The Growth of E-Commerce and the Need for Automation

The modern consumer is always connected. Mobile devices enable constant access to information and instant gratification. Ten years ago, analysts tracking spikes in online shopping activity noticed they were limited to a few hours each day. Now, with pervasive connectivity, consumers are making online purchases at all hours of the day. As they become accustomed to ordering from anywhere at anytime, they expect to receive their goods faster than ever.

This surge in demand, paired with high consumer expectations, has pushed e-retailers to their limits in terms of timely order fulfillment and adds to the pile of business challenges they face. The growing job gap for warehouse pickers, high employee turnover rates and the need to lower costs are all hindrances to achieving optimal order fulfillment. To keep up with fluctuating demand throughout the year and lower costs, many manufacturers are turning to automated warehouse solutions.

In a recent survey of manufacturers by the MAPI Foundation, 83 percent of respondents indicated they have made aninvestment in automation in the past five years. Recent developments to warehouse service robots have increased degrees of automation and have helped evolve the overall image of a modern ‘warehouse worker.’

• The state of e-commerce One of the major pain points e-tailers face is building and maintaining an efficient workforce for their warehouses that can perform consistently under the pressure of shorter delivery times and fluctuating demand.

  When a consumer adds an item to their online cart, a warehouse worker has to locate the item in the warehouse, pick the item off the shelf and transport it to be packaged. Warehouse pickers typically pick single items at a time, which creates a high volume of work and a high margin for error when the picking is performed manually. Labor unions are also demanding higher wages and shorter work days for these often seasonal jobs, leaving e-commerce executives with high costs and lower outputs.

• The potential of warehouse automation and service robotics In order to supplement their unpredictable human workforces, a growing percentage of e-tailers have introduced service robots to close the gap in productivity. With recent innovations, service robots often have the ability to perceive, understand and act in a range of dynamic environments, like a warehouse or stock area. They are increasingly easier to operate and safer for human warehouse workers to work in close capacity with.

  These robot co-workers can perform necessary warehouse tasks at a higher rate of efficiency without taking the breaks, sick days or vacations that a human worker requires. These service robots support human workers and open up new opportunities in e-commerce for former pickers to move into.

  With robots and humans working in-sync, e-tailers are able to increase output during the high-demand holiday season and keep up with consumer expectations. Robots give smaller e-commerce vendors a competitive edge within their warehouse operations that allows them to compete with large-scale retailers in terms of order fulfillment and productivity.

The warehouse is the most crucial piece of the supply chain process, especially in the highly competitive and crowded e-commerce market. And robotics will be a core technology that will improve supply chain efficiencies in the future. In fact, a recent report revealed that the Global Warehouse Robotics market is projected to reach $10.34 billion by 2020 due to the surging rate of adoption and wave of innovation over the past several years.

Implementing automated solutions into warehouse operations can push one retailer past their competition and solidify consumers’ trust in their brands. With robots lending a helping hand, e-tailers have the chance to automate their businesses physically in the same way that they’ve already changed digitally, to reap the rewards of the on-demand economy.