There's no doubt that the materials handling world is changing, and automation is one of the major developments.
As we report this week, there are already more than half a million AGVs in action around the world - almost half of them deployed by e-commerce giant Amazon.
And while AGVs are increasingly finding their way into warehouses and other operations, the next technology wave to consider is fully autonomous robots. These devices are no longer in the realm of science fiction, and research indicates that by the year 2030, there will be almost 3 million fully automated robots in operation - outstripping the anticipated 2.5 million AGVs in the market at that stage.