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by Yuchuan Wang

At JD’s online Global Smart Supply Chain Summit (GSSC) today, the company launched a new JD Logistics technology brand “JDL Technology”, which will aim to build digital, intelligent software and hardware supply chain products and solutions for the industry.

With the goal of becoming a world-leading supply chain logistics enterprise, Zhenhui Wang, CEO of JD Logistics, believes JD Logistics should build a second growth path by focusing on technology research and opening up its capabilities. For example, JD will continue to increase its investment in logistics technology; and in the next five years, it will deploy more than 100,000 robots to enhance the customer experience and alleviate the workload of our front-line workers, including applying 100 last-mile delivery robots in Changshu, Jiangsu province.

In addition, JD’s cloud warehouse, which uses a JD-developed cloud-based supply chain management solution to upgrade third party companies’ existing supply chain, will extend across all of China within three years. JD will empower industries including FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), electronics, energy, industrial products, and automobiles through supply chain solutions to improve efficiency.

In the past year, JD Logistics has seen fruitful results for its technology research and its progress in opening up. For example, indoor positioning can be precise to the centimeter in JD’s Beijing Asia No.1 fulfillment center. Through collaboration with three operators, 28 Asia No.1 fulfillment centers in China now have 5G coverage.

JD also helped build the national emergency materials management platform in 100 days after the breakout of COVID-19. Through this platform, emergency supplies can be located, managed, accessed, delivered, and traced precisely.

“The philosophy (of JDL Technology) is handling complexity with simplicity,” said  Wang. “We leave complexity and difficulties to ourselves and simplicity and convenience to customers. Through simple and optimized logistics technology products, we tackle complicated problems throughout the supply chains of different industries while improving circulation efficiency.”

The GSSC summit is an annual event focused on logistics innovation and technology communication, hosted by JD Logistics. Under this year’s theme of “Open Capabilities, Shared Growth”, the GSSC gathered the world’s leading experts in the industries of logistics, commerce, science and technology to discuss how to seize the opportunities provided by the macro environment and policy, with an aim to reshape the industrial supply chain and promote high-speed growth.

JDL Technology family, click to zoom in:

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

by Kelly Dawson

The rise in China’s supply chain system may ultimately result in a more robust global supply chain network, by pushing innovation and evolution that may not naturally have occurred in America’s more entrenched system, said Paul Romer, NYU economics professor and co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics Sciences.

Speaking during JD’s Global Supply Smart Supply Chain Summit (GSSC) on October 22^nd, Romer noted that the current friction between the two systems (and countries) is natural. “Nations rarely maintain their position at the cutting edge of innovation and growth and discovery,” he said. “And it’s important that new nations come along who can keep the process of growth and discovery moving. The incumbent, the former leader, never likes it when this happens. So, there will be some friction along the way.”

This kind of shift is healthy, whether within the global supply chain network or on a smaller level within industries, Romer said. If one enterprise maintains leadership within an industry over decades, that almost certainly will lead to stagnation and lack of innovation. The rise of new entities—and ideas—is essential to avoiding a “monoculture” of ideas, something the American system is now facing in its long-established supply chain, he said.

In China, JD.com is driving the kind of innovation that Romer spoke about. Today the company announced that it will put 100 autonomous delivery robots into operation in Jiangsu province’s Changsu city by the end of the year. JD will work with the city’s government to develop a smart city infrastructure to support the autonomous driving technology for delivery.

JD is also pushing forward the use of intelligent technologies in its warehouses. In 2017, JD launched the world’ s first fully automated B2C warehouse; today, 70 of JD’s warehouses implement automated technologies, including AGVs for picking up and sorting orders; and more. Additionally, twenty-eight of our Asia No. 1 fulfillment centers utilize 5G, integrating edge computing, big data, AI and SaaS.

Recently JD helped Japanese firm Rakuten, Inc., a global leader in Internet services, complete a successful demonstration of drone delivery beyond visual range. This marked the first time in Japan that a drone was used to deliver supplies in a mountainous region where the difference in altitude between takeoff and landing locations reached approximately 1600m. JD provided the drone and technology to achieve this maiden flight.

These kinds of innovations represent the progress that can be made by each individual entity that participates in the global supply chain, a point that Romer compared to a classic analogy posed by Adam Smith. In a pin factory, each individual is responsible for one particular task, refining and perfecting that task over time—and then that task becomes part of a chain of tasks, each perpetually improving to eventually form the strongest possible chain. Similarly, the global supply chain is made up of such individual entities, in the form of brands, manufacturers and enterprises like JD.

