In recent years, with the gradual disappearance of China's demographic dividend and the continuous rise in labor costs for enterprises, various industrial robots have been widely applied. The emergence of robots for welding, assembly, cutting, sorting, handling and other tasks not only liberated the productivity of enterprises and industries through "replacing humans with machines", but also promoted the transformation of industrial development from labor-intensive to technology-intensive, and facilitated the upgrading of industries from traditional models to modern and intelligent ones.

Material handling robots have become the dominant force in the industry

Among the numerous industrial robots, the handling robot is undoubtedly one of the most widely used. Whether in industries such as industrial manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, tobacco, medicine, food, and chemicals, or in scenarios like post offices, libraries, ports and docks, airports, and parking lots, the presence of handling robots can be seen everywhere.

According to its definition of being capable of performing automated material handling operations, material handling robots not only include fixed robots such as mechanical arms and mechanical hands, as well as mobile robots like track material handling vehicles and track robots, but also autonomous mobile robots such as unmanned material handling vehicles and AGVs.

Since the first half of 2018, the global industrial robot market size has reached 15.5 billion US dollars, and the Chinese market has also exceeded 5 billion US dollars. Under the huge market sales volume, the proportion of handling robots has exceeded 60%, and the sales revenue is close to 10 billion US dollars. These data indicate that nowadays, handling robots are not only a brand-new hot spot highly sought after by the market, but also a major force driving the development of the industrial robot industry.

Three major entities drive the development of the industry

The strong performance of material handling robots is closely related to their extensive market demand. As is well known, material handling is a ubiquitous daily task that exists in all industries. However, behind this seemingly insignificant and simple job, there are long-term and fundamental enterprise demands, and it is often restricted by factors such as personnel, cost and efficiency. Under such circumstances, handling robots have great potential.

It is precisely because of the vast market behind the strong demand that in recent years, many enterprises have entered the field of material handling robots one after another. The enterprises that have increased their investment can roughly be divided into three types, and they have jointly brought vitality to the development of the industry.

One of them is forklift manufacturers. At present, companies such as Heli, Hangcha, Nuoli, Ningbo Ruyi, Zoomlion, Suzhou Xianfeng, and Zhejiang Jiali have all launched AGV forklifts or automated guided vehicles. As traditional manufacturers of forklifts, guided vehicles and other handling machinery, they already have some advantages in related technologies. Meanwhile, their years of accumulated experience and market sales channels have made their entry into the market very smooth.

The second one is online e-commerce. The rise of the Internet economy has driven the development of a host of online e-commerce companies such as Alibaba, Suning, JD.com and Cainiao. Changes in consumption concepts and habits have promoted an increasing amount of online consumption and also led to a continuous rise in e-commerce orders. Under such circumstances, traditional logistics and warehousing cannot meet the current operational demands. Many e-commerce businesses have begun to leverage robots to create new models such as "intelligent warehousing" and "smart logistics". They have more advantages in the application of artificial intelligence-related technologies, which significantly promotes the intelligent and automated development of handling robots.

The third one is AGV manufacturers. As a major development direction of handling robots at present, AGV's development towards automation, unmanned operation and intelligence has attracted the entry of traditional robot body and machine vision-related enterprises such as Siasun, Hikvision, Kuaicang, Geek+, Guozi Robot and Jingsong Automation. Compared with forklift manufacturers and e-commerce, AGV manufacturers have a deeper understanding of robots. With a more mature grasp of technology, a clearer understanding of market application, and a more relaxed integration and application of technology, it is an important main force in the current development of mobile robots.

The future development trend is increasingly evident

With the continuous expansion of the market scale, the accelerating growth of the market, and the increasing investment of major enterprises, handling robots have now taken the leading position in the development of the industrial robot industry, demonstrating rapid and strong development vitality. In the future, they will also embrace a broader development prospect.

Over the past two years, whether it is the proposal of the concepts of intelligent warehousing and smart logistics or the popularity of AGV robots, all these have demonstrated the development of handling robots from traditional semi-automatic or automated to unmanned and intelligent directions. Meanwhile, the continuous rise and development of demand markets such as e-commerce have put forward higher requirements for production and service efficiency, and have also driven the development of material handling robots towards higher speeds. With the continuous expansion of the multi-variety and small-batch commodity market and the sharp increase in medium and small-sized users, the development speed of multi-functional general-purpose intelligent handling robots has also accelerated.

Looking at the market development situation and the types of enterprises entering the market, the general trend of future industry development has already emerged. Among them, the three major trends of intelligence, high speed and multi-functionality are crucial to the development of the industry. Emerging fields such as warehousing and logistics, intelligent garages and smart libraries have a significant driving effect on the development of mobile robots. As the saying goes, opportunities must not be missed. For Chinese enterprises to achieve better development, it is crucial to grasp these trends and hot areas.