source: Koren, Yoram. (2021). The Local Factory of the Future for Producing Individualized Products.. 

I love this graph—it’s a great visual reminder of how manufacturing has shifted over the years, from the efficiency of mass production to the flexibility demanded by mass customization and even market-of-one production. Factories and warehouses are no longer dealing with a handful of standardized SKUs; they’re handling a massive variety of products and packaging configurations. Robots that can create and adjust pallet layouts dynamically with minimal/no reprogramming give us the flexibility we need to keep up with these demands.

And as the industry moves deeper into this market-of-one paradigm, the pressure for robotic systems to adapt in real time only grows. Rigid systems simply can’t handle the level of variation we’re now expected to deliver. That’s why solutions like dynamic task generation—automating grabbing, releasing, stacking, and more—are becoming essential. These capabilities allow us to manage complexity without compromising throughput or accuracy.

Learn about how DELMIA is improving efficiency with the new released DELMIA Material Handling Role