Why 5G Matters for High-Bay Warehousing: A Sinopec Distribution Center Case Study

WiFi has real limits in high-bay automated warehouses — dense storage blocks signal, disconnections are common, and the growing number of vision systems and IoT devices on a warehouse floor only adds pressure. BlueSword's 5G smart warehouse deployment for the Sinopec Easy Joy Fujian Central Warehouse shows what a 5G-native design solves that WiFi-based systems can't.

A High-Volume, High-SKU Distribution Hub

Built by BlueSword, the central warehouse in Quanzhou serves over 2,000 Sinopec and PetroChina convenience stores across Fujian Province. Managing 3,500+ SKUs—spanning essentials like food, beverages, and daily necessities—it supports weekly, high-frequency, and daily distribution.

Supporting hundreds of simultaneous IoT device connections for FMCG warehouse automation required a communication backbone that WiFi couldn't reliably provide at this density, which is what drove the shift to a 5G industrial internet deployment tailored to the specific production processes.

Intelligent Sorting Over a 5G Private Network

5G connectivity gives the system precise shuttle vehicle positioning and accurate order dispatching across the full inbound-to-sales process, with real-time cargo status visible throughout. Shuttle vehicles and mobile PAD devices upload data through the 5G network to the User Plane Function (UPF) at Quanzhou Unicom's data center, which routes it to the customer's Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) server for processing — with commands following the same path in reverse to execution terminals. Full 5G coverage keeps that connection stable in a way WiFi couldn't at this scale.

Coordinating Equipment Through WCS and 5G+MEC

Built on China Unicom's 5G private network, the WCS orchestrates conveyors, stacker cranes, shuttle systems, electronic label pickers, and AGVs connected through the private 5G network.,  A task engine and message engine decompose and optimize tasks and analyze execution paths, while 3D-SCADA visualization gives operators an intuitive view of system status. A one-item-one-code system lets the cloud platform track inventory in real time, with the 5G+MEC architecture centralizing that data for management decisions and oversight.

Keeping Data On-Site

The WMS layer handles unified data entry, storage, and visualization through standardized logistics information interfaces built to customers' integration requirements. With 5G+MEC edge computing, warehouse data processes and stores locally in real time — keeping central warehouse data within the facility itself while still providing real-time visibility.

What the Deployment Delivered

The upgrade improved split-case storage capacity and inbound/outbound handling while reducing space consumption, meaningfully improving consumer goods logistics performance across the facility. Projected results include doubling total SKU capacity and quadrupling annual storage and distribution value, alongside delivery timeliness above 99%, delivery accuracy above 99.98%, return processing timeliness above 99%, inventory accuracy above 99.99%, and inbound timeliness above 99.5%.

Those figures point toward a warehouse built for scale from the ground up — a foundation for the green, agile supply chain that FMCG distribution increasingly requires.