This proliferation of warehouse/DC robotics has come pretty fast and already has brought operational benefits for many operations. And due to this early success, many more companies are offering robotics solutions today than just a couple years ago. So, what’s next?

Research indicates that many operations will expand on the benefits of robotics by adding more bots to one fleet and also expand into new use cases for robotics, ending up with “heterogenous” environments. What’s more, many DCs have fixed automation that robotics needs to interoperate with, from conveyor systems, to automated packaging, to something as simple as elevator controls.

In this session, our speaker explains how the trend toward robotics from multiple providers has given rise to a software niche that’s being called “multi-agent orchestration”—platforms that coordinate processes between heterogeneous fleets of robots, other forms of automation, and can tie into business systems like warehouse management software. This session will outline this trend and highlight what these platform capabilities currently involve.

Attendees will better understand:

• the outlook for heterogenous environments and the resulting user needs;
• the role orchestration software plays in tying diverse “agents” together; and
• how well coordinated solutions can ultimately benefit a supply chain operation.

Moderator

Roberto Michel, Senior Editor, Modern Materials Handling

Speaker

Dwight Klappich, Vice President, Fellow, Gartner

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