LG CNS sets sights on logistics automation

A worker uses a cross-belt sorter to process parcels at PosLaju’s integrated parcel center in Malaysia. / Courtesy of LG CNS

By Yoon Sung-won

LG CNS, an LG Group system integration-providing affiliate, is pushing for a share of the smart parcel distribution system business in Southeast Asia.

The company, which introduced Korea’s first domestically produced automated parcel distribution system, said Sunday it would further accelerate the business aiming at the rapidly growing worldwide e-commerce market.

LG CNS said it recently completed installing its automated system for Malaysia’s top parcel delivery service provider PosLaju. LG CNS provided all equipment, including the automatic cross-belt sorter system in the new integrated parcel center (IPC), replacing a manual system.

The manual logistics system has caused delivery errors and damaged or missing parcels.

“We will strengthen domestic market competitiveness in the logistics sector by providing an integrated IT service and solution,” LG CNS High-tech Business Division executive vice President Kim Tae-keuk said in a statement.

“We pledge to take a leading role in exporting Korea’s leading smart logistics technologies and solutions to the global market.”

The company said Malaysia’s e-commerce market has recorded more than 30 percent growth every year. Accordingly, PosLaju’s parcel delivery orders had tripled this year from 2010, with daily delivery volume exceeding 100,000, making it difficult for the conventional manual system to handle.

PosLaju established a partnership with LG CNS to automate the old system, with a test-run last February. The new system achieved its cargo volume goal in three months, which the logistics company earlier had expected to reach by 2017.

LG CNS said it tailors software and hardware to meet diversified demands of each client. The company develops a system based on the client’s actual usage environment.

Systems made by many European companies, which have dominated markets in this sector worldwide, have offered ready-made standards, making it difficult for clients to adjust to the system and to maintain it, LG CNS said.

The company stressed that the system installed at the IPC could automatically sort envelops thinner than 1 millimeter and recognize hand-written zip codes to meet the Malaysian market’s distinctive demands.

LG CNS plans to push for the global high-end sorter market, which has been dominated by European makers such as Germany’s Siemens, starting from rapidly emerging Southeast Asian and Chinese regions.

LG CNS has collaborated with a local hardware manufacturing partner to produce the cross-belt sorters, which automatically and rapidly categorize parcels to maximize logistics management efficiency.

In the domestic market, the company has provided logistics systems to state-run postal service agency Korea Post, logistics company Korea Express and general merchandise seller Daiso.