Blue Fatty: Enabling the Intelligent Upgrade of Logistics

With the continuous development of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and the Internet of Things, the traditional logistics industry is gradually moving towards an intelligent stage. Under this wave, intelligent logistics has ushered in the "golden stage" of development. According to industry forecasts, by 2020, the market size of my country's intelligent logistics system will exceed 120 billion yuan, and the industry growth rate is expected to remain above 15% in the next few years.

"In the past 10 years, the overall development of logistics has been mainly based on the outbreak of e-commerce. For example, this year's Double 11, there were nearly 1.3 billion logistics orders, which is unbelievable. The trend of intelligent upgrading in the logistics industry , not so much because of the fading demographic dividend, but rather because of the huge volume of logistics packages, forcing enterprises to transform to intelligence.” Deng Xiaobai, CEO of Shenzhen Blue Fat Robot Co., Ltd., said in an interview with CEConline.

Lan Fatzi Robot started commercial operation in 2015. It is an intelligent robot solution company serving logistics, express delivery, e-commerce, manufacturing and other industries, warehousing and other sectors. The human warehouse solution helps customers improve the work efficiency of unloading, sorting, transportation, loading and other links. It mainly uses artificial intelligence and robotics technologies such as computer vision, motion planning, autonomous navigation, multi-machine collaboration, and machine learning.

The so-called intelligent logistics refers to the use of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, such as the use of sorting robots, unmanned AGVs, robotic arms and other intelligent equipment to replace the original inefficient labor and realize the material transportation process automated operation and efficient management. Although the industry has a bright future, opportunities and challenges coexist. Facing the new era of logistics revolution, intelligent transformation is not achieved overnight. How to truly empower the logistics industry with artificial intelligence technology still needs to solve many headaches. As an advanced technology service provider in China, Fatty Lan is trying to capture the big cake of "smart logistics" and help traditional logistics companies transform and upgrade.

Exploring the path of international development

Deng Xiaobai, who used to work in the world's largest logistics express carrier, keenly discovered the prospects and opportunities of logistics intelligence, so he returned to China to start a business and co-founded Blueprint. Fatty also focuses on the development and application of one-stop solutions for intelligent logistics.

Deng Xiaobai recalled the beginning of his business and sighed: "When the company was just founded, although we determined the most familiar logistics field as the entry scene, which link and module should be done specifically, and what kind of results can we make? We didn't know the ROI (return on investment) at first."

From the perspective of technology research and development and business development, Lan Fatzi has always emphasized the building of an international and diversified team, and building a nest to attract Feng attracts the world's top talent. Investigating the reason, Deng Xiaobai explained, on the one hand, because of the long-term development of foreign logistics, the development of artificial intelligence technology is relatively mature, so by gathering international talents, it is more conducive to maintaining the leading position in technology research and development. On the other hand, the intelligence of China's logistics still needs a certain period of time to mature. Therefore, Fatty Lan finally decided to start from the international market, and the establishment of an international team is more conducive to docking and communication with international enterprises.

"International companies have a very systematic process, because I came out of this kind of company myself, so I understand their rules of doing things better and communicate more smoothly without any obstacles. We We are currently doing this, and we will have a dedicated department for each section to connect and discuss with customers how to finally land." Deng Xiaobai added.

It is understood that Lan Fatzi has recruited a group of professionals in the fields of machine vision, motion planning, autonomous navigation and operational research algorithms from more than 10 countries and regions around the world to join the team. Up to now, the company has employees There are more than 170 people, of which 80% are technicians.

Lan Fatzi's talent "Super Team" includes such a group of top talents in technology and operations who are interested in changing the logistics industry: Peter Corke, founder of the Australian Robot Vision Center, former Chief Commercial Officer of UPS Group Alan Ge Chenghan, OpenCV founder Gary Bradski, Amazon Robotics Champion Adam, etc. In addition, Fatty Lan has also set up R&D operation centers in the United States and Australia, and has made important breakthroughs in the commercialization of the Chinese and American markets.

