Automation refers to using expertise 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 enterprise.
The case for automation is getting stronger yearly. Whereas 10 years in the past, we had been nonetheless introducing firms to the essential advantages of automating even one course of, now individuals typically come to us already figuring out that they need to automate. And so they need to do it shortly and effectively.
There are numerous advantages to including automation, notably with robotics. Whereas lots of discussions deal with the “easy advantages” of automation — like elevated effectivity, productiveness, and efficiency — there are various extra nuanced advantages to automation.
If you’d like your enterprise to thrive this 12 months, it is essential to know the precise advantages which can be most essential proper now. It is also essential to know what you must 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 techniques that may meet deliberate modifications to process or product calls for. For instance, your organization may expertise seasonal manufacturing spikes. A versatile automation course of can adapt to those predictable modifications.
As Robotiq R&D Venture Supervisor, Nicolas Lauzier highlights, this agility and related sensible expertise may give your organization a aggressive edge:
“There may be an urgency for adopting automated options within the present financial local weather. In line with stories, sensible manufacturing unit options would be the main 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 may fall brief in at present’s fast-evolving markets.
2. Scale simply and adapt to alter
A standout good thing about automation is scalability. Not solely can the correct automation allow you to ramp up manufacturing to satisfy your strategic development targets, agile automation may allow you to pivot manufacturing to deal with surprising market shifts.
Through the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, we noticed that many firms 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 useful 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 strategy entails including a palletizing cell to the tip 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 an alternative, put money into automation that can mean you can adapt to modifications shortly once they occur.
3. Scale manufacturing regionally
Native manufacturing, empowered by collaborative robotic automation, is more and more thought of a strategic alternative for producers.
For a few years, offshoring manufacturing was seen as the best way to scale manufacturing. Nevertheless, lately, reshoring manufacturing has turn into in style. This shift isn’t just a development however is changing 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 delivery 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 lowering reliance on complicated world provide modifications.
A pitfall to keep away from with reshoring is to check solely the preliminary prices reasonably 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 turn into clear while you mission into the medium to long run.
4. Make higher choices with knowledge
Automation would not simply carry out key duties in your enterprise, it additionally generates invaluable knowledge. This knowledge can feed into your wider enterprise analytics and allow you to make higher, extra strategic selections.
Within the fashionable world, knowledge is important for making good enterprise choices. With a robotic system, for instance, you possibly can generate knowledge that lets you maintain optimizing your robotic deployment and enhance efficiency.
Our eBook Analytics for Cobots highlights how collaborative robots can simplify capturing this important knowledge. By monitoring solely the correct metrics, you possibly can deal with people who immediately align together with your operational wants for the automated resolution.
Amassing this knowledge may allow you to justify your previous choices, corresponding to investing in automation within the first place. For instance, the information you gather 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 knowledge. Solely monitor and analyze knowledge that’s related to your wants and software.
5. Solves workforce shortages
Labor scarcity is a rising problem in fashionable manufacturing and is an issue we’ve been monitoring for a number of years. With an growing older workforce and fewer expert staff in key jobs (corresponding to finish of line palletizing), automation is more and more the one possibility for some firms.
Robotiq’s Nicholas Lauzier emphasizes the urgency of this case in 2024, stating:
“Research present that the labor scarcity producers presently face is just not prone to diminish; in actual fact, it’s anticipated to worsen. As individuals retire, youthful staff more and more go for jobs with higher working circumstances and compensation, steering clear of producing positions.”
Automation presents a strategic response to this situation, enabling you to maximise the potential of your current groups. By permitting automated techniques to take over the extra repetitive, mundane duties, you liberate your expert professionals for higher-value, extra intellectually stimulating actions.
A pitfall to keep away from is just not speaking the labor shortages to groups earlier than including automation. When individuals perceive why you’re including this new expertise, they will extra simply get on board.
6. Construct safer, higher workplaces
Probably the most understated advantages of automation is its potential 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 confer with duties which can be uninteresting, harmful, soiled, or expensive. They’re often jobs that result in low morale, increased accident charges, decrease job high quality, and elevated operational prices. By automating them, you possibly can take away the burden on human staff and make their jobs extra rewarding.
Robots typically excel on the duties that people do not take pleasure in doing. For instance, a uninteresting job may be a repetitive meeting process. When human staff do the identical process for hours on finish, they will turn into demotivated, and the duty high quality is lowered. However a robotic will simply and persistently carry out the identical process for hours on finish.
A pitfall to keep away from right here is just not involving your staff members within the deployment. While you contain individuals from the beginning, they typically take possession of the robotic deployment, main to raised outcomes.
7. Reduce waste and enhance sustainability
Sustainability has turn into a central focus throughout many industries. As many firms 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 generally is a notoriously wasteful manufacturing stage, each in supplies and power utilization. With the correct automation resolution, you possibly can deal with this drawback and contribute to bettering your organization’s total sustainability.
By including collaborative robotic packaging, you possibly can optimize your workflow and reduce materials use to a minimal. For instance, by monitoring your robotic, you possibly can tweak and alter the quantity of fabric utilized in packaging to chop it to a minimal. This isn’t a one-off exercise however reasonably a step you must revisit from time to time to see how one can additional cut back waste.
A pitfall to keep away from at this stage is taking a look at your automated processes in isolation. Typically, you possibly can cut 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 bettering effectivity and productiveness, maybe its most transformational profit is consistency.
Not like guide 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 complete manufacturing movement.
In Eli Goldratt’s seminal e book “The Purpose”, the writer highlights how a selected robotic workstation units the work cadence for the remainder of the manufacturing, serving to to take away a problematic bottleneck. Individuals 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 offers a centered pathway that may assist obtain this consistency in your enterprise. The primary stage, mapping your current guide course of, can typically allow you to determine 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 less complicated than ever
Maybe the most important profit to utilizing automation in 2025 is how straightforward it’s now to automate in comparison with the way it was prior to now.
Once we first began serving to firms to automate their processes, they nonetheless wanted to place in numerous work throughout deployment. As of late, including a robotic to your manufacturing is less complicated 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 must do a little bit of the combination. Our early adopters had been keen to try this. Now we’re working with individuals who do not even know what a cobot is. It permits extra individuals to undertake robots into their factories.”
With options like software kits you possibly can 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 arms of people, you need to use 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 arms 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 may be 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 side of enterprise. Nevertheless, the important thing to reaping these rewards lies in making use of that automation thoughtfully and avoiding key pitfalls.
What is 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 possibly can 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.