Ultimately small refinements and innovations by each link in the chain will drive evolution, Romer said. “Those ideas are ultimately much more important and have a bigger impact on our daily life then the kinds of things that get published in a scientific journal.

“The global supply chain is the modern reflection of the most important dynamic in economic life,” he added.

Romer’s comments came amidst the fifth GSSC summit, which is an annual event focused on logistics innovation and technology communication on a global scale, hosted by JD Logistics. Under this year’s theme of “Open Capabilities, Shared Growth”, the GSSC gathered the world’s leading experts in the industries of logistics, commerce, science and technology to discuss how to seize the opportunities provided by the macro environment and policy, with an aim to reshape the industrial supply chain and promote high-speed growth.

(kellydawson@jd.com)

by Hui Zhang

JD has helped the automotive and FMCG（fast moving consuming goods) industry improve efficiency through supply chain solutions, said Zhenhui Wang, CEO of JD Logistics, at the 2020 Global Smart Logistics Summit (GSSC) on Oct. 22.

The automotive industry is a complex industry with a long and multi-linked supply chain. The process of making a car which consists of tens of thousands of parts and components usually involves hundreds of suppliers, resulting in opaque information, inefficient supply chains, and excess inventory.

Relying on its strong supply chain capabilities, JD Logistics helped to improve the supply chain efficiency of a renowned domestic auto manufacturer. In order to do this, JD Logistics integrated different data into the auto manufacturer’s order distribution platform so as to solve the problem of upstream and downstream information fragmentation.

Additionally, JD Logistics incorporated capabilities such as intelligent inventory forecasting and enabling accurate replenishment recommendations to help the enterprise significantly reduce overall fulfillment costs and inventory by 30%, and increase the order fulfillment rate by 10%.

“We’re opening our technology to help different industries improve efficiency by utilizing technology to reduce cost and improve consumer experiences,” said Wenming Zhe, chief architect and head of logistics R&D at JD Logistics. “JD Logistics is offering strong technical support for various of industries and working together with them to improve people’s lives with technology.”

Wang noted that the industrial park of a FMCG enterprise usually covers a large area with many goods, personnel and vehicles working in the park. In the past, the management of such an industrial park has been a traditional manual management mode, with the scheduling of personnel, vehicles and goods relying on the experience of the park manager, and the transfer of information among different sections relying on printed or written documents. This piecemeal approach inevitably brought about problems such as low management efficiency, chaotic vehicle deployment, and more.

Now, JD Logistics has leveraged its technology such 5G, IoT and blockchain, which has been widely applied at JD’s Asia No. 1 Warehouse in Beijing, to help an FMCG enterprise in making their industrial park intelligent.

JD’s use of 5G in the park enabled the FMCG enterprise to dramatically increase the efficiency of its IoT fulfilment capacities on a large scale, facilitating instantaneous communication between human employees and smart machines, while enabling holistic monitoring of the site’s operations. The technology also enables real-time monitoring of location and routes for forklifts and pallets, and provides preemptive alerts if something abnormal arises.

E-signature chain is another technology that JD Logistics provided to the FMCG company. The E-signature chain utilized blockchain and digital signature technology to break through the traditional paper model, by implementing digital operations in order to help the company avoid inefficiency and wasted cost. The new system also radically improves the pain point of complicated document review and endless account settlement, ensuring that business transactions are secure and properly regulated.

The technology transformation provided by JD Logistics has fully automated the FMCG’s industrial park, saving 60% of labor costs and 50% of document management costs for the park.

“We leave complexity and difficulties to ourselves and simplicity and convenience to customers,” said Wang. “Through simple and optimized logistics technology products, we tackle complicated problems throughout the supply chains of different industries while improving circulation efficiency.”

(zhanghui36@jd.com)

by Ling Cao

As some of China’s lower tier counties and districts embrace e-commerce, JD has leveraged its capabilities in supply chain to help them realize an integrated and efficient fulfillment process. By cooperating with JD’s Smart Cloud Warehouse project, Pingyi county has set an example for other counties in Shandong province in this field.

JD has helped Pingyi build a smart cloud warehouse system for local enterprises that extends across more than 40,000 square meters, featuring automatic storage, sorting, and recording. The project uses four self-developed technological products of JDL, namely: AS/RS (Automated Storage and Retrieval System), Tianlang shuttle system, Dilang AGV and cross-belt sorter. In addition to these hardware technologies, software management systems such as CLPS, WMS, TMS, and WCS will be widely used to realize automation and other intelligent processes.

Pingyi is setting an example for other counties which also want to help their local enterprises transition to ecommerce, but may currently face challenges on the logistics side from non-standard fulfillment infrastructures in their districts.

