Survey reveals warehouse robotics is in early stages, but future is gleaming

I think the Modern readers who found themselves among the 37,000 attendees walking the floor of Modex 2022 in Atlanta would agree: It was great to be back in the thick of things. Indeed, it was one of those events where you could feel the energy, hear the buzz.

While it really wasn’t a long-shot, at the beginning of 2022 we predicted the energy level would be high when we released the findings of our “2022 Warehouse/DC Equipment Survey.” As we reported, readers told us they were geared up and ready to embrace more automation and robotics—and they were adding more budget to make it happen.

In fact, 36% of respondents told us in that survey they were going forward with investments, up from 28% last year, while the average anticipated spending on automation and robotics for 2022 came in at $459,316—well above last year’s average anticipated spend of $306,990.

And while the overall din in Atlanta was palpable, there was little doubt that the biggest buzz was around robotics. Aisle after aisle, attendees gathered around the booths giving demonstration after demonstration—picking, packing, sorting, heavy payload transport, receiving and unloading.

“You couldn’t walk down an aisle at Modex this year without tripping over a robot,” says executive editor Bob Trebilcock. “There were dozens of robotics solution providers from around the globe. Every systems integrator worth their salt, regardless of size, had at least one robot on display. In some respects, it was a robotics show.”

Anticipating this buzz, the Modern editorial staff and Peerless Research Group (PRG), along with input from The Robotics Group at MHI and WERC, developed our first annual “Intralogistics Robotics Survey” that was fielded in the first quarter of 2022.

We wanted to simply ask readers where robotics were in their plans. Are they currently still trying to understand how it fits in their operation? Are they in planning mode or even in pilot mode? Or are they taking a wait-and-see attitude? While the prospects are exciting, where are we in reality?

Trebilcock dives in and puts context around the key findings of our survey. While our findings validate the robotics “buzz,” the fact is that we’re just at the very beginning of an adoption cycle that’s going to be fascinating to track over the coming years.

“I found a couple high-level takeaways worth noting,” says Trebilcock. “One is that while 52% of respondents are either using or plan to use robotics, the percentage actually using them now is less than 30%. So, it’s still an emerging trend.”

His second, and perhaps more important, takeaway is that of those already using robotics, a majority plan to increase the size of their fleets and bring in different types of robots that can be applied to other processes.

“This reminded me of where voice was 10 years ago,” says Trebilcock. “The early adopters started with picking, and once they began to get value from their investment in voice, they extended it to other processes and then combined voice with other technologies. That appears to be where robotics is today.”