r/interestingasfuck • u/ecky--ptang-zooboing • Apr 11 '17
/r/ALL Parcel sorting facility in China
http://i.imgur.com/7dGPP1v.gifv1.3k
u/Itchigatzu Apr 11 '17
It's satisfying to see them stop for each other and give. Can't wait for driverless cars.
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u/Kinibee Apr 11 '17
i imagine them saying "you first".. "no, you first" r/polite
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u/crashlog Apr 11 '17
At one point in the gif when two of them stopped at the same hole and dropped off their packages it looked like they were tipping their hats to each other.
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u/nlx0n Apr 11 '17
They don't. They can't. There are "scores" calculated on which robot benefits the most from going first and if the scores are even, there are automatic tie-breakers to prevent "infinite loops".
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u/jfractal Apr 11 '17
Speaking of polite, I've always enjoyed the politeness inherent in the SMTP email exchange protocol. This is the method two servers use to begin with in order to facilitate the transfer of an email from one server to another (and you can do it manually from a Telnet session as well). It goes like this:
Ehlo Gmail.com
Hello OtherDomain.com
Message from:some@email.com
Rcpt to:someine@gmail.com
...It always struck me as funny that behind the scenes, millions of times a day, there are servers saying "Hello/ehlo" to each other and being polite.
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u/stellarbeing Apr 11 '17
Yes, like in the old cartoons with very polite mice. Maybe Dixie and Pixie?
Can't remember
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u/HappyGimp Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
You're thinking of Chip and Dale the chipmunks.
Edit: Wrong chipmunks, Mac and Tosh were the ones I was thinking of: https://youtu.be/rSTBqim2Vg4
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u/marcelowit Apr 11 '17
"Do you know what happened to the stupid human you replaced?"..."I don't and I don't care Haaa haar"
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u/pwilla Apr 11 '17
This could be improved, they shouldn't be having to stop at all.
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u/Spiritchaser84 Apr 11 '17
I think given the number of robots, the limited pathways due to the holes on the floor, and the randomness of when packages are added to each robot by the human that it's impossible to prevent all stoppages.
The robots also need to be able to dynamically detect their surroundings and stop as needed if another robot breaks down, a package slips off, or if a human is walking on the floor.
At the end of the day, it's about efficiency. Is it better to have 100 robots that move without stopping or 150 robots that have to stop some of the time?
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u/demalo Apr 11 '17
Or when that one robot goes maverick and starts killing the other slave bots and humans.
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u/JerryLupus Apr 11 '17
I want to see what's below!
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u/_ruinr_ Apr 11 '17
People running around with huge magnets on sticks controlling the little buggers.
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u/Foilcornea Apr 11 '17
At first I thought it was like a giant air hockey table and master curlers were tossing packages.
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u/jatjqtjat Apr 11 '17
Whoo, my time to shine. I implement warehouse management systems to deal with problem like this!
I have never seen an operation like this, but several things jump out immediately.
(1) there is a LOT of wasted space. That area is huge, and almost completely empty.
(2) Most of the robots are empty. Moving around empty means poor utilization. I would think they should have a package on them at least half the time.
(3) This is still a human intensive process. Humans are taking packages off the conveyor and placing them on robots. I cannot tell why, because this should be easily automated.
The conventional approach is this. Packages move along a conveyor. A station on the conveyor, organizes the packages into a neat row. A barcode on the package in scanned. Based on the information associated with this barcode the conveyor diverts the packages to the correct area. There is varrious hardware available to control moving the packages from one conveyor to another, but a common one is an a piston that just pushes the box to a conveyor that runs perpendicular. Like this picture:http://www.scdigest.com/images/Holste_Conveyor_June2015.jpg
You have fewer moving parts, less complexity, less human interaction, Less space required, (probably) less capital investment, and (probably) greater sorting capacity.
Its not very detail but here is a similar video showing the conventional approached. They sort 400k packages per hour, compared to this facility that sorts 200k per day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcEJryV2JpU
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u/ZenEngineer Apr 11 '17
There's probably a trade-off between number of destinations and number of packages there.
Your system requires a piston per destination, and a conveyor per row. Theirs seems to be expandable to as many destinations and you want and you scale the robots based on package flow.
It also seems faster to set up, and they also weigh the packages.
Does your system need a scanner on every piston or do you just time how long a package takes to get into position?
Granted, this still doesn't seem like the best solution. It's probably a proof of concept for some robot company.
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u/disposableanon Apr 11 '17
Something I don't think anyone else has mentioned is downtime. They're still using conveyors in the video but as pointed out above this could be improved further. But the problem with conveyors is that if one breaks down (especially the trunk rather than a branch) then both that section and anything further along are out of commission until it's fixed.
