Worldwide mobile robot shipments in warehouses will have a CAGR of almost 40% from 2021 to 2030 and exceed 500,000 global shipments in 2030, according to ABI Research.

The supply chain industry has surged its warehouse automation efforts considering the ecommerce boom and labour scarcities. In addition to technology such as headphone-enabled voice-picking and exoskeletons that reduce human effort, mobile robots are proving to be the most prevalent productivity-enhancing method in the warehousing sector.

“Productivity technologies can achieve far greater return on investment if correctly combined with other technologies,” said Adhish Luitel, industry analyst at ABI Research. “For example, by combining location tracking data with a voice solution, warehouses using a warehouse execution system platform can optimise workflows by minimising distance travelled based on where the worker is.”

In addition to mobile robotics, the growth of automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) has also been explosive. Led by innovators such as Swisslog, Bastian and Körber, the global ASRS industry is set to be valued at over $18bn by 2030, with a year-over-year growth of 9% from 2021 to 2030.

ASRS consists of a variety of computer-controlled systems for automatically placing and retrieving loads from defined storage locations, ideal for high volume of loads being moved into and out of storage.

This trend falls in line with the fact that the logistics sector has been experiencing high volume over the past year. Parcel shipping reached 95 billion in parcel volume globally in 2020; this volume is expected to double by 2026, with a 14% CAGR between 2020 and 2026.

“As the shift towards robotics occurs with busier warehouses, manual workflows can be automated or workflows that have traditionally been carried out by highly specialised and inflexible machines could soon be carried out by robots that can be moved and retrained as needed,” Luitel said.