Driving the Future of Industrial Logistics with Autonomous Robots

Guest blog by Jaume Martinez from MHI Member Company Kivnon

Interest in mobile robotics among US industrial organizations is growing steadily, but hampering its growth is the common misperception that getting the benefit is just a matter of adding a self-driving vehicle to current operations. Doing so can certainly lead to marked improvements in existing operations, but that is only part of the story. U.S. logistics managers are discovering that mobile robots can unlock a whole new world of logistics, material handling and business improvement. If you haven’t looked at mobile robots lately, this is the perfect time to learn how the latest advancements can make your operations more efficient, safer and profitable.

Mobile robots coming to America

Bolstered by increasing government investment in strengthening the US industrial base in the face of heightening global competition, U.S manufacturers are automating and modernizing, all of which is creating a new surge of interest in mobile robotics. Also known as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) or automated guided vehicles (AGVs), the self-propelled vehicles are revolutionizing material handling and logistics, increasing efficiency across the supply chain, and restructuring production operations.

Getting from here to there

Although most companies start with one or two vehicles and scale up as needed, a more effective approach is to start by articulating your company business objectives, like improving yield, efficiency, and traceability. With those in mind, you can best evaluate where automation will bring you the greatest return and can drill down from each objective into details of the applications needed to accomplish it. This would include the volume of materials or products you need to move, and at what frequency distances.

If you are just getting started with mobile robots, it might be better to work your equipment vendor. They will have experience with a broad range of applications and can help you zero in quickly on the roles robots can play in your business. They can help you model an integrated system and will usually have process templates that can be scale across departments or locales.

In addition to matching types of mobile robots your vendor can help with implementation strategies, such as guidance and navigation approaches.

First run

A typical mobile robot project might begin by using the robot to automate a single, previously manual process, replacing the function of a human who moves assemblies from a conveyor, places them onto a cart and either walks the full cart to a loading station or summons another human to take it.

One way to automate that process would be for the human to load parts on to a mobile robot, which would remove the parts to the next process point. This could keep the worker focussed on production. It would also remove the need to hire another human to transport the cart, which would be a challenge given a shortage of industrial works.

Just adding a mobile robot in this way could indeed improve efficiency and save money, but it is only the beginning of the story. The rest is even greater efficiency, reduced operator error, deep traceability, worker safety and comfort, all adding up to maximize ROI.

Optimizing efficiency

Now, imagine that instead of a having a human picking from that conveyor, you could outfit the mobile unit with a robot arm that could load the objects from the conveyor belt and move them to the next operation. Or, if the travel distance between the conveyor belt and the next process step was too far, the picking robot could off-load onto a smaller unit, which would optimize asset utilization.

Rather than having the picking functionality of $100,000 plus system sitting idle while it hauls goods then, it could continue to work on the production line, while a $30,000 unit does the transport. Taking things a step further, imagine there is some kind of bottleneck blocking the progress of the assembly line, which would stall a manual process and idle picking until the issue resolves. With the mobile capability, however, the robot can move to a part of the assembly conveyor that is ready for it, without disrupting the workflow.

Such flexibility challenges the entire notion of a production line. Instead of an extended unit of fixed stations, you can imagine the mobile robots as modules that can shapeshift to accommodate multiple processes and situations.

Tracking and traceability

Accurate records about what, where and when products are modified is important for all manufacturing quality improvement but in regulated industries such as pharmaceutical product and medical device manufacturing, it is the law.

Imagine that a workstation integrates a barcode scanner, so that as the human or robotic arm moves the product from the assembly line to the cart, it timestamps its physical and process locations in real-time, making it available to the warehouse management system for maintenance planning or further analysis. Or it all feeds into a dashboard through which operators and logistics team can monitor all process in real time. Or you could synchronize RFID tags with trolleys and the products they are carrying so you locate products in complex buffers, managing them digitally through PLCs.

Safety and comfort

In addition to inefficiency, manual tasks jeopardize worker safety and comfort. Part of the safety and improve is in removing the strain from workers who might otherwise have to carry or move parts.

Another safety aspect is the fact that robots can go into environments that might otherwise be hazardous for humans. Yet another part of the safety story is the navigation systems, either magnetic or optical, are equipped with sensors or other mechanisms to avoid collisions with workers, objects and each other, enhancing overall safety for all workers.

ROI

Most companies see payback on the implementation in less that 2 years, but sometimes the changes are so clear and dramatic – like eliminating an entire shift — they may see it in months. The larger the installation the greater the potential ROI. Your robot vendor will help you model this as well.

Revisiting production and logistic ecosystems

Deploying mobile robots into material handling operations is not just about introducing advanced technology—it’s about rethinking the entire logistics and production ecosystem. As U.S. manufacturers continue to modernize in response to global competition and government incentives, mobile robots offer a path to enhanced efficiency, safety, and profitability.

By carefully aligning these robots with business objectives and operational needs, you can unlock significant gains in productivity and traceability while improving worker safety. The flexibility, scalability, and ROI potential of mobile robots make them a compelling investment for any forward-thinking organization. The journey from manual processes to a fully automated, optimized operation is complex but transformative, and those who embrace this change today will be better positioned to lead in the competitive markets of tomorrow.