Sort bots seize the ‘singles day’

At one of its many smaller satellite sortation facilities that serve the city of Hangzhou, ZTO processes between 10,000 and 50,000 parcels each day using a system that, until recently, had relied heavily on manual labour. 

However, with the number of parcels passing through the site increasing, the manual approach was beginning to struggle and incur additional costs. For example, at peak periods such as the hugely popular annual shopping festival initiated by Alibaba known as ‘Double 11’ or ‘Singles Day’ (which, this year, saw a mind-boggling 580,000 online orders placed every second at the busiest times), the workforce at this Hangzhou unit had to be supplemented by temporary staff to ensure that throughput targets were met – which, course, meant an increase in operational overheads.

ZTO introduced ‘Mini Yellow’ autonomous mobile robot (AMR) technology from LiBiao Robot at the Hangzhou site. 20 LiBiao robots operate on a simple platform which has been erected in a floor area measuring less than 50 sq metres. The LiBiao ‘bots process around 2,000 parcels per hour, however, if required, additional AMRs can be introduced to increase handling capacity at the site to 7,000 parcels every hour.

LiBiao Robot recently announced that two models from the ‘Mini Yellow’ range are now available in Europe  – a 5kg tilt-tray robot and a 30kg cross-belt model. Both types have CE certification.

For more information, visit www.libiaorobot.com