Watsons Tianjin DC Project
Watsons’ first robot deployment in the Asia-Pacific region — a benchmark project for intelligent
and unmanned warehousing, handling both B2B store orders and B2C e-commerce orders
simultaneously.
Base Overview
Racks: ~800
Inbound/Outbound Workstations: 4
Daily Order Lines Processed: 8,000+
Workstation Efficiency: 250 pick lines/hour
Mobile Robots Deployed: 28 units
About Watsons
As one of the world’s largest retail giants, Watsons operates across 24 countries and regions
with over 12,000 retail stores. As robotics technology matures, large retail enterprises are
increasingly adopting flexible automated logistics systems in their regional distribution centers.
This project is Watsons’ first robot deployment in the Asia-Pacific region — the benchmark and
template for Watsons’ intelligent and unmanned warehousing.
Functions Implemented
- Mixed picking and intelligent priority matching for delivery orders and e-commerce orders: Regional distribution centers handle both daily store delivery tasks and ecommerce orders — which have high volume, urgency, variety, random timing, and strict accuracy requirements. This project delivers an industry-leading hardware and software solution that enables e-commerce store priority delivery and urgent order priority
dispatch without disrupting daily store deliveries
- Wave-based retail order sorting: Wave sorting is widely used in retail picking to improve efficiency. This project introduces the wave sorting concept into its robot warehousing and control system to improve per-rack hit rate and workstation picking efficiency —
peak picking rate reaches 400–500 pick lines per person per hour after deployment
- Deep integration between robot workstations and PTL electronic tag sorting: After workstation picking, information is automatically synced to the PTL electronic tag sorting system, enabling pick-and-put mode and reducing sorting workstations. Also supports order/store-designated sorting, region-designated sorting, and other custom requirements. Customer’s secondary verification system shows workstation sorting accuracy near 100%
Client Quote
“This project is Watsons’ first robot deployment in the Asia-Pacific region — the benchmark
and template for Watsons’ intelligent and unmanned warehousing.” — Project Manager, at project acceptance
