VALUE CREATOR KAI ZHANG

I am proud to introduce you to our next Mercedes-Benz Value Creator, Kai Zhang! Our Value Creators are a group of skilled and passionate people we carefully select who have achieved brilliant results and who have already unlocked real digital value for our organization. Kai Zhang is from our Daimler Greater China IT and he was chosen for his outstanding contribution as responsible for technology innovation in Automotive After-Sales, especially for logistics digitalization and automation.

In the following article I will share some of the insights on how he has contributed to the digital value of Mercedes-Benz.

Congratulations Kai!

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From beginning of 2017, Kai started to explore and work on a warehousing robotic project a kind of ‘Goods-to-person’ robot technology. It is a new generation of warehousing automation technology, which can provide a flexible, scalable and productive solution – and information technology is one of the most substantial parts of the solution.

The macro trend in logistics industry is IoT (Internet of Things). To realize that, as a cornerstone, the warehousing automation must be considered in the overall technology landscape. Within recent years, the smart warehouse robotic technology is raised as a pillar in logistics IoT area. Thanks to this technology, there is a possibility to enhance warehouse operation in terms of efficiency and accuracy. More than that, it is a kind of technology to transform physical world to digital world, which makes the data driven intelligence possible.

This robotic warehousing project created digital value for Mercedes-Benz as it is a kind of technology that mingles the physical world with the digital world and influences reality by data. This technology is not a warehousing robotic technology only, but also can be used in very wide areas, e.g. smart manufacturing. It is a kind of end-device of IoT, even can be more beneficial if connected by 5G. This technology became a mature solution in e-commerce business. But to apply to automotive logistics, this project is one of the pioneers in China, even worldwide.

Kai started this topic from zero, closely collaborating with his business partner, from desktop research for the technology and market research as well as preliminary business case calculation. Finally the topic was approved by the management and he was assigned to take over the project IT lead role in order to drive the case and in addition to design all functions to apply this technology to fit Daimler business needs.

The proof of concept phase of this project was finished with positive results. Now it has moved into production stage in a Daimler warehouse in China.

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