After partnering with JD’s Smart Cloud Warehouse project, Pingyi’s warehouse for local enterprises is significantly more efficient. In particular, the automatic storage system allows a storage capacity of 11,000 cubic meters. As a result, the warehouse can serve both 2B and 2C businesses. Once the goods arrive, the staff can start selection, achieving a goods-to-person model with 100,000 orders processed each day. Local enterprises can also choose to take advantage of JD Logistics’ last mile delivery services, making the process even more efficient.

Zhenhui Wang, CEO of JD Logistics said at the 2020 Global Smart Supply Chain Summit held virtually today, “The Pingyi Smart Cloud Warehouse is a benchmark project of smart cloud warehouses for products’ places of origin. In the future, we will copy the successful story of Pingyi Smart Cloud Warehouse to more industry belts. Our wish is to empower local communities by a smart supply chain system and help the local economy take off.”

Officially launched in December 2017, the JD Cloud Warehouse project aims to help partners upgrade existing warehouse management systems. Partners can also benefit from co-branding with JD, as well as have the option to use JD’s ultra-efficient delivery service, with products marked as “Delivered by JD Logistics” on JD’s e-commerce website to provide customers with peace of mind. The program aims to achieve full coverage of all districts and counties across the country within three years.

Wang added, “We manage low-frequency products in a centralized manner, deploy warehouses of high-frequency products closer to customers, and deliver goods from their places of origin regardless of the scale of the goods. In industries such as FMCG(fast-moving consumer goods), electronics, energy, industrial products, and automobiles, we will empower the industries through supply chain solutions to improve efficiency.”

(ling.cao@jd.com)

by Yuchuan Wang

At Global Smart Supply Chain Summit held by JD Logistics on October 22^nd, Zhenhui Wang, CEO of JD Logistics, announced that a city-level autonomous delivery robot project is being operated on a daily basis in Changshu, Jiangsu province, a top 5 county-level city by GDP in China. JD plans to put 100 autonomous delivery robots into operations in the city by the end of this year to facilitate Changshu in building smart city.

The robot drives itself, unsupervised, from JD’s delivery station loaded with parcels and plans its own route based on the parcels’ addresses. It will send messages or phone calls to recipients with a verification code so that they can pick up their packages. It waits a certain amount of time at every stop, such as a residential compound or an office building, before moving on to the next stop.

According to the State Post Bureau of China, as of October 18^th, China has delivered over 60 billion packages in 2020. Thirty-eight days prior, the number was only 50 billion. Nearly 50% of couriers in China work 10 to 12 hours a day. As the delivery amount skyrockets, automated solutions are considered a viable way to ease the stress of both the industry and couriers.

JD debuted its very first autonomous delivery robot in September 2016. After years of research and iterations, JD Logistics revealed its 4.0 robot last year and became the world’s first company to apply Level-4 autonomous driving technology on public roads without any human interaction. In February this year, this robot was put into use in Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, to ensure contactless delivery from delivery station to hospitals and residential compounds. During its 107-day deployment, the robot traveled over 6,800 kilometers and delivered more than 13,000 packages.

The core of JD’s autonomous delivery robots is the autonomous driving system developed in-house and its arithmetic logic unit which has lowered the power consumption to 10% of the industry average, and is equivalent to that of a standard lightbulb.

JD also researched a cloud simulation platform which has accumulated the historical operations data and is able to discern how the robot should behave in numerous traffic scenarios which largely raises the vehicle’s ability to drive safely on open roads.

In addition, JD also launched a delivery robot “adoption plan”. In Changshu, couriers can apply to adopt the delivery robots to facilitate their work. “We expect JD’s delivery robots to largely improve couriers’ working efficiency and enable them to have more time to provide more caring and customized services to consumers, transforming their job from operations to management,” said Qi Kong, Chief Scientist and head of Autonomous Driving at JD Logistics.

Jie Wang is a courier at JD’s Dongnan delivery station in Changshu. He adopted a delivery robot in August. He said that by employing the robot for part of his deliveries his monthly salary increased by over 30% in September alone. “It saved me plenty of time for delivery so that I am now able to put more of my attention on parcel collection,” said Wang.

Jie Wang, JD courier

“We will continue to increase the investment in logistics technology and we will also make logistics technologies available to the general public, facilitating social infrastructure upgrades,” said Zhenhui Wang, CEO of JD Logistics. “In terms of the application of technology, more than 100,000 robots will join our family in the next five years, greatly enhancing the customer experience and alleviating the workloads of our front-line brothers and sisters.”

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)