The rise of robots beyond manufacturing plants 

Robotics as a technology encompasses the design, building, implementation, and operation of robots for various industry, government, and household applications. From an application perspective, IDC classifies robots as industrial robots, commercial service robots, and consumer service robots.
The advancement of and development in artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision, navigation, MEMS sensor, and semiconductor technologies will drive innovation in the capability, performance, autonomy, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness of industrial and service robots. Accordingly, we can expect to see massive adoption of robotics in the coming years.
Robotics have traditionally been associated with the automotive, metal, and electronic industries. In these industries, robots are primarily deployed to perform hazardous, repetitive, and unpleasant tasks such as welding, painting, polishing, and heavy load material handling.
Although these industries remain the largest users of robotics, we will begin to see a faster-growing trend in robotics adoption outside the traditional manufacturing plant floor, such as the construction, warehousing, logistics, medical and healthcare, utilities, government, and resource industries.
Intelligent robotics systems are used to assist surgeons in complex medical procedures, helping patients with physiotherapeutic and rehabilitation treatment. Autonomous mobile robots are being used to deliver medical supplies to a healthcare facility. Similarly, mobile robots are used for delivering to hotel rooms, greeting visitors, providing instruction and guidance at events or in bank branch offices, or even accompanying shoppers to enhance their shopping experiences. Mobile robots in the form of automated guided vehicles are being deployed more and more in warehouse operations to improve order fulfilment cycle time and overall productivity, especially for ecommerce retailing, in which same-day order fulfilment is becoming the new normal for competition.
To take advantage of the robotics technology, IDC advises that Thai companies keep abreast of the emerging trends in robotics development and deployment: capabilities, performance, pricing, and the potential impact on IT and business operations, as well as on the organization as a whole. Make investments in time and resources to understand the best practices in your own industry as well as other industries with comparable use cases.
 
Contributed by JARIT SIDHU , research manager and lead analyst, IDC Thailand