With robust demand in the home appliance market and an extensive warehousing supply chain in the industry, the need for a transformation to digital, intelligent, and unmanned warehousing is becoming increasingly urgent. This is driven by socioeconomic development, technological advancements, and the rising costs of land and labor. The application of four-way vehicle warehouses in the home appliance industry stands out, as building automated warehouses can help enterprises achieve intelligent and unmanned warehousing transformation, significantly reducing time and labor costs.

Recently, Zikoo Robotics provided a pallet intelligent storage solution for a home appliance distribution center. This solution, comprising a smart pallet storage system paired with fully automatic photo-scanning equipment, targets industry pain points for warehouse upgrading, achieving higher space utilization, improved operational efficiency, reduced labor costs, and more accurate material picking.

The project covers approximately 15,000 square meters, with this phase encompassing a quarter of the warehouse, planning and constructing a four-way vehicle warehouse. With a usable height of 11 meters, the warehouse has 4696 storage positions across four shelves, equipped with six intelligent shuttle vehicles. These vehicles, with a thickness of 150mm and a 1T load capacity, support multi-vehicle dispatch and intelligent route planning, significantly enhancing operational efficiency. The project’s rapid and high-quality delivery effectively reduces the client’s time and labor costs.

The system automates the inventory process within the warehouse. Materials are transported to the first floor by elevators and conveyor lines, then transferred by intelligent shuttle vehicles and passed through fully automatic photo-scanning equipment before being returned to storage, achieving fully automated unmanned inventory. The intelligent shuttle vehicles can operate multiple units on the same level, with a maximum efficiency of over 40 pallets per hour. The project seamlessly integrates production lines with inventory, meeting the client’s demand for order-based production and storage, and aiding the home appliance industry in achieving automated and unmanned warehousing.

• Low Storage Capacity: Traditional beam shelf storage methods lead to a low volume rate in the warehouse, failing to meet storage position requirements.

• Diverse and Complex Inventory: With over a thousand types of materials and small barcodes, manual scanning is prone to errors, leading to missed or incorrect scans.

• Low Efficiency: Large disparities in inventory quantities of different materials and a lack of informational control; manual forklift operations are inefficient.

• Intelligent shuttle vehicles achieve storage in the warehouse, increasing storage capacity by approximately 60% and reducing labor by 60% compared to ordinary beam shelf storage.

• For various home appliances, a fully automatic photo-scanning function has been developed, capable of recognizing 7-8mm barcodes with a 99.99% accuracy rate.

• Planning automated inventory processes and developing customized storage strategies and IWMS systems for intelligent transformation and upgrading; intelligent shuttle vehicles support multi-vehicle operation on the same level, four-way travel, cross-aisle and cross-layer operations, with self-checking and obstacle avoidance capabilities. This achieves unmanned inventory operations and improves storage inventory efficiency.

This project utilized an intelligent warehouse solution, comprising intelligent shuttle vehicles, high-speed elevators, flexible conveyor lines, high-standard storage facilities, and the Zikoo Robotics intelligent warehouse management platform. Tailoring to the warehouse’s characteristics and client needs, a high-efficiency, high-density, high-flexibility, and rapid-delivery “pallet-to-person” solution is provided.

Zikoo Robotics is a leading provider of pallet storage robot solutions. With comprehensive capabilities in robot bodies, core algorithms, operating systems, and business systems, the company is committed to offering high-efficiency, high-density, high-flexibility, and rapid-delivery intelligent warehousing solutions. To date, Zikoo Robotics has launched a range of robots and intelligent systems, covering industries such as machinery, new energy, home appliances, cold chain, food, and home furnishings. With a leading reputation in the industry, the company is a new force in the warehouse robotics sector, continuously promoting the digital and intelligent transformation of enterprise storage.