Recently, Cainiao completed the construction of the largest automated warehousing system in Southeast Asia for Thailand's leading express delivery company, Flash Express. This system will help Flash Express establish a differentiated competitive advantage in the logistics and warehousing field, further expanding its industry-leading position.

Thailand has nearly 70 million consumer population, with a per capita GDP of over 7,000 US dollars, becoming an important market for e-commerce in Southeast Asia. E-commerce platforms represented by Lazada and Shopee are developing rapidly, while Facebook's social e-commerce and TikTok's live e-commerce are also experiencing high-speed growth.

However, behind the skyrocketing volume of e-commerce transactions, there is an inefficient logistics system, especially with obvious shortcomings in the warehousing system.

“The overall level of logistics in Thailand, especially e-commerce logistics, is about 5 to 10 years behind China. Only some large logistics companies will use semi-automated warehousing systems, while most small and medium-sized warehouses still rely on manual accounting and lack a systematic management mode”, said Han Lei, warehouse manager of Thailand's express delivery company Flash Express.

During major promotions, Chinese consumers can receive their items in minutes, while Thai consumers may have to wait a week or even longer to receive their goods.

As the largest local courier company in Thailand, Flash Express has over 2,000 branches in the country, delivering over 2 million parcels every day. Its main business covers most countries in Southeast Asia. “Many customers hope that we can help them solve warehousing issues in addition to providing express delivery services”.

At the beginning of 2021, Flash Express started looking for partners for automation transformation in China. “China needs to handle hundreds of millions of packages every day. This experience, management model, and technological capability are very suitable for exporting and assisting logistics companies in Southeast Asia”.

Flash Express hopes to learn from China's advanced technology, such as the automation of AGV robots for picking in warehouses, to build fast storage and shipping capabilities. It has three main requirements for partners: advanced technology, reliable technology, and low cost. “The profit margin of the logistics business is actually very thin, and if the cost of the plan is not low enough, it will instead create a very heavy burden”.

In April of that year, Cainiao's automation solution won the bid. Especially for Cainiao in warehouse planning and design, flexible automation technology is applied to adjust the warehouse's capacity according to the actual order volume, in order to meet the needs of future business development and expansion. Currently, the daily average output of this warehouse can maintain 6,000 orders, and during peak promotions, the daily processing capacity can quickly increase to 20,000 orders.

In the past, every time there was a big promotion, Flash Express had to deploy hundreds of temporary outsourced workers a month in advance to cope with the surge in orders. This year's Double 11, the warehouse did not increase workers for the first time, “just added a few more machines”. With fewer warehouse workers, management costs have also been reduced, while efficiency has improved. Warehouse manager Han Lei said that automation has tripled the production capacity of the warehouse.