The Growing Need for Robot Orchestration

Florian Pestoni - CEO & Co-founder, InOrbit

End users across industries increasingly rely on automation to remain competitive and respond to existential threats. Logistics and supply chain companies, from brands and retailers to 3PLs, are at the forefront of integrating autonomous robots into their operations. However, as they add more robots across sites and for a growing number of tasks, such as trailer unloading, depalletizing, pick and place, inventory tracking or cleaning, they are facing increased complexity and coordination issues that jeopardize the productivity gains that can be achieved through these solutions. Robot developers should focus on their specific solution to ensure their robots operate optimally. Expecting a single manufacturer to develop and commercialize robots for every possible use case is just not feasible. A solution designed for a specific purpose, such as transporting pallets, would not work to manage a different type of robot, such as a robotic putwall or a floor scrubber. There has been some progress recently on emerging interoperability initiatives for mobile robots, including VDA-5050 and MassRobotics AMR interoperability. These efforts, which have yet to achieve broad adoption, are only part of the solution: they provide a technical mechanism to exchange data. However, what end users actually need is scalable, multi-vendor orchestration and robot operations software to make it possible for different types of robots to work together in harmony. This presentation will cover the current state of interoperability and specific use cases for robot orchestration, equipping decision-makers with the information they need to continue expanding automation throughout their operations. 

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