Automation refers to using know-how to finish duties and processes with minimal human intervention. The time period encompasses a spread of applied sciences from robotic palletizing cells to AI product administration instruments. Automation is remodeling industries and there are large advantages to automating components of your corporation.
The case for automation is getting stronger yearly. Whereas 10 years in the past, we had been nonetheless introducing corporations to the essential advantages of automating even one course of, now folks typically come to us already understanding that they need to automate. And so they need to do it rapidly and effectively.
There are various advantages to including automation, significantly with robotics. Whereas a number of discussions deal with the “easy advantages” of automation — like elevated effectivity, productiveness, and efficiency — there are numerous extra nuanced advantages to automation.
If you need your corporation to thrive this 12 months, it is necessary to know the particular advantages which might be most necessary proper now. It is also necessary to know what you need to keep away from when automating, to flee widespread pitfalls.
Let’s discover 9 of the highest advantages of automation in 2025.
9 Advantages of Automation in 2025 (and What to Keep away from)
1. Flexibility and agility
With robotic automation, we frequently speak about flexibility and agility. These are each advantages that include automation however one is more and more extra related in 2025…
Versatile automation refers to techniques that may meet deliberate adjustments to activity or product calls for. For instance, your organization would possibly expertise seasonal manufacturing spikes. A versatile automation course of can adapt to those predictable adjustments.
As Robotiq R&D Challenge Supervisor, Nicolas Lauzier highlights, this agility and related sensible know-how can provide your organization a aggressive edge:
“There may be an urgency for adopting automated options within the present financial local weather. In line with studies, sensible manufacturing facility options would be the major drivers of competitiveness within the subsequent 5 years.”
A pitfall to keep away from right here is investing too closely in inflexible automation options. These are sometimes designed for mass manufacturing and might fall quick in at the moment’s fast-evolving markets.
2. Scale simply and adapt to vary
A standout advantage of automation is scalability. Not solely can the best automation enable you to ramp up manufacturing to fulfill your strategic progress targets, agile automation may also enable you to pivot manufacturing to handle surprising market shifts.
Through the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, we noticed that many corporations that succeeded in adapting to the altering world state of affairs had invested in the best automation earlier than the pandemic.
One technique that may be very useful is to deploy “copy-paste” robotic cells. This includes deploying a specific utility as soon as after which replicating that very same cell to scale manufacturing.
An instance of copy-paste automation is in decentralized palletizing. This modular method includes including a palletizing cell to the top of every new manufacturing line. By incorporating this core end-of-line course of into the road itself, you keep away from needing a drastic reconfiguration of your facility each time you scale manufacturing.
A pitfall to keep away from right here is assuming that you recognize what the market will need sooner or later or relying an excessive amount of on predictions. As a substitute, put money into automation that may mean you can adapt to adjustments rapidly after they occur.
3. Scale manufacturing domestically
Native manufacturing, empowered by collaborative robotic automation, is more and more thought-about a strategic alternative for producers.
For a few years, offshoring manufacturing was seen as the way in which to scale manufacturing. Nonetheless, in recent times, reshoring manufacturing has develop into well-liked. This shift is not only a development however is changing into a necessity within the quickly altering financial and geopolitical panorama.
By bringing manufacturing nearer to house, producers can expertise many advantages, together with lowered transport prices, shorter lead instances, and the power to customise merchandise for native markets.
Reshoring with robotic automation additionally builds resilience into an organization’s operations by lowering reliance on complicated international provide adjustments.
A pitfall to keep away from with reshoring is to match solely the preliminary prices slightly than calculating the return on funding of automation in the long run. Offshored operations typically depend on low-cost labor, which may make automated options look extra pricey at first. Nonetheless, financial savings typically develop into clear while you undertaking into the medium to long run.
4. Make higher selections with knowledge
Automation would not simply carry out key duties in your corporation, it additionally generates invaluable knowledge. This knowledge can feed into your wider enterprise analytics and enable you to make higher, extra strategic selections.
Within the trendy world, knowledge is important for making good enterprise selections. With a robotic system, for instance, you possibly can generate knowledge that lets you maintain optimizing your robotic deployment and enhance efficiency.
Our eBook Analytics for Cobots highlights how collaborative robots can simplify capturing this important knowledge. By monitoring solely the best metrics, you possibly can deal with people who straight align together with your operational wants for the automated resolution.
Gathering this knowledge may also enable you to justify your previous selections, resembling investing in automation within the first place. For instance, the info you gather from a collaborative robotic will help you calculate the ROI and make selections about future automation tasks.
A pitfall to keep away from right here is monitoring pointless knowledge. Solely monitor and analyze knowledge that’s related to your wants and utility.
5. Solves workforce shortages
Labor scarcity is a rising problem in trendy manufacturing and is an issue we have now been monitoring for a number of years. With an ageing workforce and fewer expert employees in key jobs (resembling finish of line palletizing), automation is more and more the one choice for some corporations.
Robotiq’s Nicholas Lauzier emphasizes the urgency of this example in 2024, stating:
“Research present that the labor scarcity producers presently face will not be more likely to diminish; in actual fact, it’s anticipated to worsen. As folks retire, youthful employees more and more go for jobs with higher working situations and compensation, steering clear of producing positions.”
