News and Updates

In the material handling industry, it’s always important to look ahead. But predictions can only get you so far. Check out our predictions in “Rise of Automation: Warehouse Automation Trends 2023” and see how close we got.

In this article, we’ll look at three predictions that seemed inevitable but didn’t play out as expected. 

Self-Driving Trucks in Logistics: Why the Rollout Stalled

Around the start of the 2010s, companies began looking at the possibility of integrating vehicles with early self-driving features into their transportation systems. This covered both indoor vehicles, like carts and forklifts, and outdoor vehicles, like freight trucks.

During this period, car manufacturers like Tesla, Audi, and GM began developing self-driving passenger cars, so autonomous commercial vehicles seemed like a logical next step.

Result: After the initial hype, development of outdoor autonomous vehicles stalled. This is likely because self-driving passenger vehicles were slow to get off the ground.

• Up until the early 2010s, most autonomous vehicles were developed through university and corporate-backed research projects. It wasn’t until 2014 that a few car manufacturers began selling passenger vehicles with early self-driving features.

• The first congressional hearing on the public use of self-driving vehicles took place on November 19, 2013. The hearing highlighted a large gap in federal and state legislation covering autonomous vehicles.

• Since that hearing, no major federal laws have been put in place to regulate the growing autonomous vehicle industry.

• In the last few years, companies like Waymo have begun rolling out robotaxi services in major cities across the US. These services use fully autonomous vehicles to transport passengers to their destinations.

Current Day: Most autonomous vehicles on the road today are passenger vehicles with various driver-assistance features. A few companies are building and testing autonomous commercial freight trucks, but their commercial and testing operations are very limited. They run small fleets of trucks on predetermined, tested routes. Their business models tend to focus on offering freight hauling as a service to business partners rather than selling the vehicles outright.

In material handling, most autonomous vehicle development has focused on AMRs (Autonomous Mobile Robots) and AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles). AGVs follow fixed paths using magnetic tape, wires, or markers, while AMRs navigate dynamically using sensors and maps. Many AMRs are specifically designed to work alongside people.

3D Printing in Manufacturing: Why the Automation Promise Fell Short

As the mid-2010s wore on, many companies began looking at the burgeoning 3D printing industry as the next big “disruptor.” At the time, 3D printing was seen as a way to move products quickly and cheaply from prototyping to production, and eventually to automate the production process. Engineering Innovation Inc. was an early adopter of 3D printing, using the technology to print parts starting in 2013.

Many industry professionals acknowledged that adoption might be slow, but for most, the potential gains seemed to outweigh the uncertainty.

“We don’t think this is going to take over manufacturing anytime soon. But we do think it’s going to be a disruptor much in the same way that online retail has disrupted retailing,” said Hans Thalbauer, senior vice president for extended supply chain at SAP. – “UPS teams with SAP to invest in 3-D printing” by Elizabeth Weise for USA Today (2016)

Result: While “3D printing” became an easy buzzword to insert into articles, news releases, and product descriptions, integrating 3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) into automation was far from easy. Over time, a disconnect developed between the long-term hopes for the technology and the physical reality of additive manufacturing.

• One of the first roadblocks many companies encountered was finding the talent to research, set up, and run the technology. 3D printing is not a fully automated process. An employee must create the digital file, load the machine with printing material, start the print, and restart the process if a print fails.

• Another major roadblock was overestimating what printers could realistically produce. 3D printing is a complicated, time-consuming process that doesn’t always end in a finished product. The type and number of products a company can make depend on the printer and printing material in use, and product size is capped by the size of the printer. Failed prints can waste costly materials, and even completed prints may not meet quality standards.

Current Day: 3D printing is still a large industry today, but it hasn’t achieved the exponential growth predicted in the 2010s, nor has it fulfilled the large-scale automation dreams laid out for it. Instead, the technology has found a solid foothold in rapid prototyping and small-batch, same-day printing services.

Just-In-Time vs. Just-In-Case: Why JIT Didn’t Die

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies saw their Just-In-Time (JIT) systems struggle to keep up with surging e-commerce demand and global supply chain disruptions. JIT inventory and warehouse management focuses on keeping just the right amount of inventory a company needs for sales. This helps keep unused or unsold products and supplies from taking up valuable warehouse space.

Many companies shifted to the Just-In-Case (JIC) method to address the weaknesses the pandemic exposed in JIT. Unlike JIT, which keeps inventory as lean as possible, JIC focuses on holding extra inventory to protect against supply chain disruptions during turbulent periods. This major switch led many industry professionals and media outlets to predict the end of JIT.

Result: Starting around 2023, many companies began either switching back to JIT or adopting a hybrid JIT approach.

• Wasted inventory was one driver. As consumer habits changed after 2020, companies that weathered the pandemic years were left with large unsold inventories they needed to reduce to cut costs.
• The growing focus on seasonal products also pushed companies back toward JIT. The approach helped them move seasonal products quickly, reduce the cost of unsold inventory, and stay competitive by getting trending products to consumers faster.

“Majors analyzed about 20 years of data from Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and Lowe’s, the four highest-volume publicly traded importers of goods via ocean container ships in the United States.

“During the second quarter [of 2023], the Big 4 retailers combined reduced inventories by 4%, the largest quarter-over-quarter drawdown since 2015, Majors said in a client note.” – “Big US retailers’ ‘just-in-time inventory’ habit makes a comeback” by Lisa Baertlein for Reuters (2023)

Current Day: More companies now use hybrid JIT systems for inventory management and warehousing.

Lessons for Evaluating the Next Big Material Handling Trend

Trends, technologies, and assumptions come and go, and they don’t always work out as expected. Sometimes the “next big thing” is a passing fad. Other times, what looks like a massive shakeup is just one step in the innovation process.

Investing in emerging technologies and ideas drives the industry forward, but as these examples show, it must be done diligently and carefully.