Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
Business delays caused by the Covid-19 crisis will eliminate an estimated $450 million of mobile robot revenues in 2020, but the sector is forecast to bounce back in 2021 and recoup more than the difference over the long term, a new study says.
The loss of sales in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) is being caused by delays in both new project signoffs and in project commissioning due to social distancing measures, according to Ash Sharma, research director at the research firm Interact Analysis.
However, that impact of the pandemic will eventually be overturned by continuing trends like the increased adoption of e-commerce, moves to local manufacturing, and desire to reduce dependency on human labor, concludes the report, “Covid-19 Will Eliminate $0.5 billion Mobile Robot Revenues in 2020, but Market Predicted to Nearly Double in 2021.”
“Despite the short-term challenges caused by the pandemic, we predict that the ‘lost’ revenue in 2020 will be more than overturned over the next three years and 2023 revenues will be nearly $600 million higher than they would have been if the pandemic had not occurred,” Sharma wrote in the report.
In the meantime, the robot producers most heavily impacted by the pandemic will be vendors focused on durable manufacturing (particularly automotive), which typically require higher capital expenditure demand more complex integration and commissioning. Adding to those troubles, the biggest current adopters of robotics–apparel and general merchandise–also comprise the vendors that are suffering the most from the pandemic, he said.
By the same logic, the pandemic has actually created new opportunities for those mobile robot vendors that offer low-cost approaches, such as rentals and robotics as a service (RaaS), which now present extremely compelling solutions that allow a fast ramp-up for retailers, Sharma said. Similarly, some AMR vendors are able to ship their robots and provide commissioning support remotely to circumvent any social distancing restrictions.
Therefore, demand will continue to be reasonably high in 2020 for order fulfillment AMRs, such as goods-to-person, person-to-goods, and sortation robots. While installations and revenues will likely be significantly lower than they could have been prior to the virus, the Interact Analysis forecast still predicts nearly 70% growth in revenues for those players. Looking farther into the future, the report says that AGV revenues are predicted to grow by more than 70% in 2021 after a flat year in 2020, and AMR revenue growth will be even more impressive, predicted to double in 2021.
The report follows an ongoing debate over whether that rising adoption of robots creates or destroys workers’ jobs.
Earlier this month, Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) economist Daron Acemoglu released a study finding that industrial robots replace human workers. According to the study, from 1990 to 2007, adding one additional robot per 1,000 workers reduced the national employment-to-population ratio by about 0.2%, although some areas of the U.S. were affected far more than others. This means each additional robot added in manufacturing replaced an average of 3.3 workers nationally. The increased use of robots in the workplace also lowered wages by roughly 0.4% during the same time period.
According to IFR’s statistics, employment in the U.S. automotive industry – the nation’s largest adopter of robots – increased by 22% from 824,400 to 1,005,000 jobs between 2013 and 2018, despite a rise in the global operational stock of robots by about 65% to 2.4 million units over the same period.
“The impact of automation on employment is not in any respect different from previous waves of technology-driven change,” IFR President Milton Guerry said in a release. “Productivity increases and competitive advantages of automation don’t replace jobs – they will automate tasks, augment jobs and create new ones.”
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.