Automation provides a strategic response to this subject, enabling you to maximise the potential of your present groups. By permitting automated techniques to take over the extra repetitive, mundane duties, you liberate your expert professionals for higher-value, extra intellectually stimulating actions.
A pitfall to keep away from will not be speaking the labor shortages to groups earlier than including automation. When folks perceive why you might be including this new know-how, they will extra simply get on board.
6. Construct safer, higher workplaces
One of the vital understated advantages of automation is its capacity to create higher workplaces. By addressing the “4 D’s of robotics” you take away the least interesting facets of individuals’s jobs.
These 4 D’s discuss with duties which might be boring, harmful, soiled, or expensive. They’re normally jobs that result in low morale, larger accident charges, decrease job high quality, and elevated operational prices. By automating them, you possibly can take away the burden on human employees and make their jobs extra rewarding.
Robots typically excel on the duties that people do not take pleasure in doing. For instance, a boring job is perhaps a repetitive meeting activity. When human employees do the identical activity for hours on finish, they will develop into demotivated, and the duty high quality is lowered. However a robotic will simply and constantly carry out the identical activity for hours on finish.
A pitfall to keep away from right here will not be involving your group members within the deployment. While you contain folks from the beginning, they typically take possession of the robotic deployment, main to higher outcomes.
7. Lower waste and enhance sustainability
Sustainability has develop into a central focus throughout many industries. As many corporations look to align their operations with extra sustainable practices, automation can present a strong software to information this transformation.
Robotic automation, for instance, has been proven to make packaging processes extra sustainable. Packaging could be a notoriously wasteful manufacturing stage, each in supplies and vitality utilization. With the best automation resolution, you possibly can sort out this drawback and contribute to bettering your organization’s total sustainability.
By including collaborative robotic packaging, you possibly can optimize your workflow and lower materials use to a minimal. For instance, by monitoring your robotic, you possibly can tweak and modify the quantity of fabric utilized in packaging to chop it to a minimal. This isn’t a one-off exercise however slightly a step you need to revisit once in a while to see how one can additional cut back waste.
A pitfall to keep away from at this stage is taking a look at your automated processes in isolation. Typically, you possibly can cut back waste considerably throughout robotic deployment by noticing different inefficiencies in the remainder of your operations.
8. Guarantee constant operations
Whereas robotic automation is commonly most celebrated for bettering effectivity and productiveness, maybe its most transformational profit is consistency.
Not like handbook processes, automation is extremely constant. That is essential in enterprise processes because it ensures your organization is dependable and maintains a excessive stage of product high quality. Including a robotic to your manufacturing workflow not solely makes its particular activity extra constant, it additionally improves the consistency of your whole manufacturing move.
In Eli Goldratt’s seminal e book “The Purpose”, the creator highlights how a specific robotic workstation units the work cadence for the remainder of the manufacturing, serving to to take away a problematic bottleneck. Individuals working in manufacturing typically speak about how the robotic makes them extra constant as a result of they need to “beat the robotic” or sustain with its constant throughput.
Lean Robotics supplies a targeted pathway that may assist obtain this consistency in your corporation. The primary stage, mapping your present handbook course of, can typically enable you to determine wasteful or inconsistent steps earlier than you automate with a robotic.
A pitfall to keep away from right here is making an attempt to suit your automation into your course of with out contemplating the remainder of your manufacturing phases.
9. Automation is simpler than ever
Maybe the most important profit to utilizing automation in 2025 is how straightforward it’s now to automate in comparison with the way it was prior to now.
Once we first began serving to corporations to automate their processes, they nonetheless wanted to place in numerous work throughout deployment. As of late, including a robotic to your manufacturing is simpler than ever earlier than.
Robotiq’s CEO Samuel Bouchard highlighted this at a Automatica commerce honest, saying:
“With plug-and-play elements, you continue to must do a little bit of the mixing. Our early adopters had been keen to try this. Now we’re working with individuals who do not even know what a cobot is. It permits extra folks to undertake robots into their factories.”
With options like utility kits you possibly can add robotics to your course of rapidly and simply, serving to you to realize the outcomes you need to make.
By eradicating boring, harmful, soiled, and expensive duties from the palms of people, you should utilize automation to make the mark you need to make on the world.
As Samuel says, that is a part of our core driver at Robotiq:
“Our mission for the previous 14 years has been to free human palms from repetitive duties. That is nonetheless our mission. We see a number of cobots, however I nonetheless suppose we’re at a very early stage. There may be nonetheless a number of potential.”
How will you automate in 2025?
Automation in 2025 guarantees a world past simply effectivity or productiveness.
From enhanced labor dynamics to sustainability, consistency, and value, its advantages ripple throughout each facet of enterprise. Nonetheless, the important thing to reaping these rewards lies in making use of that automation thoughtfully and avoiding key pitfalls.
What’s going to the way forward for automation appear like in your organization?
Take a look at our utility kits to see how simply you possibly can apply automation this 12 months.
What profit most speaks to your wants proper now? Inform us within the feedback under or be part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Fb.
