U-Freight announced that work has been completed to turn one of its five freight hubs operated by U-Freight Logistics into a smart warehouse.

In a statement, U-Freight noted that its 21,000 sq ft e-commerce fulfilment centre (EFC) in Kwai Chung, Hong Kong has been equipped with an automatic guided vehicle (AGV) and Intelligent Racking system, and associated operating software, to improve the efficiency of operations and reduce costs.

It said for inbound consignments, the system, will analyze the weight and dimensions of each Stock-Keeping Unit (SKU) in order to bring the most suitable storage rack to the EFC operations staff, enhancing the utilization of storage capacity and shortening processing time.

Furthermore, this shortens the time period to the outbound order processing stage, which means consumers get their goods sooner.

When there is no operations staff at the EFC, the non-sleeping AGVs still execute instructions and pre-arrange the required goods to be ready for pick/pack when the operations staff return to work.

The U-Freight Group noted its early investments in e-commerce logistics and said that over the last few years several of its warehouse facilities across Asia, North America, and Europe have been equipped to enable them to act as EFCs.

Increased demand for e-commerce logistics

“The deployment of autonomous mobile robots in warehouses around the globe is transforming the future of the e-commerce sector and its ability to meet rising business and consumer demand,” says Simon Wong, CEO of the Hong Kong-based international freight forwarding and logistics group.

“The latest development is part of U-Freight’s ongoing investment to meet the ever-increasing challenges of providing logistics services to this rapidly expanding sector of global trade,” he added, noting that in U-Freight's EFCs, picking operations account for an increasing proportion of costs, accounting for more than 50% of warehouse operation costs.

“Traditional warehouses mostly adopt the "person-to-goods" selection mode, which can mean high labor cost and low selection efficiency. By implementing an automatic guided vehicle (AGV) and Intelligent Racking system, we will be adopting the ‘goods-to-person’ picking mode, and believe this will improve production efficiency,” Wong added.

U-Freight noted that the new development tries to address the key issues stemming from increasing volumes of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce shipments and the time-sensitivity that is associated with this business.

U-Freight Group said it has also partnered with a number of online channels and platforms including global e-commerce shipping platforms such as Easyship and is also involved in Amazon in several countries.