Automation Trends
Automation Trends: What’s driving automation forward
Automation is the buzz word these days, and it is growing leaps & bounds all across, much faster than the steady increase it experienced in the past times. Also, it is becoming more widespread both in terms of applicability and scope than the traditional applications the industry has seen in the past. The pressure is on for businesses in all industries to automate as a means of self-preservation to cut down the ever-increasing labour costs.
According to Crunchbase, “A survey of seed-stage funding rounds ... for 2021 showed labour saving robotics as an increasingly popular investment theme.” According to the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), “robot orders in the third quarter of 2021 were up 35 percent over the same period in 2020” and more than half of the orders are from non-automotive sectors, indicating a far wider applicability. And this record growth isn’t just robotics either—machine vision, motion control and motors are also seeing big increases.
ROBOTS GET REAL:
According to a recent prediction from Forrester, in the US, 35 percent of service companies will employ “physical robot workers” in the next year. According to an ABI Research report, the mobile robot market may overtake traditional industrial robots (in terms of robot shipments) and continue at a steady upward rate. This includes autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), robotic forklifts/ tuggers, bipeds, quadrupeds and delivery robots to name a few—many of which are fuelling automation usage in relatively new industries like retail, delivery and logistics, construction, agriculture and more. The mobile robot market may someday outpace traditional industrial robots. Fortunately, the sophistication and capability of today’s sensors, vision and motion control technologies are advancing by the day. That paired with stronger and more targeted network solutions will help fuel the rise of the robots.
IN THE CLOUD:
These days, no one can escape cloud computing—and the trend is only growing. According to Gartner, “cloud-native platforms will serve as the foundation for more than 95 percent of new digital initiatives by 2025—up from less than 40 percent in 2021.” Many automation suppliers have begun to either acquire or build their own cloud-based software solutions. Cloud-native platforms will serve as the foundation for more than 95% of digital initiatives by 2025.
Marrying cloud software solutions with automation platforms will allow users to get the most from their systems—making it easier to capture and share data; enabling better reporting and predictive analytics; offering a higher degree of remote control and more.
AUTONOMY RULES:
Advancements in imaging go hand in hand with more sophisticated processing, analysis and AI technologies, not only helping automated systems see, but also interpret and solve. Software developments allow for deep learning for reliable optical character recognition (OCR), enabling applications not possible with rules-based machine vision alone. Meanwhile, new imaging technologies are allowing for high-res image capture at the high speeds required in many industrial applications.
Autonomic systems are a “2022 Top Strategic Technology Trend” according to Gartner. Gartner predicts that autonomic systems (sometimes called “selfhealing”) will be the wave of the future because they “dynamically modify their own algorithms and behaviors without an external software update, enabling them to rapidly adapt to new conditions in the field, much like humans can.”
IT MEETS OT:
According to McKinsey, automation is among the fastest rising tech trends. IT and OT must work in perfect harmony if automation initiatives are to make a positive impact. From Industrial IoT to cloud computing, IT/OT roles and responsibilities overlap—so automation engineers should be prepared to work more intensively and frequently with their company’s IT team. For companies large and small, streamlined collaboration between IT and OT is necessary for automation success.
INDIA & AUTOMATION:
Traditionally, only the bigger organizations were the pioneers of industrial automation in India, and the technology was being imported from abroad, that too, at a very high cost. In recent times, many small to medium players are also getting attracted to automation for its tangible benefits. The factors fuelling this proliferation are: rising manpower & associated costs, reduction in the cost of automation components, caused by the technological advancements, and an increased number of Indian automation solution providers.
As can be seen from the above chart, the robot density in manufacturing industries is still very less for Indian as compared with the other countries, this also corroborates to the fact that possibilities are immense for India in industrial automation & robotics.