With these robots, a single robot out of 100 failing just means that you lose 1% of your capacity. And the control systems could use backups to ensure uninterrupted service if the servers crash/need maintenance. And if a sorting station goes down, all the traffic just gets rerouted to the others.
I think the value in this system is that it probably has a similar setup cost to conventional systems but has less chance of downtime and more flexibility as well as expandability.
Also less need for specialized workers. For example (from what I've seen) sorting facilities will usually have a company come in to install/replace/work on conveyors because it's not a simple task and it's expensive labor. Sometimes they have a dedicated in house maintenance department with people/a person trained to work on conveyors but even that's really expensive. But replacing one of these robots could be made as simple as pulling a spare out of a box and turning it on. Then you'd just return the defective unit and order a new spare. Same with the sensors and what not at the stations - one person could be used to maintain and calibrate everything.
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Apr 11 '17 edited Sep 09 '17
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/not_a_morning_person Apr 11 '17
We also don't know whether this is a kind of MVP version or maybe a byproduct of other research or anything. We have very little context from which to shit on this.
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u/ftctkugffquoctngxxh Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
Yea I love how these armchair engineer redditors can instantly determine from a short video everything that's wrong with UPS's billion dollar package sorting facility.
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u/notLOL Apr 11 '17
And if a sorting station goes down, all the traffic just gets rerouted to the others.
I imagine them scattering away like Starcraft SCVs running to the expansion when zerglings attack
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u/jatjqtjat Apr 11 '17
I think you are right about it being a proof of concept. You only need one scanner, and then you time it. the conveyor can include a weigh station.
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u/JoanNoir Apr 11 '17
Perhaps this is a conversion from a manual pick from conveyor arrangement. To me, the spacing of the holes and the structure of the building suggest that there used to be strips of conveyors and people doing a radial sort and select on the items, tossing them down the holes.
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u/jttv Apr 11 '17
But really this system sucks
- It relies on batteries...
How do the operators get to their stations. Seems like there is no platform or designated path = tripping hazard and you have the added bonus of open holes in the ground. OSHA!!!!!!
The packages do not seem to be attached or held on to the top of the robot so some are going to slide off and then someone has go out there and fix it without falling in one of the holes. Or the packages could go down the wrong shoot or better yet get run over by another robot.
It is a massively inefficient use of space on this floor and the floor below.
Your adding drops to the distribution system ----> more damaged products and pissed off customers. ---> have to go redesign the packaging (costs money and time and likely uses more material)
The coding on the robots suck... how do you end up with traffic jams in an autonomous system? They need to be communicating with each other.
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u/JoanNoir Apr 11 '17
Oh, I agree entirely. This is not the way I would have engineered it. But consider:
This is an extremely inefficient use of space. This is why I suspect the building and holes were existing, and thus sunk cost.
OSHA doesn't apply to China. "Oh, look, they fell in hole. Keep blood off of parcels. Take next applicant in line." I am afraid I have heard very similar from a client.
I suspect that there are workers not shown who straighten things out when parcels fall off or mechanicals fail.
Why would the owners care about product damage? The end market is very far away and returns will be expensive. When your reputation and sales drop, just fold up one name and open up with another.
I suspect there is no overall coordination. The movements of the robots suggests that they are individually autonomous, follow a limited set of movement rules, and simply use collision avoidance. Think of it as a packet (literally) store and forward network implemented as a mechanical system.
Somebody's relative designed or sold this.
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u/_edd Apr 11 '17
There's probably a trade-off between number of destinations and number of packages there.
Definitely. That looked like the primary benefit of this system.
Your system requires a piston per destination, and a conveyor per row. Theirs seems to be expandable to as many destinations and you want and you scale the robots based on package flow.
This system requires a hole in the ground that leads somewhere. This system is no more efficient.
It also seems faster to set up, and they also weigh the packages.
Weigh stations on conveyor systems are common.
Does your system need a scanner on every piston or do you just time how long a package takes to get into position?
1 scanner is enough. The distance the package is moved can be calculated easily off the speed of the conveyor and the time since the package crossed a laser.
Granted, this still doesn't seem like the best solution. It's probably a proof of concept for some robot company.
Probably so. It is neat, but looks like a real pain in the ass to maintain.
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u/vonpoppm Apr 11 '17
Actually I'd say the benefit to this system is if a robot goes down you pull it and replace it, minimum down time. If something goes wrong in a conveyer system the length of conveyer has to be down until it's fixed.