Stay ahead, build technical barriers

Blue Fatzi provides a one-stop shop It mainly focuses on the research and development of the combination of software and hardware, and mainly uses four artificial intelligence technologies: machine vision, motion planning, mobile technology and deep learning. Through these four technologies, Blue Fatty provides logistics companies with intelligent upgrade solutions in different links such as sorting, loading, and transportation, helping customers reduce costs and increase efficiency.

According to Deng Xiaobai, for the logistics scene, Lan Fatzi has developed a variety of intelligent robots with different functions: such as loading robots, sorting robots, mobile transport robots and loading robots.

"We did not make the robot body, but mainly focused on software research and development, and the hardware part cooperated with well-known international robot companies. Our main solutions include the trajectory of the robotic arm in the loading and unloading process. Planning or motion control, as well as unmanned vehicles based on lidar, etc., including the use of artificial intelligence technology to optimize data, make effective analysis and optimal decision-making. Therefore, we are an artificial intelligence company, starting from the logistics industry, in the future It will empower more industries." Deng Xiaobai said.

Deng Xiaobai has always maintained a sense of crisis as to whether the technology of Lan Fatty can continue to maintain its lead. "Three years ago, face recognition technology was shocking and created a group of well-known companies in the leading industry. After three years, the technology has matured, and ordinary companies can achieve this technology. The technology is becoming more mature and homogeneous. It will become more and more serious, and the threshold of technology will also become lower and lower. Therefore, we will have such a sense of crisis that although our technology leads the industry today, our technology may only lead the industry for a few months. What will be the impact of these few months? From a commercial perspective, you will see more and more intelligent robot solutions. The so-called "advance or retreat", whether in technology or in commercialization, There must be something different from others. For the Blue Fatty team, we have a sense of crisis every day, and we constantly think about what points can we keep ahead of the entire market? How can we surpass each other? This is a huge We can only keep running.”

Deepening the scene service capabilities

As a technology company, Fatty Lan was once “ungrounded” because of its top technology and did not understand Market demand, I do not know how to convert technology into products.

Deng Xiaobai said that in the past few years of commercialization, the biggest growth of Lan Fatty is how to understand the customer-centricity. "When we finish working with customers and go through the whole process again and again, we realize that there is a big gap between feeling good about ourselves and achieving a real win-win situation. From the perspectives of technology, products and business, how to connect, how to implement, This is the biggest experience we have learned, and it has completed the real implementation from technology to business."

As for the understanding of the service capability of customer scenarios, Deng Xiaobai said that it should be the SOP of the customer's enterprise and the endowed by the company. capable AI solutions.

"First of all, what you have to do is abstract its processes into steps and replace the inefficient labor on those processes with our intelligent robots. In addition, we also found that, What customers need is often a complete set of solutions, rather than a single-module solution. Therefore, we may be one of the few artificial intelligence companies in the market that can provide a total solution for intelligent robots."

In the fierce market competition, the company that wins in the end often needs to have the speed ahead of the competition. For customers, the biggest advantage of Blue Fatty is that while the technology is leading, the response speed is faster.

"This actually involves many partners, including suppliers, integrators, etc., and our fastest is to iterate once a week, and in the process of discussing with customers, constantly optimize the solution, Finally meet customer demand. If it is Europe and the United States or other companies, it may only be updated once a quarter, and we can say that it will always be more than 5 times faster than other suppliers. For example, if I want to trial and error, buy hardware directly, and it will arrive in two hours at the fastest , it may arrive tomorrow morning. For us, the result of trial and error is a matter of half a day. But in other companies, it may take a long time." Deng Xiaobai explained.

In order to make the commercialization capabilities reproducible and transferable, the development strategy of Fatty Blue is to cooperate with the top three global enterprises in each industry. In this regard, Deng Xiaobai said that on the one hand, such a customer company has sufficient volume, and the larger scale means that the company's product research and development costs are lower; Enterprises will become followers, and the company's solutions will become the industry standard.

For the next development plan, Deng Xiaobai said that in 2020, Lan Fatzi's annual revenue is expected to reach 23 million US dollars, and more industries will be empowered.

"No matter what industry it is, we will adopt a development model of cooperating with top companies in the industry. Currently, we are also developing some programs and recruiting top talents in the corresponding fields. If we don't advance, we will retreat. We can only run hard. ."

Picture/Blue Fatty