Advantages & Disadvantages of Autonomous Delivery


ADVANTAGES

Environmental Benefits

Autonomous delivery robots are commonly operated on electricity and battery life. This is a crucial benefit that allows deliveries to reduce carbon footprints and allow consumers to participate in environmental sustainable options in deliveries. 

Increased Efficiency & Precision

The location pinpoint set while ordering using autonomous delivery robots ensures that goods are transported to said locations, mitigating human error in delivery. These deliveries will be made at a high precision as consumers will be able to set the delivery location at a specific coordinate.

Cost Reduction

Instead of hiring a fleet of workers to drive and deliver products, autonomous delivery robots have the potential to scale to comparable numbers while having operational hours stretch throughout the week in longer timespans. There will be less hourly cost to operate robots compared to an hourly wage for human workers. The longevity of the operations can be kept steady, as long as the robots are sufficiently working at an acceptable pace with no deterioration.

Contactless Service

In cases of health restrictions or social preferences, contactless service can help deliver goods to doorsteps without the need to interact with other humans. With the use of delivery drones, there may not be human contact at all as they can be loaded by "autoloaders". 

No Tipping Required

With the slow complaints of tipping culture rising, autonomous delivery robots can eliminate tipping as they are dedicated service technology that does not rely on wages to work. This can help save costs in deliveries and boost customers' willingness to partake in self-delivery robots.

Expanded Reach

Those living in remote and isolated areas will be able to be reached by autonomous delivery robots, mitigating the physical barriers that human delivery workers are held back by. Typically, remote areas have a hub where all goods are sent to and consumers would need to make a trip out of the house to pick up their items. In this scenario, these delivery robots will be able to follow through with arriving at consumers' doorsteps, bringing a new level of convenience.

DISADVANTAGES

Regulatory Hurdles

There are regulatory hurdles that autonomous delivery robots face in day-to-day operations. These robots, in cases of accidents and damages, can create a headache for companies to resolve. There also exists safety assessments that automated vehicles must go through before deployment.  

Safety Concerns

Seniors and those with accessibility needs may be affected on sidewalks that are used alongside autonomous delivery robots. These robots have the possibility to create physical interference on public roadways and potential injury in particular situations. 

Weather Limitations

Locations with harsher climates affecting logistics such as Edmonton, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg will create physical limitations towards autonomous delivery robots. These physical limitations can be due to the snowfall and freezing temperature concerns that could directly affect the functionality of the robots. Strong windstorms also threaten the robots themselves as they face possible damage if affected on the path to specified destinations. 

Limited Human Interaction

Those who prefer having human-to-human interaction will be unable to have human interaction at the meeting point of the delivery. Goods are transitioning to non-interactive robots, which lack the human interaction in last-mile deliveries. 

High Upfront Operational Costs

The research and development of autonomous delivery robots, along with the upfront scaling costs to create a fleet of these delivery robots are hefty in price. Companies without proper backing or partnership can easily fall into a ditch come deployment time. 

Technological Unemployment

With the move to autonomous delivery robots, human delivery workers will have an increasing number of job cuts, generating unemployment due to lack of positions to work. As robots are being heavily invested and scaled by fleet size, the number of human delivery positions will dwindle until companies adopt a pure robotic delivery service.  

SOURCES:

https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/robotics-achieving-the-sdgs

https://www.locate2u.com/route-planning/pros-and-cons-of-using-autonomous-vehicles-for-delivery/



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dawn of Autonomous Delivery

Image
Beginning of Delivery Robots The emergence of delivery robots and drones, serving as innovative solutions to the world of delivery. In 2014, an autonomous delivery robotics company Starship began their research and development process on creating self-driving delivery robots. These robots were then launched as a commercial rollout in 2018, delivering food and drinks on Intuit's Mountain View campus in California. The deliveries were scheduled via the Starship app, allowing employees to have their meals arrive at their doorstep within 17 minutes. Soon after, many other autonomous delivery robots have been on the rise such as Amazon Prime Air, Nuro and BoxBot. The Shift to Autonomous Logistics Autonomous logistics for compact transportable goods has the potential to offer faster and more efficient alternatives compared to traditional human-driven delivery methods. This shift in technology is projected to automate the end-to-end delivery process, making the entire lifecycle more cost ...
Read more

Future Potential

Image
From Ground to Air Delivery Ground-based autonomous delivery vehicles have been leading the way in last-mile logistics, but the future seems to be pointing upwards. The use of airborne delivery robots are being considered as a more cost-effective and quicker choice. These robots not only promise a reduction in delivery time, but present an environmentally sustainable approach to autonomous delivery while reducing road congestion and emissions. Improved Inventory Accuracy and Worker Safety In reference to data collected by Logistics Viewpoints, there have been observable and tangible benefits by the use of autonomous technologies. In warehouse operations conducted by Langham Logistics, there has been significant improvements in driven inventory accuracy from 97% to nearly 99.9% from the use of Gather AI (an AI-Powered Intralogistics Optimization Monitoring System). The robotic operations have significantly minimized human error while handling hazardous and repetitive tasks, boosting ...
Read more

Impact on Food Industry & Delivery Ecosystem

Image
Shake Shack and Serve Robotics Shake Shack and Serve Robotics have been working together to use autonomous sidewalk robots for Uber Eats deliveries within select Los Angeles locations. Serve Robotics, an NVIDIA-backed startup, has plans to scale their technology to 2,000 active robots by 2025 in hopes to commercialize their low-emission autonomous robots. These robots are active 7 days a week from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. serving consumers on Uber Eats.  DoorDash and Coco DoorDash has launched their delivery service Coco in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Finland. Coco Robotics, founded in 2020, have produced 1,000 active robots and have tracked to over 1,000,000 miles. They have also recently raised $80M in order to scale their fleet of delivery robots, aiming to have 10,000 robots active by 2026. Customers are able to choose the robot delivery option across hundreds of participating merchants. Their partnership with DoorDash has found great success with over 100,000 deliveries.  Wa...
Read more