Warehouse Automation Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

Warehouse Automation Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

The warehouse automation market is expected to register a CAGR of 16.2% during the forecast period.

• Automation in logistics refers to using control systems, machinery, and software to enhance the efficiency of operations. It usually applies to the processes that must be performed in a warehouse or distribution center, which requires minimal human intervention. Some benefits of automation logistics are improved customer service, scalability and speed, organizational control, and reduction of mistakes, among others.
• Warehouse automation automates inventory movement into, within, and out of warehouses to customers with minimal human assistance. As part of an automation project, a business can eliminate labor-intensive duties that involve repetitive physical work and manual data entry and analysis.
• Moreover, the growth in the e-commerce industry worldwide and the growing need for efficient warehousing and inventory management are driving the market studied. Automation in warehousing offers extreme convenience when cutting down overall business costs and reducing errors in product deliveries. According to DHL, a prominent 3PL company and a significant end-user of warehouse automation solutions, despite the advantages, 80% of warehouses are “still manually operated with no supporting automation.” Furthermore, warehouses, i.e., those that use conveyors, sorters, and pick and place solutions, account for 15% of the entire warehouses. In contrast, only 5% of current warehouses are automated.
• Unpredictable demand and a lack of transparency and collaboration with the supply chain present a significant barrier to reaching business goals for many manufacturers. However, when manufacturers evaluate the sources of complexity and optimize warehouse management, they are expected to efficiently meet variable demand while increasing their view of the supply chain.
• Similarly, while warehouse management systems (WMS) can improve workflow efficiency, reduce errors, save on costs associated with errors, and get faster turn-around time for order fulfillment, running a WMS can be time-consuming and expensive for an e-commerce business. It requires huge upfront costs for hardware, extensive training, and additional monthly costs for upkeep.
• COVID-19 increased the focus on a contactless environment as companies looked to improve logistics efficiency and reduce expenses, giving rise to a higher demand for automated technologies. As a result, significant companies adopted technologies such as warehouse management systems (WMS) for optimizing tasks like locating parcels and choosing the right size and type of packaging.

• Warehouse automation is used in various retail activities, including e-commerce and grocery. For warehouses, automation has multiple advantages, from boosting production to lowering labor-related risks. E-commerce warehouse automation consists of implementing technologies in logistics facilities to boost operational performance. According to the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce, Total e-commerce sales for 2022 were USD 1,034.1 billion, an increase of 7.7 percent (±0.4%) from 2021. Total retail sales in 2022 increased by 8.1 percent (±0.9%) from 2021.
• To address this massive demand, warehouse automation is rapidly expanding to transform manual warehouses into automated fulfillment operations, which are proving vital to meeting customer demand at scale while managing operating costs in the future. Currently, many retailers are increasingly implementing warehouse automation solutions that seek to handle the growing scale and complexity of their e-commerce logistics operations and meet the ever-increasing demand of their customers more quickly and cost-effectively.
• A retail warehouse can be outfitted with various automated solutions to carry out all tasks, from automatic handling equipment for storing products to digital systems that maximize product organization. Big retailers are utilizing automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and the next level of automation—automated mobile robots (AMRs)—working alongside workers to simplify the fulfillment operations of their e-commerce and omnichannel facilities.
• Moreover, to meet the rapidly expanding e-commerce sector and consider the lessons learned from the worldwide pandemic, leading retailers strive to make warehouses responsive, resilient, and dependable. For instance, in April 2022, Amazon established the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund (AIIF), a USD 1 billion startup funding program that will be used to "spur supply chain, fulfillment, and logistics innovation," focusing on automation and workplace robotics.

• The market for warehouse automation in the Asia-Pacific is expanding significantly due to the rising number of industries in the region and their integration with automation to increase the return on investment (ROI). The Asia-Pacific warehouse automation is predicted to be dominated by China with the growing production, sales, and trade of automation products.
• Moreover, The warehouse automation industry is expected to benefit from China's dominance in the manufacturing sector as the Chinese government plans to transform China from a manufacturing giant to a global manufacturing power under the national plan "Made in China 2025". This plan includes strengthening Chinese robot suppliers and further surging their market shares in China and abroad.
• The demand for warehouse automation includes an automated supply chain, further supported by favorable investments. The country has been marked with several investments to further the market's growth studied, with major key players expanding into the region and introducing funds by venture capitalists in emerging start-ups with potential.
• Manufacturing has emerged as one of the high-growth sectors in India as well. For instance, the Make in India program places India on the world map as a significant manufacturing hub and provides global recognition to the Indian economy. The Made in India campaign has bolstered multiple new launches in industrial robots in the country, thus driving opportunities for warehouse automation.

The warehouse automation market is highly competitive. Some key global players in this market are Dematic Group, Daifuku Co. Limited, Swisslog Holding AG, Honeywell Intelligrated, and Jungheinrich AG. Product launch, acquisition, and partnership are key strategies market players operating in the warehouse automation industry adopt.

In January 2023, JungheinrichAG acquired Indiana-based Storage Solutions group, a leading provider of racking and warehouse automation solutions in the United States, to gain enhanced access to the US warehousing and automation market.

Further, in September 2022, Dematic partnered with Upshopto to offer integrated fulfillment services that grow with the grocery industry. With the help of the alliance, grocery stores wishing to expand their fulfillment businesses will have access to tools that let them store and manage their consumer data. Dematic will offer its experience in automation along with simple software to connect with current Upshop processes.

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
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