©️ Original author | Chen Wenqi
There are fewer and fewer people in warehouses and factories. In its place is a complete and proven robotic automation solution.
During the epidemic period, in the case of an extreme shortage of manpower, it is these robots that are doing goods picking, sorting, and leaving the warehouse, so that enterprises can still operate smoothly at such an emergency.
"When the epidemic comes, the warehouse workers will not let you in, what should I do?" Li Hongbo, CTO of logistics robot company Jizhijia Geek+ said in an interview that at present, from the perspective of industrialization, the application of AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robots autonomous mobile robots) in scenarios such as warehousing and factories has passed the stage of the education market, and customers' awareness of automation has improved, "The door to large-scale application landing has been opened." ”
Admittedly, black swan events such as the pandemic are catalysts for the AMR industry. But this is an accident within necessity. From the perspective of basic trends, multiple factors have created this industry to advance towards the flashpoint:
In the past decade, the e-commerce industry has developed rapidly in China, followed by a strong demand for express logistics.
At the same time, the number of Chinese workers has declined, the aging phenomenon has accelerated, wages have risen, and land costs have increased. In this context, "machine substitution" has become a solution to reduce labor costs and improve the efficiency of warehousing logistics.
As a manufacturing power, the rapid momentum of the automotive, electronics, photovoltaic, lithium battery and other industries has also prompted the actions of robot manufacturers/service providers to go deeper into the upstream production and manufacturing links.
On the supply side, in 2012, in order to cope with the huge order volume, the e-commerce giant Amazon spent $775 million to acquire kiva, a warehousing robot company, which set off a boom in warehousing and logistics automation, and a number of manufacturers around automation equipment and solutions were born in China.
Technological advances, including breakthroughs in algorithmic models, the realization of precise navigation, and the integration of the business level with the needs of enterprise customers, have made it possible to commercially implement automated robots.
According to the mobile robot market report released by Interact Analysis, in 2020, despite the impact of the epidemic and the delay in orders in the first half of the year, the annual revenue of the global industry increased by more than 20% to about $2.4 billion. Due to the increased demand due to the impact of the new crown, the industry's revenue growth rate is expected to reach 50% in 2021. By 2024, the mobile robot market size will exceed $14 billion.
Among them, the development of AMR is significantly faster than that of AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles). Both can achieve automated material handling, but the main difference is that AGV is limited to using physical infrastructure for navigation and has few applicable scenarios, while AMR can sense the surrounding environment through sensors and make corresponding decisions, not limited to fixed routes, with stronger obstacle avoidance and adaptability.
To understand the changes that are taking place in the mobile robotics industry, and how can head companies find their way into it? We had an exclusive interview with Zheng Yong, founder and CEO of Geek+.
According to Geek+, its global AMR sales have exceeded 20,000 units, the robot company founded in 2015 started from the robot picking system, deep ploughing logistics automation scenarios, product lines covering shelf to person picking, box to person picking, collaborative picking, sorting, handling, intelligent forklifts and pallet four-way vehicles.
"Robot Product + Solution", connecting manufacturing ends and clients, covering warehousing logistics and production line logistics, makes this fragmented and labor-intensive industry smarter. In the actual application of the ground running-in, the robot system itself has become more intelligent. Geek+ services include more than 300 global customers such as Nike, Walmart, Toyota, Siemens and Decathlon.
"Our core positioning is a robot company, choosing to start from the logistics direction to do commercial landing, real application scenarios, but also to help the accumulation of technology." Zheng Yong told "Capital Detective". "Logistics robots are still an emerging industry, and we are constantly exploring and doing more and more things, whether it is a robot scene, or a warehouse automation overall solution, or a supply chain optimization solution, all in order to make intelligent logistics robots better land, so that the value and effect are maximized."
Compared with service robots, the warehousing and logistics robot market is large and secretive, and it also faces more problems.