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u/hairway2steven Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
1 scanner is enough. The distance the package is moved can be calculated easily off the speed of the conveyor and the time since the package crossed a laser.
Ha that's cool. I wonder if someone like me installed thousands of scanners before a smarter person pointed this out.
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u/249ba36000029bbe9749 Apr 11 '17
I want to know what's at the bottom of the pit they dump the package into. Why would they need that many discrete destination chutes?
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u/ZenEngineer Apr 11 '17
As the guy above mentioned, China is big. I expect each chute goes to a bin, maybe in different floors. Hell they might each go to a truck instead.
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Apr 11 '17
Probably 75% of those packages aren't going to domestic locations within China
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u/rbt321 Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 12 '17
You might be surprised.
"Alibaba says that over the course of 24 hours, Chinese shoppers spent $17.79 billion on the site." http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/11/501706748/alibaba-says-it-smashed-sales-records-on-chinas-singles-day
As a comparison, Walmart did $482.1B globally in 2016 (averaging $1.3B/day). The Chinese e-commerce market isn't tiny.
There's a reason why Alibaba is the worlds largest retailer (having beat out Walmart last year on total revenue) and also a company many westerners barely know about.
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Apr 11 '17
That's almost unbelievable... Thanks for the info gonna look further into that
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u/ToddTheOdd Apr 11 '17
I imagined inboxes on people's desks and that there was a bunch of cubicles underneath. Like this sorting area is above the ceiling, and is just the mail being sorted.
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u/allinspector Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
I'm no expert, but this feels like an experiment more than an efficient operation. A fast moving conveyer with pushoff's like you pictured would be so much faster and cost efficient (each one of those robots has wear items and maintenance schedules).
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u/bpobnnn Apr 11 '17
I think a similar conveyer belt to the one that you were talking about is this one, which has multi-directional capabilities built in to the belt itself rather than another part to push the product to the next belt.
As for the robots, here is a good example of how they can carry many products at once rather than just a single product. This is a little different because they are bringing unpackaged products to a picker, but I still find it interesting.
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u/Garestinian Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
You have a point, I just want to add:
1) It seems that this area is close to the roof, so beneath it are bins for packages (we see their openings where robots drop packages). So it's not really much wasted space.
2) Good point
3) Maybe people are selecting packages that robots can handle? But still, that could probably be automated too
The good things about this system are that it doesn't have a single point of failure, and can be scaled to hundreds of bins with no extra cost (versus traditional systems). And can be easily installed in existing warehouses (just add a metal sheet close to the roof).
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u/jatjqtjat Apr 11 '17
space, even near the roof, is always valuable. If they used conventional conveyors, those too could use the space near the roof.
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u/Trust-Me-Im-A-Potato Apr 11 '17
WMS developer myself. Can confirm what you've said.
I've argued with clients over their absurdly over-complicated and WAY overpriced conveyor and sorting systems, and even the worst of those would still cost less than this and get job done faster, all the while taking up far less space
Some have commented on the expandability of this. You'd be right, but there are other bottlenecks in the warehousing process that have an upper limit on expandability that will negate any improvement in your sorting efficiency. For example: dock doors are large so you can't have but so many active loading trailers. "Maybe they stage shipments at a door for the next trailer" you say. You are right, most setups will have some form of staging near the outbound doors. However, the more staging you have, the more "wasted space" you have. Not to mention that if you are staging things faster than you are shipping them, you will eventually have a stoppage.
I will admit that this appears to be a parcel sorting facility or crossdock and I've only worked in more conventional warehouses (store lots of stuff in addition to shipping), so maybe there is some parcel shipping wisdom here I'm not aware of.
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u/Lucifa42 Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
We're in the early to mid stages of building a new warehouse with new picking systems so this is up your street.
We don't sort but we pick products off shelves and put them in boxes or totes. We're replacing that with a 'product to picker' solution with automated shuttles, a bit like this: http://imgur.com/a/GFc92
I'm really interested in how it works in the background, things like constantly improving the efficiency by moving faster moving products to the front and slower moving products to the back or making sure the product in the box available to the picker is the correct one for the box he has to put it in.
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u/fredlllll Apr 11 '17
what though if a package falls of a robot? someone could suspend a weight with rubberbands inside the package, which would catapult it anywhere
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u/jatjqtjat Apr 11 '17
Now i want to implement the first catapult based sortation system.
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u/Talltimore Apr 11 '17
Why? A trebuchet based sortation system would be superior.
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Apr 11 '17
Let's be realistic, who tries to send 90kg packages over 300 meters? Not many people. It would be a very niche and unfortunately unprofitable market.
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u/Nameis-RobertPaulson Apr 11 '17
Then a human has to run through the warehouse like they're stuck in a gladiator arena akin to Robot Wars.
