Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are carving out an increasingly important role in material handling, especially in the era of e-commerce and the coronavirus pandemic. In this conversation with Supply Chain Brain Editor-in-Chief Bob Bowman, Jeff Christensen, Seegrid’s vice president of product, explains how the technology is evolving, and what impact it will have on the role of human workers in distribution centers in the coming year and beyond.
Jeff explains, “Safety in material-handling environments is so critically important. Seventy million hours of work are lost each year due to injuries in the U.S. alone. Mobile automation is far safer than human drivers, who get bored, improvise, and create injuries at very alarming rates. They also damage product, resulting in $15 billion a year in unsalable goods. Automation is improving those numbers across the board. Companies facing cost pressures have to do things fundamentally differently than they've done them before.”
For more information about the future of material handling automation and AMR technology: