JD Incubates New Professions: Robotics Technician, Digital Twin Engineer, Carbon Consultant and More

by Vivian Yang

As a company dedicated to supporting the real economy with its technology and infrastructure in supply chain, JD.com has become an incubator for many emerging professions across its diverse businesses, especially in line with the trends of digitalization and carbon neutrality.

China's human resources authority recently announced 18 new professions for public summons including robotics engineering technicians, data security engineers, digital solution designers, carbon sequestration assessors and more, reflecting the country's occupational development and aim to boost college graduate employment and encourage entrepreneurship.

Here are examples of these new positions from JD.com you may want to take a look.

1. Digital solution designer

Jin Zi is an expert of digital solutions for JD Retail's intelligent supply chain. His work helps to ensure the company's daily operation efficiency in managing a scale of nearly 10 million SKUs of all categories from electronics, home appliances, general merchandise to fresh food and more, as well as overseeing their optimal fulfillment plans.

By applying cutting-edge technology in inventory prediction, deployment, replenishment and more into a nationwide network of 1,400 warehouses, nowadays 85 percent of JD Retail's procurement activities happen automatically, further driving down JD's inventory turnover time to as low as 30.2 days, which is a world-leading performance especially given its size.

2. Robotics engineering technician

Cai Cai is a "trainer" of JD Logistics' autonomous driving vehicles. She tests these robots not only on the computer for simulations, but also on the real road. New iterations have happened fast in the past few years, and now it is the fifth generation of the self-delivery vehicles. "Before I can follow them by walking, but now as they run faster, I must ride a bike to catch up," she said.

JD.com is the first company in China to deploy autonomous driving into real logistics scenarios. To date, it is operating hundreds of the self-delivery vehicles on a daily basis in more than 25 cities in China. They also played an important role to perform contactless delivery work during COVID outbreaks in Wuhan, Shanghai and other cities.

3. Energy efficiency and carbon neutrality consultant

Ms. Shen is a building designer from JD Property, a subsidiary of JD.com focusing on developing and managing logistics infrastructures, manufacturing parks and more. Building with a low-carbon concept is at the core of her daily work. Last year, her team delivered a tailor-made BMW parts distribution center in the Central China region, which became the client's first LEED-certified "green warehouse" in the country. The next such center in North China will also be finishing soon, further extending sustainable development in the entire value chain of the automotive business from production to the after-sales.

As of this June, JD Property has completed project designs for 135 JD Intelligent Industrial Parks, over 40 percent of which adopted the "sponge city" modern rainwater management system.

4. Technician for agricultural digitalization

As part of a new generation of farmers, Wen Ya's job at JD Farm applies IoT, blockchain, AI and other technologies to the supply chain of agricultural industry, in order to make digitalized standards for farm production and management.

To date, JD Farm has rolled out over 70 projects on nearly 400,000 mu(1 mu equals to 666.67 square meters) of plantation bases in over 10 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across China, digitalizing the farming process of 13 produce categories including rice, millet, apples, citrons, Chinese wolfberries and more, and adding brand and marketing value for the produce such as promoting dedicated channels like JD Farm's flagship online stores.

5. Digital twin engineer

Dr. Wang has been a fan of science fiction since childhood and was often fascinated with the idea of bringing people to life from still photos. After graduating from the field of AI generative modeling, he joined JD Explore Academy, applying digital twin technology to organize and present visual content in the digital world. "It is not only a dream come true to me," he said. "More importantly, we can use these technologies to accompany and serve many people in need."

JD Explore Academy's multimodal super deep learning model, known as "Zeus", has made a series of breakthroughs in the area of digital twinning and achieved first place in several public datasets on task generation in complex scenes.

6. Integrated energy service worker

Bo Wen works on the rooftops of JD's warehouses, to ensure the stable operation of the photovoltaic panels built by JD Property to generate clean energy to run many of its intelligent industrial parks. He said he has climbed high to "plant the sun" in all weather conditions, and the rooftop view gives him inspiration for a greener future.

By the end of 2021, the first batch of JD's 12 industrial parks had been installed with PV power generation systems. JD Property plans to build 1,000 megawatts of PV power generation capacity in the next three years, which will sufficiently cover energy use for 85 percent of its industrial parks. This March, JD's Asian No.1 Logistics Industrial Park in Xi'an was certified to be China's first carbon-neutral logistics park.

7. Business data analyst

Mr. Kong works for JD Retail's private-label brand J.Zao. He acts as a "product doctor" who examines and diagnoses market and consumption trends, identifies high-potential categories with the help of professional tools and experiences, and reviews users' feedback so as to provide precise solutions for product R&D.

This systemized ability in generating acute product and category insights enables J.Zao to develop highly cost-effective products that meet customer demand better and faster. At this year's JD618 Grand Promotion, a number of new J.Zao releases had achieved rapid sales growth month-over-month.

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