For a consumer, shopping online is convenient and easy. Visit a website, find a product, click on it and expect the package to show up at your door.  What shoppers don’t see is the automation on the move and the efficiencies that robotics has brought to the industry.

In about five years, the use of robotics in warehouse and distribution centers has gone from being a “premature” science, as noted in The Robot Report, to pick and place technology that creates a make-or-break competitive advantage.

Robots still can’t grab items like people can, although that day will soon arrive as companies like German firm Magazino perfects a robot that grabs items off shelves.

Currently, robots are primarily used within distribution centers to reduce the distances workers have to walk to get products.

The Big Picture

Flexible robots have brought change to warehouse and distribution centers and the need has spurred development in collaborative robotics. The technology has to respond to environments that are less structured than the manufacturing sector. Development in logistics should prove beneficial to the use of flexible robots in all industries.

Robots are made up of components including docking stations and pods. They’re one unit comprised of many parts.

Creating solutions is happening in a global marketplace with companies building solutions from North America and Europe to India.

Robots aren’t just replacing jobs, but they’re a benefit to companies because of looming labor shortages according to the article Mobile Robots and Intralogistics the Always-On Supply Chain on the Robotic Industries Association website.

See original article in A3Automate.org here.