Editors’ Picks




Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.96
…keeping companies from exploring their options. As evidenced by Amazon’s push to automate its own warehouse (and, purchase a robot-maker in order to make that happen), the drive to achieve higher productivity at a lower cost with the help of technology isn’t waning. “Labor is an increasing cost, with seasonal labor being particularly difficult to manage and plan for,” says Longacre. “It causes a lot of problems for the companies and the employees, so a lot of firms are looking to technology and automation to help alleviate some of these pain points.” Khodl concurs, and says the need for lower…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.94
…will Change the World of Design. Related Article: Is Amazon Creating Self-Driving Cars for Delivery? Related White Papers The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be According to predictions made a few decades ago, current travel should involve self-driving automobiles, jetpacks and flying cars, with space transport a common occurrence. Download Now! Parcel Delivery: The Future of Last Mile Currently subject to significant disruption, last-mile delivery, especially of parcels, is getting a great deal of attention in the media and from investors, and rightfully so. Download Now! Drone Technology: Clarity from Above According PwC's study on the commercial applications of…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.88
…automated “dark stores,” can provide orders for nearby customers. Amazon Go stores use cameras and intelligent software to track purchases and charge customers as they leave the premises, replacing cashier kiosks. Boston Dynamics' Spot quadruped can perform dangerous surveying tasks at construction sites. As Sanders said, robots can perform the tasks that people don't want to do, supporting fulfillment in spite of workforce shifts. Logistics picks up on robotics Warehouse operators and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) are making healthy investments in automation for materials handling. For instance, shipping giant Maersk last year acquired Visible Supply Chain Management (SCM) for $838…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.86
…on Omniverse. Public examples of Isaac Sim users include: Amazon Robotics uses NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise and Isaac Sim to simulate warehouse design, train robots with synthetic data generation (via Isaac Replicator), and gain operational efficiencies before physically implementing them in warehouses. This helps the e-commerce giant fulfill thousands of orders in a cost- and time-efficient manner [see video below]. Telexistence has deployed beverage restocking robots across 300 convenience stores in Japan. Deutsche Bahn is training AI models to handle very important but unexpected corner cases that happen rarely in the real world — like luggage falling on a train track,…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.81
…Demand for Instant Fulfillment Thanks in large part to Amazon's ever-accelerating fulfillment speed, e-commerce has become a race to the front door. Same-day delivery for urban customers has become simply table stakes, and the bar is moving higher with even shorter delivery windows on offer. Customers are growing used to faster fulfillment, with close to half expecting delivery speeds to continue increasing, according to a recent survey.[9] As same-day delivery becomes too slow, retailers will strive to match the “30-minutes or free” standard that used to be a pizza delivery promise. If you could begin deliveries only blocks from your…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.80
…[acquired in 2020 by Caterpillar] and Dispatch [acquired by Amazon in 2017] exploring this space. Are there certain types of robots where you expect strong growth? Any that are overhyped? Sharma: Articulated robots: Robotic arms, also known as articulated robots, are fast, reliable, and accurate and can be programmed to do an infinite number of tasks in a variety of environments. They are used in factories to automate execution of repetitive tasks, such as applying paint to equipment or parts. In warehouses, robot arms pick, select, or sort goods from distribution conveyors to fulfill customer orders. On farms, they can…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.75
…their bad habits.” Jindel adds that demographics, e-commerce and Amazon have permanently changed LTL market dynamics, which aren’t going back to the old days any time soon. “The LTL sector will continue to remain tight and favorable to carriers until autonomous vehicles are embraced by society and lawmakers,” he says. “Until then, it’s Christmas time for the LTL industry.” Indeed, LTL carriers can already hear Christmas bells ringing in data of their financial charts. Revenue per hundredweight jumped 3.7% year-over-year in the first quarter with tonnage up a whopping 4.7%. That would indicate a shifting of heavier freight shipments from…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.71
…firms are more comfortable using public cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud and others. Most software providers that offer cloud options also typically provide some flexibility for customers who either won’t or can’t (due to regulatory requirements) move to a fully public cloud infrastructure. According to Stucker, early adopters in the cloud space have focused on private clouds, but that is slowly shifting to public cloud infrastructures. “These installed cloud architectures can become obsolete quickly,” Stucker says. “Leasing compute power makes more sense for companies than buying hardware and hiring a team to manage it.”…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.60
…are good candidates for automation because they're labor-intensive. As Amazon has been growing, the number of its employees has grown alongside that of robots because of the growth in online ordering. The second is where there's a lack of qualified workers, such as in skilled trades for manufacturing. Robots are good candidates for repetitive tasks, such as welding, assembly, or machine tending. A CNC machine takes a block of metal and removes piece of it to achieve the desired shape. A robot can then take it out and put in a new block. The third is where product quality or…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.53
…of its customers are looking at using software from Amazon Web Services (AWS) called RoboRunner for this purpose. Other Automate exhibits of interest SVT Robotics had a sizeable booth at Automate. The vendor, which offers a software platform to speed and simplify integration of robotics solutions with host systems like a warehouse management system (WMS) or an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, has drawn significant funding from investors that see industry interest in rapid integration of robotics solutions. Jim Hodson, vice president of marketing for SVT, noted it’s not just deployment speed for one system that interests companies in SVT’s…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.51
…(ATG), and he has also held senior roles at Amazon and Qualcomm. Robotics 24/7 spoke with Thomason about his experience, his views on autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), and his plans for Brain Corp. You've been a software leader at tech companies like Uber ATG, Oculus, and Qualcomm. What brought you to Brain Corp? Thomason: While it seems like they're all different, the big commonality is that there's a lot of systems software. While artificial intelligence and deep learning are obviously components, there's a lot of other software—Web portals, interactions, real-time pipes, updates—with remarkable parallels in my 30 years in the…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.50
…has lead to a hiring frenzy by companies like Amazon and FedEx, while they have also turned to deploying robotics and automation into their operations. Why? Because the boom in e-commerce is growing faster than firms can hire. Source: FedEx 2. More manufacturing to reshore As the pandemic closed borders and factories around the world, supply chains took a major pounding and continue to do so. This has caused many business executives to rethink their supply chains, and some are even reshoring manufacturing back to the U.S. The Biden administration is also actively encouraging the reshoring efforts through new programs…