Working alongside AI is likely to be inevitable in the future. The International Data Corp (IDC) forecasts Asia Pacific to spend US$78.4 billion ($105 billion) on AI-centric systems in 2027. It also expects that 80% of chief information officers in the region will leverage organisational changes to harness AI, automation and analytics by 2028.
Organisations can automate more physical processes and decision-making by infusing AI into machines and robots. However, those smart machines will not fully replace human workers. Instead, they will aid employees in being more productive, delivering better customer experience, and focusing on higher-value tasks. This is why Industry 5.0, or human-centred automation, calls for a higher emphasis on blending people and automation.
“Industrial automation is taking place today in the form of digitising the work environment and changing workflows. By having visibility [into their operations], organisations can analyse a situation and take the best action to get the desired outcome. We call this the sense-analyse-act framework [which requires AI-powered machines and expect it to be the norm in the future],” Bill Burns, chief executive officer of Zebra Technologies, tells DigitalEdge.
For instance, to restock a shelf, a retail employee will need to know what product is supposed to be on the empty shelf, the location of the stock in the storeroom or if it needs to be reordered from the warehouse. All that information can be easily obtained only if the retailer’s assets, systems and data are connected, and if it uses AI-driven mobile computing solutions.
Integrating robots into the workflow
Robot baristas, robotic arms in factories, surgical robots — these are some collaborative robots (or cobots) supporting human-centred automation. They are designed to work hand-in-hand with employees to improve operational efficiency and ensure worker safety in some cases.
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“Having robots and human employees working together is the most effective and efficient way of solving many operational issues. For instance, cobots can be used to pick e-commerce orders but there may be situations where they can’t do so, maybe because the item has an odd shape or is too big so human intervention is still needed. Or if a retailer wants to temporarily increase its workforce (such as during a sales season), it can equip workers with mobile computers to work alongside cobots to fulfil orders instead of installing more robots,” states Burns.
Despite the benefits of cobots, Burns shares that adoption is still low as most cobot/robotic pilots and trials are self-contained. He gave the example of a hospital that used a robot to deliver medication from the pharmacy to the nurses’ stations and once that is done, the nurses will manually check off the items they receive. The robot is therefore working in isolation instead of being fully integrated into the workflow. This issue may extend to the use of mobile computing devices too, which hinders organisations from improving their overall productivity.
To achieve human-machine synergy, organisations must first examine their workflow before deploying the right technology to support their business goals. Burns says: “We are beyond selling devices. We work with customers [sometimes through partners] to understand their workflow. Only thereafter will we discuss which of our mobile computing solutions can address their pain points and [aid business growth]. In the case of retailers, we help them leverage solutions that empower their retail associates to be efficient while better engaging with customers, and ensuring inventory is stocked to the right levels.”
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RFID and machine vision
Besides cobots, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology can enable human-centred automation in industries like retail, logistics, healthcare, and automotive. With RFID, organisations can accurately track, trace, and monitor assets. This, in turn, helps automate their inventory and data capture tasks along with reducing shrinkage through improved monitoring of inventory movement.
For example, Ricoh, the provider of integrated digital services and print and imaging solutions, deployed Zebra Technologies’s RFD8500 handheld RFID reader at its distribution centres in Gotemba, Kawasaki and Osaka in Japan. The move enhances the tracking and retrieval of multiple secure digital (SD) cards, typically installed as part of the standard checking procedure, into the multifunction copier and printers sent in for warranty claim processing.
With RFID, the inspection process now takes only 13 minutes, instead of 223 minutes previously. Additionally, the chance of losing SD cards due to human errors, such as forgetting to remove them from the copiers and printers, has also been significantly reduced.
Burns also encourages organisations to consider leveraging machine vision to improve operational efficiency. Using AI, machine vision allows industrial equipment to see, process and analyse characteristics of the subject from a digital image before it makes a decision.
He shares that in electric vehicle (EV) battery inspection, machine vision systems can help verify the assembly of battery packs, detect foreign objects, and perform dimensional checks. Machine vision systems can also verify components and connectors and look for defects while performing coating quality inspection and stacking alignment. There are currently more than 70 EV and battery makers across Asia Pacific using Zebra Technologies’s machine vision solutions for EV battery inspection.
Committed to innovating
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Zebra Technologies is committed to helping organisations become smarter by sensing, analysing and taking insights-driven actions in real time. “We’ll continue to drive growth across our core products around scanning and mobile computing. But innovation is at the heart of what we do so we’ll spend about 10% of our revenue on R&D, [which includes looking at] adjacent areas to our core capabilities like robotics, machine vision [and generative AI],” says Burns.
When asked how the company prioritises its innovation projects, Burns says that it depends on the lifecycle of a product and tech advancements. The sudden rise and interest in generative AI, for instance, pushed Zebra Technologies to implement a generative AI open-source model on its mobile computers and tablets powered by Qualcomm processors last October.
Zebra Technologies claims that on-device generative AI will offer enhanced privacy and security, faster performance, and lower cost. More importantly, it will also provide a range of new capabilities across industries to better engage associates and elevate the customer experience. It could improve associate effectiveness by enhancing their product and customer service knowledge, act as an efficient internal communications tool by answering employee queries on things like store policies, power personalised shopping assistants that could provide product recommendations and more.
Zebra Technologies has more than a dozen R&D and design centres distributed globally to best leverage talent and access to material and manufacturing.
Its development centres in Asia Pacific specialise in software development (Bangalore), scanning and data capture (Columbo), mobile computing (Shanghai and Taipei) and printers (Guangzhou and Singapore). It also coordinates joint development activities through its Taipei design centre.
