Robotics have enabled major productivity gains in manufacturing, but as the technology becomes more affordable and labour gets harder to find and more expensive, it could start to play a bigger role in logistics, too, helping workers do their jobs more safely and quickly.

One of the hurdles in implementing robotics is to get the acceptance of the workforce. Tim Miller, former senior manager for Toyota’s Chicago parts distribution centre, said at the recent Automotive Logistics and Supply Chain Live North America conference: “The standard response that we’ve all heard is ‘leadership is coming for our jobs, you’re taking our jobs’ – those type of things, but that that isn’t the case.”