User Profile
As a globally leading technology enterprise, Midea faces challenges such as low efficiency and data delays in warehouse management, urgently requiring a digital upgrade. This article outlines how the group introduced intelligent warehousing solutions to achieve warehouse operation automation.
User Background
Midea Group was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Beijiao Town, Shunde District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province. "Technology leads a beautiful life" — Midea is a global technology group whose businesses cover five sectors: smart home, building technologies, industrial technologies, robotics & automation, and digital innovation. Over the past five years, Midea's R&D investment has reached nearly 50 billion CNY. It owns a portfolio of brands including Midea, Little Swan, Hualing, COLMO, KUKA, Welling, Googol, Worten, and others. Midea provides satisfying products and services to over 400 million global users, as well as key clients and strategic partners across various fields. The group has approximately 200 subsidiaries, 35 R&D centers, and 35 major production bases worldwide, with business covering over 200 countries and regions.
Challenges
With business expansion, Midea's warehouse management faces severe challenges. Operations such as receiving, put-away, storage, counting, picking, and shipping all rely on manual paperwork, making it difficult to track material batch numbers. Data needs to be manually entered into the ERP system, leading to data delays and compromised accuracy. Furthermore, there is a lack of transparency regarding in-transit inventory, warehouse stock, and slow-moving materials. These challenges seriously constrain the improvement of warehouse management efficiency, urgently requiring breakthroughs through digital means.
Pain Points
The pain points in Midea's warehouse management are mainly reflected in the following aspects:
- Operations rely on manual paperwork, making material batch number tracking difficult, which increases error risks and operational complexity.
- Manual data entry into the ERP system leads to inefficiency and delayed inventory data updates, affecting the timeliness of decision-making.
- Lack of inventory transparency makes it difficult to grasp the real-time status of in-transit, received-but-uninspected, in-warehouse, and production-line-side inventory, leading to resource waste and increased operational costs.
Values
By integrating Seuic mobile computers with the WMS (Warehouse Management System) application, Midea significantly enhanced the value of warehouse management. This is specifically reflected in:
- Improved accuracy and efficiency in receiving and shipping processes, reducing human errors.
- Enabled intelligent warehouse management, providing support for omni-channel traceability and ensuring real-time and reliable data.
Solutions
Midea deployed Seuic mobile computers as the core of its intelligent warehousing solution, used for handling warehouse operations such as receiving/shipping, inventory counting, returns, and workshop reporting. This solution ensured seamless integration with smart production, providing accurate terminal data for the production end. Through the deep integration of mobile computers and WMS, Midea achieved automated collection and real-time updates of inventory data, thereby optimizing warehouse processes, reducing labor costs, and improving overall operational efficiency. Furthermore, the successful implementation of this solution marks a significant breakthrough for Midea in the field of automation.
