The worldwide market for packaging robots has witnessed substantial expansion in recent times, and this pattern is foreseen to persist into the forthcoming decade. By the year 2022, the packaging robots market had already attained a market size of $5.6 billion. Projections indicate that this figure will soar to around $15.73 billion by 2032, reflecting a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.8% spanning from 2023 to 2032.
Several drivers have contributed to this surge. Packaging enterprises have been compelled to embrace robotic technology due to scarcity in the labor force, the pursuit of heightened productivity, uniform product manipulation, consistent quality output, and enhanced worker safety. The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the significance of these factors, particularly the difficulties linked to workforce deficits.
Even before the pandemic struck, packaging operations were grappling with shortages in labor and escalating wages. Nevertheless, the pandemic has exacerbated these obstacles, elevating them to critical levels. The U.S. Bureau of Labor & Statistics reveals that approximately 750,000 positions within the manufacturing sector remain vacant. A forecast predicts that the United States will confront a staggering 2.1 million unfilled manufacturing positions by 2030.
The shortage of adept personnel available for programming and managing robotic systems continues to hinder packaging enterprises contemplating the assimilation of these technologies. Nonetheless, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of robots are designing more user-intuitive and seamless systems to tackle this concern.
The advancement of Industry 4.0 and the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have also made notable contributions to the evolution of robotics. These innovations have elevated the performance of robots, streamlining their deployment and broadening the horizons of robotic applications in the packaging domain.
An insight highlights a range of inventive systems introduced in the prior year, underscoring the transformative influence of these technologies on packaging procedures. These encompass applications of AI and ML in packaging robotics, novel robotic setups for tailoring packaging, collaborative robots with high load capacities for palletization tasks, collaborative palletizing solutions, and self-directed mobile robots for packaging activities.