The automatic sorting system (Automatic sorting system) is one of the necessary facilities for advanced distribution centers. It has high sorting efficiency, usually 6000-12000 boxes of goods can be sorted per hour; it can be said that the automatic sorting machine is a key factor to improve the efficiency of logistics and distribution. It is an automatic sorting system widely used in logistics centers in the United States and Japan after World War II. The system has become an indispensable part of large and medium-sized logistics centers in developed countries.

Automatic sorting machine is one of the main equipment of automatic sorting system. It itself needs to build a mechanical transmission line with a length of 40-50 meters and a length of 150-200 meters. The automatic sorting system also has supporting electromechanical integration control system, computer network and communication system. This system not only covers a large area (more than 20000 square meters at every turn), but also needs to build a three-dimensional warehouse with a height of 3-4 floors and various automatic handling facilities (such as forklifts) to match it, this huge upfront investment usually takes 10-20 years to recover.

Main features

1, can be continuous, large quantities of sorting goods. Due to the adoption of the assembly line automatic operation mode used in large-scale production, the automatic sorting system is not limited by climate, time, human physical strength, etc., and can operate continuously. At the same time, due to the large number of pieces sorted per unit time of the automatic sorting system, the sorting capacity of the automatic sorting system is more than 100 hours of continuous operation, which can sort 7000 packaged goods per hour. If manual work is used, it can only sort about 150 pieces per hour, at the same time, sorting personnel can not work continuously for 8 hours under this labor intensity.

2. The sorting error rate is extremely low. The sorting error rate of the automatic sorting system mainly depends on the accuracy of the input sorting information, which in turn depends on the input mechanism of the sorting information. If manual keyboard or voice recognition is used to input, the error rate is above 3%. If bar code scanning is used for input, unless there is an error in the printing of the bar code itself, there will be no error. Therefore, the current automatic sorting system mainly uses bar code technology to identify goods.

3. The sorting operation is basically unmanned. One of the purposes of establishing an automatic sorting system abroad is to reduce the use of personnel, reduce the labor intensity of workers, and improve the efficiency of the use of personnel. Therefore, the automatic sorting system can minimize the use of personnel and basically achieve unmanned. The sorting operation itself does not require the use of personnel, the use of personnel is limited to the following work:

(1) When the delivery vehicle arrives at the incoming end of the automatic sorting line, it will be picked up manually.

(2) The operation of the sorting system is controlled manually.

(3) At the end of the sorting line, the sorted goods will be collected and loaded manually.

(4), automatic sorting system management, management and maintenance.

For example, the distribution center of a company in the United States has an area of about 100000 square meters and can sort nearly 400000 items every day, using only about 400 employees. Some of them are engaged in the above (1), (3) and (4) jobs, and automatic sorting has really achieved unmanned operation.

System composition of bar code automatic sorting system

The automatic sorting system generally consists of a control device, a sorting device, a conveying device and a sorting crossing. The function of the control device is to identify, receive and process the sorting signal, indicate the sorting device according to the requirements of the sorting signal, and automatically classify the goods according to the variety of goods, the place of delivery of the goods or the category of the owner. These sorting requirements can be input into the sorting control system in different ways, such as bar code scanning, color code scanning, keyboard input, weight detection, voice recognition, height detection and shape recognition, and determine which sorting crossing a certain commodity should enter according to the judgment of these sorting signals.

The function of the sorting device is based on the sorting instructions issued by the control device. When the goods with the same sorting signal pass through the device, the device acts to change the running direction on the conveying device to enter other conveyors or enter the sorting crossing. There are many types of sorting devices, generally there are several types of pushing, floating, tilting and branching. Different devices have different requirements on the packaging materials for sorting goods, the weight of the packaging, and the smoothness of the bottom surface of the packaging.

The main component of the conveying device is the conveyor belt or conveyor, its main function is to make the goods to be sorted through the control device, the classification device, and the two sides of the conveying device, generally connected to a number of sorting crossing, so that the classified goods slide down the main conveyor (or the main conveyor belt) for subsequent operations.

Sorting crossing is a passage for sorted commodities to leave the main conveyor (or main conveyor belt) and enter the goods collection area. Generally, a slide road is composed of steel belts, belts, rollers, etc., so that commodities slide from the main conveyor to the goods collection platform, where all commodities at the crossing are collected by the staff, stored in the warehouse, or assembled with trucks and distributed.

The above four parts of the device are linked together through the computer network, with manual control and the corresponding manual processing links to form a complete automatic sorting system.

Applicable conditions for automatic sorting system

After the Second World War, the automatic sorting system gradually began to be put into use in western developed countries, and became one of the necessary facilities and conditions for advanced and logistics centers, distribution centers or circulation centers in developed countries. However, because of its requirements, users must have certain technical and economic conditions. Therefore, in developed countries, logistics centers, distribution centers or circulation centers do not use automatic sorting systems. In the introduction and construction of automatic sorting system must consider the following conditions:

(1) Large investment in automatic sorting system

The automatic sorting system itself needs to build a mechanical transmission line with a length of 40-50 meters and a length of 150-200 meters, as well as a supporting electromechanical integration control system, computer network and communication system. This system not only covers an area of more than 20000 square meters, but also generally the automatic sorting system is built in the automatic main warehouse, so a three-dimensional warehouse with a height of 3-4 floors is built, the library needs to be equipped with a variety of automated handling facilities, which is no less than the hardware investment required to build a modern factory. This huge upfront investment will take 10-20 years to recover, and if there is no reliable source of goods to ensure that the system is mostly invested by large production enterprises or large professional logistics companies, and small enterprises are unable to make this investment.

(2) The automatic sorting system has high requirements

Automatic sorting machines are only suitable for sorting goods with a flat bottom and rigid packaging rules. Bagged goods, soft and uneven bottom of the package, easy to deform, easy to break, ultra-long, ultra-thin, overweight, ultra-high, and non-overturning goods cannot be sorted by ordinary automatic sorting machines. Therefore, in order to make most Goods can be sorted automatically by machinery, two measures can be taken: First, implement standardized packaging to make the packaging of most goods conform to national standards; the second is to customize a specific sorting machine according to the unified packaging characteristics of most of the goods sorted. However, it is very difficult for all suppliers of goods to implement the national packaging standards. The sorting machine with customized close-up will increase the cost of hardware, and the more special it is, the worse its versatility will be. Therefore, the company should determine whether to build or what kind of automatic sorting system to build according to the packaging of the goods.