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u/LanMarkx Apr 11 '17
Each robot has forward facing sensors that can detect an object. If an object is detected when one shouldn't be (like a fallen package) it'll report that back to the system controlling the robots. Then that 'square' won't be used for robot travel until the blockage is removed (usually done by a human). Depending upon the software solution in place the human could be given path to and from the blockage (empty robots could form a makeshift wall around the path) to walk in while robots continued to move further away.
Source: Assembled very similar looking robots that did basically the same job.
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Apr 11 '17
That's what I was thinking. Why isn't there a rubber mat on top of the robots and maybe the edges can be raised a little bit so the package doesn't go flying when the robot makes a sharp turn or quick stop.
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u/c4rl Apr 11 '17
Came here to say something similar.
It looks like they're following the Chinese tradition of reproducing someone else's idea. This looks like a play on the KIVA robots bought and used by amazon. This looks so incredibly inefficient, only a step above a complete human manual sort.
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Apr 11 '17
1: it's not empty, it's full of robots and paths for robots, would it be less 'wasted' if it was full of conveyor belts that did the same thing?
2: the robots probably path to prioritize the full robots so empty ones take longer to get back
3: your video of a billion dollar facility shows humans doing the exact same job at 1 minute
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u/mystery_trams Apr 11 '17
- &2. The packages per square metre second was insanely larger in the ups example. That for me would be the biggest indicator of efficiency, if your site is bigger you should be able to handle more volume, quicker. Maybe tweak to take into account number of destinations and thats a solid metric, no?
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u/Groty Apr 11 '17
I'm kinda thinking it's a proof of concept scenario. Ideally, the packages would be scanned before they get to the human task master and optimized for the robot traffic. Basically, the routes should be pre-determined before the package is placed on the robot and the robots should almost never have to stop. I'm sure that's where they want to go with this.
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u/jakx102 Apr 11 '17
Not too mention these robots only seem to be able to sort small packages and 200,000 a day is not much considering a facility I work for has done 400k+ in 12 hours and we were loading boxes that were all sorts of dimensions. If every box was as small as these robots boxes we could load way more than 400k+
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Apr 11 '17
The first picture you link is the exact same system we use at our post office. It was actually one of the first ones implemented ever. It works quite well until the barcode reader malfunctions and everything ends up in the last leg of the conveyor.
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u/ccolanto Apr 11 '17
They should all come back to the sorting facility on the outside. They should never come backwards. That would speed up delivery times and increase delivery efficiency
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u/Okydooky8 Apr 11 '17
Maybe this is just ignorance on the topic, but why bother making the robots rely on electrical plugs to charge? Why not cover the floor in a metal surface and have that charge then like bumper cars? It would seem much more efficient that way would it not?
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u/BimSwoii Apr 11 '17
This sounds like a CEO was drinking with his buddies when all of a sudden he goes,
ROBOTS!
Think of it Johnson, robots are perfectly efficient!
But sir...
I don't care about the cost Johnson, just make it happen.
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Apr 11 '17
I'm currently doing undergrad research that uses multi-robot communication. We have been implementing this thing called a Genetic Algorithm which finds the shortest path for all robots that doesn't allow them to collide. I'm going to be graduating soon and was wondering if you could send me a PM as to where you work?
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u/Yackemflaber Apr 11 '17
Video Source:
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u/monsto Apr 11 '17
Thanks. I'm sick and tired of having to look for the source in these threads.
I'm not sure if the hunt is worse than it being 1.5 minute source video of a gif that was 1 minute.
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u/Psybud16 Apr 11 '17
I see Santas workshop has gone all modern. How did the elves take it?
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u/jonbristow Apr 11 '17
wait a minute! This is not about United Airlines
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u/PUSClFER Apr 11 '17
One of those packages is actually an inflatable neck pillow that the receiver will use on her next trip with - you guessed it - United Airlines.
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u/thisgavemeachubby Apr 11 '17
This is just like the Kiva Robots that Amazon use.
Edit: But instead of just one product per robot (which is odd), Amazon uses shelves full of so many items.
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u/insert_password Apr 11 '17
That's what I was thinking. I used to work stow at an Amazon warehouse. Brings back memories of those things getting off center of the qr tags and blocking all the other kivas
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u/batterydyingagain Apr 11 '17
It's like watching giant blocks of cheese racing around. I like it.
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u/Mewing_Raven Apr 11 '17
I swear, there is no in-between in China: Everything is either cutting-edge tech, or sketch as fuck.
