Last year, ARC Advisory Group published its first formalized research study on the global warehouse automation & control market. The publication was well-received by market participants. Due to the high level of demand, ARC has decided to update the study this year. I came into the office on January 4 th with this market study update in mind, thinking to myself “what will I find to be the areas of greatest change over the last year?” E-Commerce Isn’t Slowing Down The ongoing, rapid growth of e-commerce continues to place exceptional burdens on existing fulfillment networks. Not surprisingly, warehouse technologies that support high volumes of small, multi-line orders are receiving the greatest interest from practitioners as they realign their capabilities with the changing demand profile. In the warehouse automation market, this can be seen in the growing adoption of goods-to-person automation, namely in the form of shuttle systems that offer high levels of performance and flexibility. In addition, demand for even greater flexibility, and the exit of Kiva Systems from the market, is stimulating some exciting product development and early adoption of autonomous mobile robotics (AMR) for the warehouse. These emerging robotics systems are being developed by a number of start-up firms and established warehouse automation providers. Although robotics have physical characteristics, the embedded intelligence and application software are the key differentiating characteristics of these systems. Here is brief overview of the landscape for AMR in the warehouse, as I currently see it (in no particular order) AMR – Coming soon to a Warehouse near You Knapp open shuttle Knapp Open Shuttle The Open Shuttle is an AMR marketed along with Knapp’s existing line of carton and tote handling shuttles that includes the YLOG-shuttle and the OSR Shuttle. The Open shuttles utilize trackless navigation but also directly integrates with complementary […]