"There is, of course, the argument that robots will put people out of work," he continues. "But, the reality for many established economies is that—if you exclude immigration—there is negative population growth. As the cost of labor goes up and the costs of robots go down, it will become economically viable to offload certain processes to robots."

Henrik I. Christensen, PhD, KUKA chair of robotics and director of robotics at Georgia Tech, agrees: "We've seen tremendous progress in robotics and automation in material handling over the last few years," he says. "There has been a lot of development in automation that does the handling tasks that don't require a lot of intelligence and are physically challenging."

Further, robotic technology decreases the amount of space a facility needs to store and handle products. "And real estate is getting increasingly expensive," Dr. Christensen notes.

Dr. Christensen—who served as the principal investigator of the Roadmap for U.S. Robotics report, published in 2009—has dedicated his 30-plus year career to robotics research and development. His studies show that although using automation for material handling can increase efficiency by 20%, challenges exist, such as how to integrate robotics into existing infrastructure and how to retrofit existing DCs with this technology.

Dr Christensen covered those topics in his ProMat 2013 keynote presentation on Monday, January 21 entitled "The Impact of Robotics on Economic Growth." Dr. Christensen also detailed how advances in robotics are revolutionizing manufacturing and distribution operations, as well as insights into how these developments will propel future economic growth. To listen to this speech and all the ProMat 2103 seminars and keynotes go to promatshow.com/seminars.

About the author:
Sara Pearson Specter has written articles and supplements for many industry publications. Specter has worked in the fields of graphic design, advertising, marketing, and public relations for more than 15 years, with a special emphasis on helping business-to-business industrial and manufacturing companies. She owns her own marketing communications firm, Sara Specter, Marketing Mercenary LLC.