Players from all sides are scrambling to enter the game, including automation startups such as fast warehouses, Xiangong Intelligence, future robots, traditional robot manufacturers, heavy logistics e-commerce giants, etc., so that technology and price competition into a white-hot. Moreover, the different positioning of each company also makes the industrial chain structure more complex from a simple "core component manufacturer→ robot body manufacturer→ warehousing solution integrator → enterprise customer".
The technology is updating and iterating, but there is no test of the scene, just a castle in the air. Deploying an automated system requires time and capital costs for enterprise customers, and the cost performance and practicality of the robot solution are necessary prerequisites for achieving "1 to N" scale.
"How to respond quickly and quickly to customer needs is our difficulty, sometimes the typical technology company will listen to the voice of customers less, so we have been instilling in ourselves the will of 'customer orientation'." Zheng Yong said in an interview with "Capital Detective". "In addition, we have a difficult point, that is, how to copy. There are too many customer projects, how can they be completed, and project implementation has become a bottleneck for enterprise development. On the one hand, we strengthen the ability to use technology to make the system have more flexible configuration, in addition, we hope to develop more partners, do special industrial division of labor, build ecology, and make the transformation of smart logistics go faster. ”
"Overall, I think people (manufacturers and customers in the industry) may still have pain now, but there will be more love." Zheng Yong said.
The following is a transcript of the interview conversation compiled by "Capital Detective":
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="47" > about technology</h1>
Q: What do you think is the core competitiveness and sustainable development momentum of Jizhijia?
Zheng Yong: In the robot industry, I think the most important root is technology, I think in the past few years, I have spent a lot of energy on commercialization, hoping to match product solutions to the market, so that customers can accept to understand the value of our products. In fact, in the future, Jizhijia will build technical competitiveness internally as a very important strategy.
Today we see a lot of technology homogenization, everyone will have some differences in the depth of many details, some people will do better, some people are worse, but overall there is no particularly revolutionary difference.
Q: The smart logistics industry is often mentioning the concept of "digital twins" (presenting the real physical world in a virtual space), what is the necessity? Is it difficult to do?
Zheng Yong: Digital twins are indeed very important in intelligent logistics, the original to do a complex automation solution used a lot of different types of equipment, but these devices are only in the planning of the single system to calculate what the system capabilities are, put them together can get the overall capability, but in fact, the system will have an impact after the series.
After the system is really built, first do a good simulation, find the weak points of the system, and optimize the solution, which may be a very important basis for improving the success rate of automation now. In the real operation process, it can also help us find the problem, which is indeed very valuable.
In the past, we realized the digital twin of our robot system to a certain extent, and we can use digital models to simulate and simulate the operation of the system, and we can also let it reflect the state of the real system in real time with the digital model after the real system is run. Now the so-called WES (Warehouse Execution System) requires us to look at the different equipment in the entire intelligent overall warehouse from the customer's point of view, and extend the digital twin capability to different equipment.
We don't have a particularly big problem with digital twins, which is workload.
Q: At present, in the field of AMR, which technical progress is the most concerned by everyone?
Zheng Yong: Pay more attention to two types of robot systems, one is the two-dimensional code navigation robot, the navigation of this system has been relatively mature, but usually this system robot running speed is very high, the scale is also very large, so its biggest difficulty is the upper level of the scheduling system algorithm, how can these robots find an optimal path? So we try to use neural network learning to optimize algorithms and strengthen technology.
The other is the SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) navigation system, which is more capable of itself, requires less deployment, and is suitable for human-robot collaboration scenarios. This aspect is also constantly iterative: Robustness (mainly refers to the stability of robot operation in different environments) or difficulty, visual perception judgment also needs to be strengthened, and navigation costs are reduced.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="72" > about serving customers</h1>
Q: Customers care about cost performance, how long will the robot automation system be deployed, and how long will they receive a return on investment?
Zheng Yong: Generally give customers a return on investment period of 2-3 years, and if there is a good situation, it will be 1-2 years. In fact, theoretical calculations are based on a very clear assumption about what the business is like. The business is actually fluctuating, the real value is changing, and there will be a lot of fluctuations in the cost of hiring labor and labor management costs for customers.
