Intelligent Automation to Shape Fulfillment Centers

A survey of over 300 logistics professionals, conducted by Covariant, asked about the companies’ current fulfillment challenges, technology investment priorities, and perception of AI robotics. The goal of the survey, released on March 28, was to understand logistics professionals’ plans for implementing AI robotics to automate warehouse picking processes.

Findings from the survey reveal a record-level interest in AI robotics and planned investment across material handling operations such as sortation, induction, good-to-person order picking, and depalletization.

“We’ve reached a critical phase of technological viability," said Peter Chen, CEO of Covariant, in a statement.  

Notable findings of the survey include:

• Almost half of the respondents assert that intelligent robots have become smart enough to reliably run pick-and-place stations.
• Of that group, one in four are already using AI-powered robotics or are in the midst of implementation.
• The main barriers to adoption fell into two major areas for the minority who indicated they have yet to try AI Robotics:
• Uncertainty around ROI / lack of awareness of new commercial models such as Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) — 35% are concerned implementing a solution would be too expensive.
• A noisy marketplace — 16% are overwhelmed by the nuances of available solutions and difficulty in assessing the differences of each one.