which type of packaging box is most suitable.

In addition to checking the number and coding of the goods, another important task of the packing operator is to affix the shipping label of the goods to the specified location to facilitate random inspection and verification by machine or manual in the next step. Before loading and shipping, the warehouse management system screens the information again, and uses different means of transportation and multi-level logistics networks according to the time delivery requirements of the order to ensure that the products are delivered efficiently, accurately, timely and at the lowest cost.