In addition, in general, the design capacity and actual production capacity of the robot are relatively close, but the gap between the actual ability and the design ability of a complex multi-device system will be larger. This is also the reason for the use of digital twins.
Q: Most of the services provided by Jizhijia are large customers, will customers encounter difficulties in extending to small and medium-sized customers?
Zheng Yong: In fact, the difference in demand is not large. But in essence, our main service targets are large and medium-sized customers. Small customers may use third-party logistics, which helps us integrate small customers into one large customer.
Now from the head customers we do ourselves to extend the coverage, we pay more attention to how to build the ecology, how to let us use standardized products, and then use partners to help us to deliver the implementation. And we can focus more on technology products.
Q: The technology and solutions that have been evolving are also one of the concerns for some customers, who prefer a stable set of solutions that can bring benefits for a long time, how do you think about the gap between innovation and customer needs?
Zheng Yong: Our updates are all hoping that the solution can become faster, better, and more economical, but it is true that the solution continues to change, which will cause customers to be unable to choose and dare not go to this solution, which is actually a side effect on the market, because everyone has no way to scale.
There is also the influence of capital. Capital markets are pushing new companies to innovate. Innovation cannot be said to be bad in it, but it depends on whether the value provided to customers is clear. For example, Amazon may have more new solutions, but it still insists on using one, and there is no better solution than it. These things need to work together with manufacturers and customers.
In fact, no solution is perfect, there must be its advantages and disadvantages. Customers want the solution that works best for them, but it can be highly customized and difficult to scale. So, the industry needs a balance, working with customers to find a compromise between fully customized and more generalized products. We will definitely strengthen sales on mainstream and standardized products, and we will also consider from the perspective of market competition and follow up on different solutions.
Q: Jizhijia is growing rapidly, as you mentioned before, the number of companies has doubled in the past year. Which positions are you expanding? Does scaling up bring some management challenges?
Zheng Yong: Sixty or seventy percent of them may be technical people, and the rest is market business expansion. Now it is true that this technical talent is more powerful, doing robots, doing software development, doing program planning and so on. The industry is developing rapidly, everyone is digging people, and the cost is increasing.
All startups will develop rapidly will have some management problems, for Jizhijia this hurdle is still in 18, 19 years, now the scale from 1000 people to 2000, but the change will not be too big. More or more hope to strengthen the promotion of organizational culture, strengthen values and common vision, and then solve some process and institutional problems.
A sorting robot from Jizhijia
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="103" > about scale and profitability</h1>
Q: How do you think about scaling and how do you make solutions more replicable across industries?
Zheng Yong: Customization and scale are not completely contradictory in the first place. Customized, the solutions that enterprises need are also closely related to their own business and need to adapt to customer needs. Jizhijia is better at making standardized robot products, but our system will have the ability to flexibly customize.
After having standardized customized products, if you respond to the business, you hope to work with more partners to do a flexible upper-level mechanism on the standard mechanism, and then match it to meet the needs of the business. In the future, the needs of customers may require many common robots to complete together, how to use standard interfaces and a set of systems that can dispatch multiple robots is the direction of the industry's efforts.
Q: When will you start to make a profit after achieving scale?
Zheng Yong: This industry is becoming more and more rational, and the top companies all want to go public and want to do a good job of profitability. This depends on their own enterprise development strategy, whether to pursue profitability first or to pursue scale development first.
If you pursue profitability, you don't need to recruit so many technologies, you can recruit more sales, or slow down product iteration according to your own business status. Jizhijia may still pursue its own business growth, involving more areas, and technology is a very important part of us. As long as investors are willing to believe in the robot track, we will also raise funds for technology investment. However, regardless of financing in the primary and secondary markets, everyone pursues enterprises with commercial value that can create value for customers.
Q: You mentioned that in terms of intelligent manufacturing, it has entered the new energy and photovoltaic industries, why? What factors do you consider when choosing a manufacturing scenario?
