During the pause button due to the COVID-11 epidemic in China this year and last year, the business volume of fresh electricity suppliers has exploded, leading to a very difficult task of parcel sorting and distribution in the distribution center. The original manual and semi-automatic matrix sorting operation has been unable to meet the requirements of such large-scale and short-time distribution. So that the application of automatic transmission and sorting system of large warehouse integrated logistics center has gradually become the core of modern logistics system.

About the intelligent sorting system
Intelligent sorting system can give full play to the advantages of fast speed, many destinations, high efficiency, low error rate and basically achieve intelligent, unmanned operation, and has been applied in most large distribution centers at home and abroad.
Distribution center receives every day tens of thousands of products from different suppliers, and according to the categories and other information for accurate and fast classification after the storage to the designated place, when the distribution center received orders shipping instructions, intelligent transportation sorting system to be in the shortest possible time from the location specified above precision quickly find needed goods, And take out goods from different storage locations according to the different distribution information, transported to different areas or platforms for centralized packaging, so as to load and send.

Among them, the operation efficiency, accuracy and availability of the intelligent conveying and sorting system are important factors that determine the operation efficiency, operation cost, operation quality and user satisfaction of the logistics system of the distribution center.

1. Basic process of intelligent sorting system
In actual operation, the electricity business, express delivery, business super warehouse distribution center internal processes have different characteristics, different degree of automation and high and low, but the basic processes were similar, as shown in below figure, for example, the typical express transit depot internal processing process contains: unloading, transport, single separation, information identification, confluence, for parts, sorting, packing, loading, etc.

In the handling cost of distribution center, the handling cost of sorting operation accounts for about 80%. In labor-intensive distribution centers, the manpower directly related to sorting operations accounts for 50%; The sorting operation time accounts for about 30% ~ 40% of the operation time of the whole distribution center. Therefore, reasonable planning and management of sorting operation can improve the operation efficiency and reduce the operation cost of the distribution center with half the effort.

2. Features of intelligent sorting system
Intelligent sorting system usually has the characteristics of high sorting efficiency, low sorting error rate and basically unmanned, as shown in Below Fig..

(1) Can continuously and efficiently sort goods
Intelligent sorting system is not affected by factors such as climate, time, physical limitations, can run for more than 24 hours, every hour can sorting, 10000, 20000 and even more than 50000 items, such as in pure manual sorting hundreds of pieces per hour, need a lot of people at the same time homework, and sorting workers cannot under the intensity of labor work more than eight hours in a row.
(2) the sorting error rate is very low
Automatic sorting system of sorting error size, mainly depends on the accuracy of the information input by sorting, which in turn depends on the sorting information input mechanisms, using artificial keyboard input or voice recognition way, if the error rate is in commonly 3%, such as using barcode scanning input, unless the bar code printing itself have a mistake, Otherwise, it's almost impossible to make an error (usually with an accuracy rate of more than three nines). Therefore, at present, the automatic sorting system mainly uses barcode technology to identify goods, and RFID is also used for information storage and identification in some scenarios.
(3) The sorting operation is basically unmanned
One of the purposes of the automatic sorting system is to reduce the number of operating personnel, reduce the labor intensity of personnel, improve the use efficiency of personnel, so the automatic sorting system can minimize the use of personnel, basically achieve unmanned.

Second, the types and characteristics of common sorting systems

Sorting system is a kind of integrated multi-disciplinary, comprehensive technology system equipment, needs a certain technical environment and application environment support, resulting in different industries, under different working conditions, the diversity of automatic sorting system functional requirements.

Sorting machine type is very much, according to the layout type can be divided into linear, loop, according to the export type can be divided into horizontal push out type, gravity drop type, online export type. Common types of sorting are flip plate type, cross belt type, fall bag type, slider type, linear narrow belt type, guide wheel type, module belt type, narrow belt type, swing arm type, AGV type and other types. The parameter characteristics and application scenarios of different sorting types are also completely different.