Automation refers to the usage of 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 reworking industries and there are large advantages to automating components of your small business.
The case for automation is getting stronger yearly. Whereas 10 years in the past, we have been nonetheless introducing corporations to the fundamental advantages of automating even one course of, now folks typically come to us already figuring out that they need to automate. And so they need to do it shortly and effectively.
There are various advantages to including automation, notably with robotics. Whereas lots of discussions concentrate on the “easy advantages” of automation — like elevated effectivity, productiveness, and efficiency — there are various extra nuanced advantages to automation.
If you’d like your small business to thrive this 12 months, it is vital to know the particular advantages which are most vital proper now. It is also vital 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 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 programs that may meet deliberate adjustments to process 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 Undertaking Supervisor, Nicolas Lauzier highlights, this agility and related good know-how can provide your organization a aggressive edge:
“There’s an urgency for adopting automated options within the present financial local weather. Based on experiences, good manufacturing unit 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 right now’s fast-evolving markets.
2. Scale simply and adapt to alter
A standout advantage of automation is scalability. Not solely can the correct automation enable you to ramp up manufacturing to fulfill your strategic development targets, agile automation may also enable you to pivot manufacturing to handle surprising market shifts.
In the course of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, we noticed that many corporations that succeeded in adapting to the altering world scenario had invested in the correct automation earlier than the pandemic.
One technique that may be very helpful is to deploy “copy-paste” robotic cells. This entails deploying a selected software 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 entails 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 realize what the market will need sooner or later or relying an excessive amount of on predictions. As a substitute, put money into automation that can assist you to adapt to adjustments shortly after 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 way in which to scale manufacturing. Nevertheless, in recent times, reshoring manufacturing has grow to be fashionable. This shift is not only a development 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 lowered transport prices, shorter lead instances, and the flexibility to customise merchandise for native markets.
Reshoring with robotic automation additionally builds resilience into an organization’s operations by decreasing reliance on complicated world provide adjustments.
A pitfall to keep away from with reshoring is to match solely the preliminary prices relatively than calculating the return on funding of automation in the long run. Offshored operations typically depend on low-cost labor, which might make automated options look extra expensive to start with. Nevertheless, financial savings typically grow to be clear while you undertaking into the medium to long run.
4. Make higher choices with information
Automation does not simply carry out key duties in your small business, it additionally generates invaluable information. This information can feed into your wider enterprise analytics and enable you to make higher, extra strategic decisions.
Within the trendy world, information is important for making good enterprise choices. With a robotic system, for instance, you’ll be able to generate information that permits you to hold optimizing your robotic deployment and enhance efficiency.
Our eBook Analytics for Cobots highlights how collaborative robots can simplify capturing this important information. By monitoring solely the correct metrics, you’ll be able to concentrate on people who immediately align along with your operational wants for the automated answer.
Accumulating this information may also enable you to justify your previous choices, equivalent to investing in automation within the first place. For instance, the information you accumulate from a collaborative robotic can assist you calculate the ROI and make choices about future automation initiatives.
A pitfall to keep away from right here is monitoring pointless information. Solely monitor and analyze information that’s related to your wants and software.
5. Solves workforce shortages
Labor scarcity is a rising problem in trendy manufacturing and is an issue now we have been monitoring for a number of years. With an getting old workforce and fewer expert employees in key jobs (equivalent to finish of line palletizing), automation is more and more the one choice for some corporations.
Robotiq’s Nicholas Lauzier emphasizes the urgency of this case in 2024, stating:
“Research present that the labor scarcity producers at the moment face shouldn’t be prone to diminish; the truth is, 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 concern, enabling you to maximise the potential of your present groups. By permitting automated programs to take over the extra repetitive, mundane duties, you unlock your expert professionals for higher-value, extra intellectually stimulating actions.
A pitfall to keep away from shouldn’t be speaking the labor shortages to groups earlier than including automation. When folks perceive why you’re including this new know-how, they will extra simply get on board.
6. Construct safer, higher workplaces
Some of the understated advantages of automation is its means to create higher workplaces. By addressing the “4 D’s of robotics” you take away the least interesting elements of individuals’s jobs.
These 4 D’s seek advice from duties which are uninteresting, harmful, soiled, or expensive. They’re often jobs that result in low morale, greater accident charges, decrease job high quality, and elevated operational prices. By automating them, you’ll be able to take away the burden on human employees and make their jobs extra rewarding.
Robots typically excel on the duties that people do not get pleasure from doing. For instance, a uninteresting job may be a repetitive meeting process. When human employees do the identical process for hours on finish, they will grow to be demotivated, and the duty high quality is lowered. However a robotic will simply and constantly carry out the identical process for hours on finish.
A pitfall to keep away from right here shouldn’t be involving your crew members within the deployment. Whenever you contain folks from the beginning, they typically take possession of the robotic deployment, main to raised outcomes.
7. Minimize waste and increase sustainability
Sustainability has grow to be a central focus throughout many industries. As many corporations look to align their operations with extra sustainable practices, automation can present a robust 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 power utilization. With the correct automation answer, you’ll be able to sort out this downside and contribute to enhancing your organization’s total sustainability.
By including collaborative robotic packaging, you’ll be able to optimize your workflow and reduce materials use to a minimal. For instance, by monitoring your robotic, you’ll be able to tweak and regulate the quantity of fabric utilized in packaging to chop it to a minimal. This isn’t a one-off exercise however relatively a step you need to revisit once in a while 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’ll be able to 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 commonly most celebrated for enhancing effectivity and productiveness, maybe its most transformational profit is consistency.
In contrast to handbook 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 process extra constant, it additionally improves the consistency of your total manufacturing move.
In Eli Goldratt’s seminal ebook “The Objective”, the creator 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 typically discuss 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 gives a targeted pathway that may assist obtain this consistency in your small business. The primary stage, mapping your present handbook course of, can typically enable you to establish wasteful or inconsistent steps earlier than you automate with a robotic.
A pitfall to keep away from right here is attempting 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 largest profit to utilizing automation in 2025 is how simple it’s now to automate in comparison with the way it was previously.
After we first began serving to corporations to automate their processes, they nonetheless wanted to place in various 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 mixing. 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 folks to undertake robots into their factories.”
With options like software kits you’ll be able to add robotics to your course of shortly and simply, serving to you to realize the outcomes you need to make.
By eradicating uninteresting, 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 lots of cobots, however I nonetheless suppose we’re at a very early stage. There’s nonetheless lots 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. Nevertheless, 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 to be in your organization?
Take a look at our software kits to see how simply you’ll be able to 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.