Zheng Yong: The earliest to do automobiles and electronics, all those who do manufacturing enterprise customers, will take these two types of customers as a very important direction. Automobiles are basically the largest manufacturing industry, and the degree of automation will be relatively high. The electronics industry is also because of the rapid development of these years, there is a lot of market space. In addition, the life cycle of electronic products is very short, and everyone does not like to engage in a complex and expensive assembly line, and the robot will have stronger flexibility. Lithium battery, photovoltaic industry, industry demand by leaps and bounds, the business itself is doubling or three times a year growth, in this growth will definitely get a lot of opportunities.
Q: Now there are more than 500 projects and more than 20,000 devices in the business volume, and the development is very fast, how is the listing process?
Zheng Yong: We are in the process of trying to go public.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="124" > about going to sea</h1>
Q: Jizhijia has always been paying more attention to the process of going to sea, can you talk about the difference between overseas and domestic markets?
Zheng Yong: Jizhijia has done more overseas business, and the overseas business environment is still very recognized in technology, including brand, including company strength, and professional solutions. Overseas market education is still underway, but it has indeed reached an inflection point and has reached an increasingly mature stage. Therefore, overseas markets are our focus and an important strategy for the future. The domestic business environment is more complex, not only the products must be done well, but also to serve customers well, and a lot of soft capacity building must be done in order to get more orders.
Relatively speaking, we are training in the Chinese market. However, customers in overseas markets also have higher demands, such as higher requirements for system stability, product quality and security, and data security.
Q: Do you have your own R&D centers overseas?
Zheng Yong: In the stage of planned construction. But local teams have it all, because they have to be responsive and serviced.
Q: Is it a major trend in the industry for robot companies to go overseas?
Zheng Yong: This depends on product capabilities and team genes. Now the threshold for going to sea is rising. Especially with the impact of the epidemic, it is more difficult to send people out now.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="141" > about the future</h1>
Q: Now that the competition is becoming more and more fierce, how do you view the industry development of the robot industry in the next 1-3 years?
Zheng Yong: It is possible that just like everyone used to look at the Internet, the Internet can be said to have gone through a magnificent era, and there are still many opportunities today. I think the robot industry is the same, there will be a lot of excellent companies, but the difference with the Internet is relatively large, it should be more decentralized, and there will be no strong Matthew effect like the Internet industry.
Q: How far are we from the realization of "unmanned warehouse"?
Zheng Yong: In fact, in most warehouses, when the type of goods has a certain control, it is now technically possible to achieve. At present, the unmanned warehouse has not been widely landed, the reason is that the overall cost performance is not high enough, and the efficiency is not enough.
Q: Why isn't the price/performance ratio high enough? When will the costs and benefits be equalized?
Zheng Yong: The technology is not good enough to do this thing, but the efficiency is much slower than people, and the cost is also very expensive. For example, Jingdong made an unmanned warehouse a few years ago, specializing in the shipment and storage of mobile phones. In this case, online mobile phones are a standard box, to a certain extent, it can be said that the warehouse can still be counted as a return, as long as the business is stable. Now automation also has a relatively large feature, that is, the amount of business can not maintain a certain stability, just like 24 hours of work investment return is the best, if the business is unstable, may not be good return on investment.
This is also a very important benefit of talking about robot warehouses now, that is, flexible automation can increase and reduce the number of robots according to business needs, like the number of robot companies like us, you can help customers through the service model, make a robot, or help them manage the robot system, to do robots in different customer storage space sharing.
Q: Is the cost of hardware significantly reduced?
Zheng Yong: It is indeed in the process of rapid reduction. First of all, there is the space brought by the batch scale, the supply chain is rapidly maturing, and it can do 10,000 units a year; the next step will be to reduce the cost of the supply chain, and then when the annual output is 50,000 units, it will also decline. After that, it is estimated that it will be like the automobile supply chain, large-scale production, the annual output is 100,000 units, the gross profit earned by each link in the supply chain will be reduced, when the amount is small, each link will earn 30%-40%, and when the volume is large, each link will only have a gross profit of 10%-20%, which will bring cost reduction.