Use of robotics in nontraditional applications explodes; enables related technologies to deliver robots with greater skill sets

International Data Corporation (IDC) today published a new report, IDC TechScape; Worldwide Service Robotics, 2018 (IDC #US42954518), which provides a systematic assessment of technologies related to the adoption of service robotics. Robotic technology has evolved from a technology used predominantly within industrial manufacturing to a technology that now has applicability across a much wider set of industries and use cases. When thinking about this evolution, IDC considers the role of other technology areas that have helped drive innovation in the field of robotics. This new report is intended to help senior executives assess their organization's technology landscape to determine whether their efforts are aligned with analyst's assessment of the industry's overall technology adoption progress.

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Across industries, companies are looking at the viability of robots as a mechanism to support process improvement, drive productivity and efficiency gains, support cost management, and offset labor related challenges that appear to be hindering business process effectiveness in some industries. While some robotic applications are designed to solve a very specific business problem, other robotic technology has been built with the flexibility to be applied across different business processes and industries.

The IDC TechScape provides a visual representation of the process of technology adoption, dividing technologies into three major categories (Transformational, Incremental, and Opportunistic) based on their impact on the organization and assessing the technologies relative to adoption levels within their respective categories. Technologies evaluated in the new report include 3D printing, artificial intelligence, autonomous guided vehicles, exoskeletons, and virtual reality.

IDC expects that executives responsible for information technology strategies will use the IDC TechScape model to:

• Assess the progress of their own technology adoption efforts in comparison with the industry overall.
• Identify new technologies that should be added for consideration in their technology road map.
• Add new insights to increase the robustness of their own technology decision frameworks.

"The use of robotics in nontraditional applications is growing as technology innovators continue to push the envelope on what a robot is capable of doing," said John Santagate, research director, Service Robots at IDC. "Service robots have not evolved on their own; the current state of service robots has been enabled by the maturity of several other related technology areas that have helped to deliver robots with greater and more versatile skill sets than previous generations of robotics."