We all expected advanced robots to have a disruptive effect on industry — and now robotics has entered the supply chain, too. Some of the ways robotics will advance and reinvent supply chain operations and management are fairly straightforward, while others have been a little more unexpected. Below are four major ways robotics are already taking the supply chain to the next level — complete with specific technologies and implications for each one.
Robots Assume Customer-Facing Roles
Sometimes talking about supply chain operations makes it sound like something that happens away from the public eye. That’s far from the truth, because there are two major points along the average product journey where robots are poised to make a dramatic entrance.
Selective Automation Reduces Injury and Error Risks
One of the greatest supply chain robotics trends to come about so far is selective automation. Far from replacing human jobs outright, selective automation is helping us organize our efforts more effectively by getting people out of dangerous or risky environments, or out of the pilot’s seat of heavy equipment, or away from tedious and error-prone tasks.
Bolt-on Autonomy for Vehicles
There’s an emerging and appealing middle-ground between replacing machinery outright with automated versions and retrofitting your existing equipment, including vehicles, with technology that allows it to operate autonomously.
New Types of Human Jobs
This is not a specific technology. Instead, it’s a cumulative benefit of the technologies we’ve discussed here, as well as many others that are coming of age. All of them come with some welcome reassurance: We’re not obsolete quite yet.
The Supply Chain’s Bright Future
Each one of the benefits of robotics we’ve talked about is helping our global supply chains and all their operators realize a future where machines don’t reduce our quality of life, but rather help us better manage our resources and time. The intelligent application of robotics is one major piece of that puzzle.
Read more at How Robotics Take the Supply Chain to the Next Level
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