Geek Plus, arguably one of the world’s largest warehouse automation companies, says its robotic system has helped Siemens’ Shanghai facility achieve a storage capacity increase of 300 percent, improved picking efficiency of 150 percent, and increased accuracy to 99.99 percent.
Geek+ has been collaborating with Shanghai Siemens Switchgear for five years. In that time, the company says it has engaged in “continuous innovation”.
Now it says it has successfully built “the world’s first robot-driven intelligent warehouse in the discrete-manufacturing field that covers the full process from receiving and shelving to storage, picking and distribution”.
The project delivered breakthrough gains and set a new benchmark for lean digitalization in discrete manufacturing.
Winning the future by acting early
Shu Changhong, CFO, electrical and automation division, smart infrastructure group, Siemens (China), says: “To win the future, you must not only think far ahead, you must act early.”
Since 2019, Siemens and Geek+ overcame many challenges – including the lack of off-the-shelf reference solutions and the need to keep normal production running uninterrupted – to create a full-process, warehouse-to-production automated material-handling solution tailored to discrete manufacturing.
From retrofit automation to lean digitalization
As a core node in Siemens’s global supply chain, Shanghai Siemens handles medium‑voltage switchgear production with a highly complex materials portfolio – hundreds of thousands of SKUs, from large steel structures to tiny electronic components.
Traditional manual operations could not meet the demands of customization and rapid market response.
Beginning in 2019, Geek+ and Shanghai Siemens implemented a three‑phase upgrade: initial automation deployment, deep system integration, and full-process digitalization that enabled lights‑out capabilities and a reusable smart‑logistics model for the discrete‑manufacturing sector.
Robot army and systems revolution
The smart logistics system Geek+ built for Shanghai Siemens centers on a “robot army” of more than 100 units and multiple robot types, together with a profound systems revolution.
Under Geek+’s AI intelligent scheduling, the shelf-picking robot P800, tote-picking robot RS8, small-tote handling robot P40, storage robot X1200, intelligent transport robot MP1000R and driverless forklift F12ML divide roles and cooperate to seamlessly connect the full process from receiving, quality inspection, shelving, storage, picking and distribution to production-line feeding.
Digitally coordinated ecosystem
Geek+ integrated its robotics fleet with Shanghai Siemens’s WMS, MES and SAP systems to produce an intelligent collaborative network spanning upstream suppliers to downstream production lines.
Real‑time data exchange enables JIT replenishment, PFEP-driven routing and inventory transparency that notably improves turnover and timeliness.
The integrated platform turns production demand signals into precise material delivery, reducing human error and boosting delivery accuracy.
Intelligent zoning and a spatial revolution
Facing a multi-SKU environment, the project implemented dynamic slot assignment to zone materials by size and handling requirements.
Small items are stored in a 6.9‑meter small‑parts mezzanine served by tote robots; medium parts are stored in four‑way shuttle racks; large or irregular items are staged on elevated steel platforms and handled by shelf robots.
This intelligent spatial reorganization reduced small‑parts footprint by over 60 percent and increased site storage capacity by roughly 300 percent within the same area.
Human-centered safety and upskilling
Shanghai Siemens places great emphasis on safety; this project has become a model of human-machine integration built by Geek+.
- Site-wide physical protection: An intelligent safety-fencing system was deployed in robot operation areas to ensure the safe operation of unmanned scenarios.
- Professional safety workwear: This workwear, in coordination with the robots’ intelligent obstacle-avoidance systems, provides dual protection for personnel who need to enter robot operation areas for equipment maintenance or to handle abnormal conditions.
- Innovative interaction mechanisms: The production-line feeding area innovatively set up a safety traffic-light system to ensure safe and orderly human-machine interaction, fully demonstrating the humanistic care in intelligent transformation.
Furthermore, ergonomic environment optimization has further improved workplace comfort. Warehouse staff have shifted from physical labor to technical roles.
An employee who transitioned to an operations and maintenance engineer says: “Through this project, I transformed from a receiving worker to a systems operations and maintenance engineer, became a technical backbone of the team, and was also exposed to many new technologies.”
Results and future direction
Dai Lijun, general manager, Shanghai Siemens Switchgear, says: “Going forward, Shanghai Siemens Medium-Voltage and Geek+ will continue to deepen cooperation, driving full-process intelligent upgrades through lean digitalization, and building a smart-logistics ecosystem based on big data and AI to improve production efficiency and flexibility.
“Focusing on employee development and technology integration, they aim to create a digital factory that combines technology and humanistic care, providing a practical model for the manufacturing industry’s digital-intelligence transformation.”
