4 Mistakes to Avoid When Investing in AMRs

The development of autonomous mobile robots is a complex business. Although a powerful, easy-to-use mobile robot can power your business for years to come, the process of producing such a long-term profitable tool is fraught with potential pitfalls.

So how can your business avoid these mistakes? How can you optimize your time and investment so that you succeed on your first try? Be sure to avoid the following mistakes.

Not understanding your application area

An AMR targeted at the automotive industry may need to perform different functions than a pure warehouse product or a hospital logistics robot.

A general purpose vehicle is designed to fit as many applications as possible, but may end up fitting none of them. It's also very likely to get your development budget completely out of control.

Before you talk to your partner and start prototyping, define what you want the final product to do, what you want it to achieve and explore whether it really needs to.

Too much focus on cost

Like all R&D, AMR development is very expensive. But we know from AMR manufacturers that cutting corners on the hardware at first often leads to increased costs in the long run.

When designing and building prototype AMRs, take the long view and default to top-of-the-line components. Then, if you want, once your new AMR is working perfectly, you can calculate the price difference between the top and standard hardware options. You may find significant savings or the difference may be much smaller than you thought.

Sidelining employees

Some facility managers view AMR implementation as a way to completely eliminate human employees from operations. While it is true that AMRs will help replace some employees, they will not completely eliminate every employee. AMRs coexist with employees in most implementations.

People must gain the confidence of employees before implementation. This will ensure employees will not sabotage AMRs in the workplace. Employees will naturally have many concerns when employers try to introduce autonomous robots. Employers have to address each of their concerns. This ensures that employees cooperate with the implementation and work harmoniously alongside AMRs.

AMR is only for large companies

This was true ten years ago but is outdated today. This misconception can hurt your business by depriving you of the benefits of AMR technologies, including the increased production and throughput and improved efficiency, ergonomics, and safety that these systems deliver.

Typically, large companies feature most prominently early in the adoption curve for new automation technologies. But in the past decade, the cost of AMRs and supporting peripherals and software has fallen dramatically, enabling companies of all sizes to invest in mobile robot technologies. In addition, as usability has risen–thanks to software like ROEQ Assist—the level of expertise required to program and deploy these technologies has fallen. As technology proves itself in the field, adoption rises, and prices fall, medium and smaller businesses find themselves in a position to purchase and deploy technologies that were once the sole preserve of large corporations. Expect to see this trend grow over the coming years.

Purchase high-quality AMR from us

Youibot Robotics covers 26 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) in China market, and exports to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Spain, Germany, Italy and other countries. It has accumulated rich experience in intelligent logistics in vertical fields such as power plant inspection, vehicle maintenance, and automobile and semi-conductor industry intelligence manufacturing, become a partner of many well-known domestic and foreign brands. For any more information about AMRs, please do not hesitate to contact us.