The Promise of Warehouse Robotics Interoperability
The Near-Term Future is Heterogeneous Fleets of Robots in the DC
By Dan Gilmore, and Raj Senguttavan, of MHI member company Roboteon
There are many good reasons to find a solution to robot interoperability in distribution centers – including avoiding so-called “vendor lock-in.”
We’ll explore this topic below, but first comment that for several key reasons, interest in warehouse robotics remains strong. The number 1 factor in this interest is the on-going labor shortage, which is affecting almost all shippers. That shortage is both pushing wages higher and reducing distribution capacity.
But that is not the only driver of interest in robotics for the warehouse. Another catalyst is shrinking order fulfillment cycle times.
Another interesting factor is a general interest in adding more automation in distribution – perhaps surprisingly often coming from the C-level, which may feel their company is behind in this area.
With that shipper interest has come significant growth in the number of warehouse robot makers. We counted more than 50 of them at MHI’s MODEX show in Atlanta in March 2024.
So shippers have lots of choices, and for many this will mean robots from different vendors operating in a single facility.
This multi-vendor warehouse robotics scenario is often referred to as being a “heterogeneous” environment – and this beings on new challenges.
Interest is especially high in what are termed Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) for a new type of collaborative order picking, working with humans to complete the process, minimizing human travel time.
The Challenges of Heterogeneous Robot Environments
The warehouse robotics sector is still immature. But as noted above even at this early stage it seems clear that for many firms, the future will involve deployment of heterogeneous robots of different types sourced from different vendors or OEMs operating together in a distribution center ecosystem.
What is the impact of this likely scenario? These different robots will frequently need to communicate with each other, either directly on indirectly through use of an integration platform, to automate the flow of information and tasks.
This is in part of what in the robotics industry called “interoperability,” and it is a key concept for companies planning warehouse robotics initiatives.
The ultimate goal of interoperability is to build ‘’plug and play” systems in which new robots can much more easily be added to the warehouse floor and communicate with each other. Interoperability will also enable much greater flexibility to change distribution processes over time.
Interoperability at Work and Avoiding Vendor Lock-In
As noted, interoperability is an important concept for companies evaluating warehouse robotics.
Consider a common operational scenario: suppose a given company buys 30 AMRs to support collaborative picking. But a couple of years later, the company has a need for additional AMS due to growth in order volumes as a result of an acquisition.
However, now in the market there is another AMR from a different OEM that the company prefers for cost, design or other reasons.
Here is an important point: If you have depended too much on the initial robot provider’s software to get the system up and running, it may be very difficult to add other robots, such as in scenario outlined above.
The robot sector increasingly refers to this as “vendor lock-in.”
With interoperability, the company would be able keep AMRs it has and seamlessly add the new AMRs to existing fleet.
But interoperability means even more. In addition to basic integration, a company will want to manage the robots from both manufacturers together in terms visibility, task assignment, performance measurement and more, operating both of them as if it is a single fleet.
That’s a good illustration of what robotic interoperability can deliver.
Can Interoperability Standards Help?
There are a few initiatives in the robotics sector to develop cross-vendor integration protocols that will make interoperability much easier. Interestingly, if successful such standards should accelerate the trend of separating the hardware and software decisions.
Those developing standards such as VDA5050 and Mass Robotics 2.0 to date are either not widely used or are still under development. It does appear that ANSI is working on a global standard. That is likely to take awhile.
Many vendors have also started offering support for what is called a Robot Operating System (ROS). However, this is a loose open source framework (not a complete standard) that doesn’t fully address all the challenges of interoperability.
The Robotics Platform Alternative
Given the lack of useful standards, companies will face choices for achieving robotic interoperability.
That includes the traditional method of manually programming interfaces between different robots and robots to software systems such as Warehouse Management, Warehouse Execution and ERP systems.
The limits of this approach are clear. That includes extended development times, high costs and a lack of flexibility over time.
A better choice it to adopt a platform strategy. Which begs the question: what is a robotics platform?
A robotics software platform is generally a Cloud-based ecosystem that provides a broad set of capabilities and services, from integration to fulfillment planning and execution.
The platform might be thought of as sitting on top of automation/robotics systems and different types of enterprise software.
The foundation for any robotic platform success is integration. That includes use advanced tools that enable flexible “no code/low code” approaches to connecting robot fleets.
An advanced platform can also more quickly integrate with WMS or other software applications through use of AI to greatly accelerate the difficult data mapping process.
The good news: Once the WMS is connected to the platform, then robots also connected to the platform now have real-time access to the WMS data.
A platform also delivers interoperability across robot types and connects different automated processes. A likely example would be communication from the platform to a robot that it needs move inventory from receiving to reserve storage, where another robot is made aware via the platform that there is a new putaway task ready for completion, and it moves to begin and end its work.
Interoperability Use Cases
We’ve already covered several use cases of common robotic interoperability use cases:
- Basic, “plug and play” integration of robots
- Adding new robots of the same type but from a different vendor and having all operate together as a single fleet.
- Connecting different types of robots or automation to support multi-step process flows (e.g., receiving to putaway).
Here is another one to consider: We’ve spoken to a global consumer goods company that wants to heavily automate distribution processes, but give individual regions or countries they operate in the flexibility to select the vendor for a specific type of robot (e.g., a layer picker) and be able to easily plug that specific equipment into the larger platform infrastructure. This enables a centralized automation strategy with local execution.
Robotics Interoperability Matters
For a significant and growing number of companies, the future on the warehouse floor will be robotics of multiple types and vendors. To maximize flow and productivity, these heterogeneous environments must adopt interoperability strategies, enabling systems of different types to operate as if a single fleet. Companies will also want to avoid robot vender lock-in coming from software choices today that limit options down the road.
While standards to help with all this are being developed, for now a robotics integration and execution software platform will provide an attractive alternative to traditional programming-heavy approaches.