Jim Lawton is vice president and general manager for robotics automation at Zebra Technologies. He works with customers to implement intelligent automation and advanced robotics to transform their operations with greater efficiency, higher productivity, and lower costs. He has experience in e-commerce, supply chain optimization, and collaborative robotics—experience that has shaped his passion for helping manufacturing, supply chain, and logistics organizations leverage technology to enhance business performance.
Lawton holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Tufts University, an M.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He recently shared his insights with DC Velocity Group Editorial Director David Maloney.
Q. How would you describe the current state of robotics automation?
A: This is undoubtedly one of the most exciting times I’ve seen in the 10-plus years I’ve been in the market. For warehouse and fulfillment operations teams, three trends are creating real urgency for deploying robotics and automation now.
First, there are the pressures of labor—both hiring and keeping employees today and recruiting employees in the future. Second is the transformation of the warehouse into an on-demand operation where there’s a much closer connection to the end customer, with all the expectations that entails. Third, it has never been harder to forecast with any confidence what the business and economic environment will look like. For those of us working on developing solutions, innovations like collaborative robotics and cloud computing combine to create limitless opportunities to help customers solve real problems.
Q. Zebra, which has long been known for data-collection devices, mobile computing, and printing products, acquired Fetch Robotics in July 2021. Why did the company decide to expand its portfolio into autonomous mobile robots?
A: For the last couple of years, we’ve seen customers struggle to figure out the best ways for them to drive better productivity, throughput, and accuracy in their warehouses. They’re asking smart questions like: “How do I deploy automation?” “What are the best workflows to use it?” “What kind of results can I get by leveraging automation?”
Our customers have really pulled us into the journey they’re on to get more from the solutions they already have with robotics and automation. So, we’re asking ourselves how we can help them do that. With innovations in our devices, such as wearables, heads-up displays, mobile computers, and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), operations teams can really achieve that next level of productivity they are looking from robotics and automation.
Q. You have a background in electrical engineering and computer science. How does that background help you identify potential applications for robotics automation?
A: Growing up, I loved to build things with an Erector set and Lego bricks, taking a pile of pieces and building something with them. It was that feeling, I think, that eventually got me looking at a career in manufacturing and, more specifically, operations, where I’m focused on helping operations teams turn what is fundamentally a pile of pieces into something greater than the sum of those parts.
About 10 years ago, I became interested in the ways in which software was at the heart of the innovation we have now come to expect from our devices—and what that meant for machines on a broader scale. We’ve seen advances in machine vision, perception, and artificial intelligence (AI) that allow us to do things with robots that weren’t possible five or 10 years ago. So, it’s opening up new opportunities to deploy robots in places that can add much, much more value than ever before.
Q. What are the key benefits of autonomous mobile robots in distribution facilities?
A: First, AMRs free people up from walking miles and miles in order to complete orders. That means more orders can be fulfilled and shipped every single day. Second, AMRs take the burden of tedious tasks off people, and, in doing so, contribute to a better working environment—one where [people] are more likely to stay. Third, AMRs are easy to deploy and can be configured for more than a single task, making the innovation accessible to operations of any size and fundamentally democratizing the ability to benefit from automation.
Q. What is being done to help human workers feel more comfortable working alongside collaborative robots?
A: The most successful implementations I’ve seen have been at companies that make one fundamental choice at the outset of a deployment—they include people who work on those processes every single day. Those workers understand the processes and the workflow, and they are in the best position to figure out how to bridge those two so that what ultimately gets deployed will work in the environment. That engagement goes a very long way toward dispelling fears of job loss and creates opportunities for workers to explore and recommend other places where robots can deliver value.
Q. One advantage of autonomous mobile robots is their scalability. How does that benefit customers in managing peak seasons?
A: Historically, fulfillment operations met seasonal spikes by hiring temporary workers. But this is no longer a sustainable strategy. Even outside of seasonal spikes, it does not work. For example, we have a customer that hires temporary workers to make up for the gap they have in full-time staff. They bring in new temporary workers every Monday morning, and the customer has shared that, on average, by lunchtime, 50% of those workers have quit.
AMRs make it possible to avoid that “gotcha,” because they can quickly be configured to complete the most urgent task at hand, such as picking and transporting to packaging when demand spikes, and then redeployed to another task when demand levels stabilize.
