Global revenue for warehouse robot sales will have a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of more than 23% from 2021 to 2030 and exceed a total of $51 billion by 2030, according to ABI Research, a tech market advisory firm.
“Mobile robots are at the heart of the warehouse robotics market and account for most shipments and revenue,” says Adhish Luitel, industry analyst, supply chain management and logistics at ABI Research.
“These robots, made up of Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), are being used to move goods within the warehouse and being integrated within wider automated or manual workflows.”
A sign of the growing maturity of the robot market, is that vendors such as Advantech, Brochesia, Kontakt.io, and RightHand Robotics now offer compelling products and solutions, ABI asserts.
Software vendors and systems integrators’ products also are maturing, as software and integration capabilities become increasingly important factors for commercial differentiation, the company notes.
ABI Research’s advice is that warehouse operators should seek to combine the value of multiple solutions across as much of the fulfillment workflow as possible to achieve desired results.
It says they also should look beyond productivity and assess how technologies affect worker satisfaction and safety, worker comfort, energy consumption, distance traveled and error rates.
“We can also expect intelligent automation solutions to influence processes across the supply chain” Luitel concludes. “In the future, operators will be venturing further into solutions like Robotic Process Automation and mobile warehousing.”