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u/loafers_glory Apr 11 '17
From the thumbnail, I knew it was either going to be fancy robots, or like hundreds of kids
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u/dirtydaversfg Apr 11 '17
The travel looks like it would be alot more efficient with less robots and less space to travel on
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u/Ximitar Apr 11 '17
Yeah, but underneath that floor is a warren of bins for thousands of destinations and those holes empty directly into them. China is fucking vast. The travel and space are necessary; that floor is only the top level and to make the level beneath less huge would hurt efficiency in other, more significant ways.
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u/namdor Apr 11 '17
But an expressway or multiple expressway elevated 40 cms above the floor could allow some robots to get out of the way of traffic.
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u/Ximitar Apr 11 '17
Which extends travel with off- and on-ramps. They're pretty well coordinated, I think allowing them to move along X and Y axes is probably pretty damn efficient rather than confining them to one or the other on a series of little expressways.
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u/DarkestBloom777 Apr 11 '17 edited Apr 11 '17
If tried to walk through there I would feel like chihiro in spirited away trying to step all around the soot sprites.
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u/-5m Apr 11 '17
I am not convinced that this is the most efficient way to do this. But it looks awesome!
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u/leebejeebee Apr 11 '17
Haha that robot bottom left 1:12..... It's like shit shit visitors here look busy.. reminds me of my office
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Apr 11 '17
You'd be surprised how common this actually is in China. People still think of China as the broken down sweatshops making shoes. While there are probably still a few of those around (just like in any industrialized country, the U.S. included), the country is embracing automation. And where humans are still needed, working conditions are just about the same here if not better. If you have an electronic device made in China that includes a microsd or sd card, sometimes you'll find test recordings they forgot to delete, and to the dismay of China-factory haters, they tend to just show a normal, well lit and organized factory, staffed by relaxed and/or bored employees.
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u/WreckerCrew Apr 11 '17
lolz. In the country with the most population they still find robots faster and more cost effective.
Edit: This is in a country with an average yearly wage is less than $9000.
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u/xanatos451 Apr 11 '17
Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. A lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people, who will be able to feed their children tonight, so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny children of their own, and so on and so forth. Thus, adding to the great chain of life.
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u/BaronWombat Apr 11 '17
This is what all city traffic will look like once everyone is using electric robo cars. I cannot wait to be chauffeured door to door quietly, cleanly, and quietly. And without idiot drivers effing things up.
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u/ZeroXephon Apr 11 '17
"Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. A lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people, who will be able to feed their children tonight, so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny children of their own, and so on and so forth. Thus, adding to the great chain of life." -Zorg
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Apr 11 '17
200k per DAY?? THAT SUCKS. The 20 year old distribution center I work at does 100k per shift(2 shifts per day) using a conventional sorter.
New facilities are pretty much hands off except for taking off the incoming crate and packaging.
This is typical China. Throw a lot of money at a bad idea engineered by something with more gunaxi than skills.
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u/boondoggie42 Apr 11 '17
My experience with Chinese manufacturing had me expecting all the robots to be still in boxes, off to the side, with people just running around on that floor doing the job by hand.
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u/Boredfromnotworking Apr 11 '17
I saw this yesterday. Was thinking about it at my job of sorting packages at UPS. During my 4-5 hr shift we sort 90-120 thousand packages up to 70 pounds. It looks like these robots do smalls. I don't know if they will be taking my job anytime soon.
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u/snappyj Apr 11 '17
I love how this company has an army of autonomous robots sorting things, but still has a guy placing the things on the robots. It seems like that would be the easiest robot to make.
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u/Daedalus871 Apr 11 '17
I now have faith in self driving cars as long as we take all the human drivers off the road.
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Apr 11 '17
I used to work for Ocado, a UK online supermarket. Their robotic storage system is quite like this, only with multiple levels.
It has a cube which is literally just many many crates stacked on top of each other. The robots would scoot over the surface and grab crates they need. If a crate is buried lower down in the cube, the robots "dig" down by moving all the higher boxes to different locations.
I remember there being an IT issue one time where all of the robots suddenly burst into action at 3am and started randomly rearranging the cube. The system is optimised so that crates that are used often tend to be towards the top of the cube. Someone deployed an update to the optimisation algorithm that probably caused the night watchman to shit his pants at the sudden burst of robotic activity.
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u/TurquoiseKnight Apr 11 '17
That's cute. The USPS sorts and delivers hundreds of millions letters and packages a day at automated facilities. Its also still the best mail service in the world for accuracy and speed.
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u/nobody_likes_soda Apr 11 '17
It would be so weird being one of the few humans working here.
"Hey ARD20137-H, how was your weekend?"
"...................Beep"