Automation refers to using expertise to finish duties and processes with minimal human intervention. The time period encompasses a variety of applied sciences from robotic palletizing cells to AI product administration instruments. Automation is remodeling industries and there are great advantages to automating elements of your corporation.
The case for automation is getting stronger yearly. Whereas 10 years in the past, we have been nonetheless introducing firms to the essential advantages of automating even one course of, now individuals usually come to us already understanding that they wish to automate. They usually wish to do it rapidly and effectively.
There are a lot of advantages to including automation, significantly with robotics. Whereas quite a lot of discussions deal with the “easy advantages” of automation — like elevated effectivity, productiveness, and efficiency — there are various extra nuanced advantages to automation.
In order for you your corporation to thrive this 12 months, it is vital to know the precise advantages which can be most vital proper now. It is also vital to know what it is best to keep away from when automating, to flee frequent 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 regularly discuss flexibility and agility. These are each advantages that include automation however one is more and more extra related in 2025…
Versatile automation refers to methods that may meet deliberate adjustments to activity or product calls for. For instance, your organization may 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 good expertise can provide your organization a aggressive edge:
“There’s an urgency for adopting automated options within the present financial local weather. In keeping with reviews, good manufacturing facility options would be the main 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 right this moment’s fast-evolving markets.
2. Scale simply and adapt to vary
A standout good thing about automation is scalability. Not solely can the proper automation provide help to ramp up manufacturing to satisfy your strategic progress targets, agile automation can even provide help to pivot manufacturing to handle surprising market shifts.
In the course of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, we noticed that many firms that succeeded in adapting to the altering world state of affairs had invested in the proper automation earlier than the pandemic.
One technique that may be very useful is to deploy “copy-paste” robotic cells. This entails deploying a selected 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 strategy entails including a palletizing cell to the tip 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 what the market will need sooner or later or relying an excessive amount of on predictions. As an alternative, spend money on automation that may can help you adapt to adjustments rapidly once they occur.
3. Scale manufacturing regionally
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 best way to scale manufacturing. Nonetheless, lately, reshoring manufacturing has change into in style. This shift is not only a pattern however is turning into a necessity within the quickly altering financial and geopolitical panorama.
By bringing manufacturing nearer to residence, producers can expertise many advantages, together with decreased delivery 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 check solely the preliminary prices reasonably than calculating the return on funding of automation in the long run. Offshored operations usually depend on low-cost labor, which may make automated options look extra pricey to start with. Nonetheless, financial savings usually change into clear whenever you undertaking into the medium to long run.
4. Make higher choices with knowledge
Automation does not simply carry out key duties in your corporation, it additionally generates invaluable knowledge. This knowledge can feed into your wider enterprise analytics and provide help to make higher, extra strategic selections.
Within the trendy world, knowledge is significant for making good enterprise choices. With a robotic system, for instance, you may generate knowledge that means that you can hold 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 proper metrics, you may deal with people who instantly align along with your operational wants for the automated answer.
Amassing this knowledge can even provide help to justify your previous choices, similar to investing in automation within the first place. For instance, the info you gather from a collaborative robotic may also help you calculate the ROI and make choices 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 now have been monitoring for a number of years. With an growing old workforce and fewer expert employees in key jobs (similar to finish of line palletizing), automation is more and more the one choice for some firms.
Robotiq’s Nicholas Lauzier emphasizes the urgency of this case in 2024, stating:
“Research present that the labor scarcity producers presently face just isn’t prone to diminish; in truth, it’s anticipated to worsen. As individuals retire, youthful employees more and more go for jobs with higher working circumstances and compensation, steering clear of producing positions.”
Automation affords a strategic response to this problem, enabling you to maximise the potential of your present groups. By permitting automated methods to take over the extra repetitive, mundane duties, you release your expert professionals for higher-value, extra intellectually stimulating actions.
A pitfall to keep away from just isn’t speaking the labor shortages to groups earlier than including automation. When individuals perceive why you might be including this new expertise, they will extra simply get on board.
6. Construct safer, higher workplaces
One of the crucial understated advantages of automation is its skill to create higher workplaces. By addressing the “4 D’s of robotics” you take away the least interesting points of individuals’s jobs.
These 4 D’s discuss with duties which can be uninteresting, harmful, soiled, or pricey. They’re often jobs that result in low morale, larger accident charges, decrease job high quality, and elevated operational prices. By automating them, you may take away the burden on human employees and make their jobs extra rewarding.
Robots usually excel on the duties that people do not take pleasure in doing. For instance, a uninteresting job is perhaps a repetitive meeting activity. When human employees do the identical activity for hours on finish, they will change into demotivated, and the duty high quality is decreased. However a robotic will simply and constantly carry out the identical activity for hours on finish.
A pitfall to keep away from right here just isn’t involving your workforce members within the deployment. Whenever you contain individuals from the beginning, they usually take possession of the robotic deployment, main to higher outcomes.
7. Lower waste and increase sustainability
Sustainability has change into a central focus throughout many industries. As many firms look to align their operations with extra sustainable practices, automation can present a strong instrument 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 proper automation answer, you may deal with this drawback and contribute to enhancing your organization’s general sustainability.
By including collaborative robotic packaging, you may optimize your workflow and lower materials use to a minimal. For instance, by monitoring your robotic, you may tweak and alter the quantity of fabric utilized in packaging to chop it to a minimal. This isn’t a one-off exercise however reasonably a step it is best to revisit now and again to see how one can additional scale back waste.
A pitfall to keep away from at this stage is taking a look at your automated processes in isolation. Typically, you may scale back waste considerably throughout robotic deployment by noticing different inefficiencies in the remainder of your operations.
8. Guarantee constant operations
Whereas robotic automation is usually most celebrated for enhancing effectivity and productiveness, maybe its most transformational profit is consistency.
In contrast to guide processes, automation is extremely constant. That is essential in enterprise processes because it ensures your organization is dependable and maintains a excessive degree 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 movement.
In Eli Goldratt’s seminal e-book “The Objective”, the writer highlights how a selected robotic workstation units the work cadence for the remainder of the manufacturing, serving to to take away a problematic bottleneck. Folks working in manufacturing usually discuss how the robotic makes them extra constant as a result of they wish 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 guide course of, can usually provide help 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 levels.
9. Automation is simpler than ever
Maybe the most important profit to utilizing automation in 2025 is how simple it’s now to automate in comparison with the way it was up to now.
Once we first began serving to firms 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 truthful, saying:
“With plug-and-play parts, you continue to have to do a little bit of the combination. Our early adopters have been prepared to do this. Now we’re working with individuals who do not even know what a cobot is. It permits extra individuals to undertake robots into their factories.”
With options like utility kits you may add robotics to your course of rapidly and simply, serving to you to realize the outcomes you wish to make.
By eradicating uninteresting, harmful, soiled, and pricey duties from the palms of people, you need to use automation to make the mark you wish 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 quite a lot of cobots, however I nonetheless suppose we’re at a extremely early stage. There’s nonetheless quite a lot 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 is going to the way forward for automation appear like in your organization?
Try our utility kits to see how simply you may apply automation this 12 months.
What profit most speaks to your wants proper now? Inform us within the feedback beneath or be a part of the dialogue on LinkedIn or Fb.
