Warehouse Robotics Market - Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2019 - 2024)

Market Overview

The Warehouse Robotics Market is expected to register a CAGR of over 27.1% during the forecast period 2019 – 2024. The advent of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) on the global industrial landscape and the emergence of connected systems are helping industries perform various tasks, such as material batching, picking, ordering, packaging, warehouse security and inspection, and helping improve the operational efficiency by exponential margins.

An increasing number of SKUs (stock keeping units) is quite natural in the industry, quite predominantly in the retail sector, as there is a constant introduction of new products on a regular basis. The luxury of customization and the increasing number of consumer choices through the e-commerce platform have pushed the demand for an expanded inventory, with a host of options and styles available at the disposable of the e-commerce retailers for dispatch on request.

The presence of a vast number of SKUs is crucial to meet the delivery demands of an immensely large consumer base. Research indicates that more than 50% of the businesses are looking forward to integrate an increasingly high number of inventory SKUs over the forecast period, to meet the long tail demands of the consumers by strategically expanding their range of product offering.

Robots represent a convergence of many advanced technologies, such as sensors for object location or navigation and algorithms. The development of robots requires time and money. The robots are priced relatively high so the cost of implementation and installing these robots are expensive. Encountering the increasing costs of inventory management has evolved as an increasingly challenging task as it assists the rising penetration of robotics in the industry.

The present stage of evolution in the robotics segment has been dependent on the technology for improving functionality, to cater to the customized range of requirements in the industry. Even though robots are programmed for high accuracy and operational efficiency, they may not be capable of adapting to the varying processes and environments.

In such circumstances, the robot will pose an error status and stop proceeding with the assigned task. Such an organized flow of operations is maintained through the consistent support of the manual workforce. However, this has been challenged, as considerable expertise in robot programming and implementation is required to program the robots according to the task they need to perform. Frequent software and program updates can be required for maximum performance and efficiency.

Scope of the Report

Warehouse Robotics Market is the deployment of robotics in the warehouse to perform functions such as pick-place, packaging, transportation, packaging, and palletizing. The integration of warehouse and robotics technology has helped ensure that there is accuracy and automation while increasing the warehouse storage space and operation efficiency.

Key Market Trends

Automated Storage And Retrieval System (ASRS) is expected to register a Significant Growth

Automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS), have the ability to sort, sequence, buffer, and store a wide range of goods into virtually unlimited destinations. Their common applications include goods to a person picking, dynamic replenishment, sequence buffering, order fulfillment, work in process storage, and finished goods storage.

ASRS is a significant component of warehouse automation systems in fulfillment and distribution centers, providing highly efficient, accurate and high throughput inventory management capabilities. They can be configured to be completely redundant, spreading inventory across multiple aisles and thus reducing the dependency on the ability of any single ASRS system to handle a task.

Benefits of ASRS include – increased safety at work, round the clock operations, real-time information of material movement. Other technological advancements include – interconnected devices, IoT, touch display, voice-activated devices, sensors, scanners, RFIDs, etc. These advancements are expected gain traction with other new technologies, such as VR/AR, 3D printing and scanning, robotic arms capable of handling different product sizes/dimensions, etc.

Furthermore, automated pallet warehouses maximize throughput and optimize energy use as pallets are heavy and energy-intensive to store and retrieve. Pallet warehouses need solutions that maximize throughput and storage density while reducing energy consumption and keeping costs low driving the demand for ASRS as it increases efficiency and quality in warehousing.

North America holds Major Share

In recent years, forecasts regarding long-term labor shortages across the United States, coupled with continued pressure on supply chains to deliver orders faster and more accurately, have prompted operations executives to evaluate that question as they look for answers to staffing challenges.The strong economy, with notable port traffic, increased e-commerce activity, and key manufacturing indices resulting in manufacturing growth, are poised to drive the demand for warehouses in the country.

US-based third-party logistics company DHL increased its warehouses from 417 in 2016 to 673 in 2017. The trend was followed by other companies, such as XPO Logistics and CEVA Logistics, respectively.Additionally, DHL Supply Chain has deployed Collaborative Robots or Cobots in its warehouses, which can perform repetitive tasks requiring movements that could injure a human worker.

According to CBRE, the available amount of warehouse and distribution space in the United States hit a 16-year low after a second-quarter (2017) decline in the availability rate that was triggered in large part by the healthy economy and a slowdown in construction. Thus, the growth in warehouse robotics in the country is expected to be driven by the upgradation of existing warehouses, rather than being deployed in new ones in near future.

Competitive Landscape

The Warehouse Robotics Market is highly competitive and consists of several major players. In terms of market share, few of the major players currently dominate the market. These major players with a prominent share in the market are focusing on expanding their customer base across foreign countries. These companies are leveraging on strategic collaborative initiatives to increase their market share and increase their profitability. The companies operating in the market are also acquiring start-ups working on Warehouse Robotics technologies to strengthen their product capabilities. In November 2017, Yaskawa expanded its presence in Europe and built its first European robot factory in Slovenia. With this particular expansion, the company is consistently implementing its strategy to offer premium customer service. The expansion investments cost GBP 25 million.

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