Robots at a Tipping Point in the Supply Chain

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the May-June 2015 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

May-June 2015

As supply chain managers we are challenged year in and year out to figure out new, innovative ways to improve our operations. We have to translate educated guesses about what’s next into new investments in our processes. Such may be the case with robotics, 3D printing and additive manufacturing, and investments in new mobile technologies. However, successful planning, including planning for risk, resiliency, and flexibility, can help prepare you for whatever is next.

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“If man ever flies, it will not be within our lifetime, not within a thousand years.”—Wilbur Wright, 1901

Just two years after making the above comment to his brother Orville, the Wrights made the world’s first powered aircraft flight. How could someone so close to the tipping point, arguably the most influential person in aeronautical history, not know that success was within reach?

I experienced a similar phenomenon in my own career in robotics when I was a graduate student at the University of Florida. In 2004, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the government group best known for fostering the Internet, challenged the robotics world to race unmanned vehicles 150 miles through the Mojave Desert. No one had ever built a robot that could drive by itself through that much off-road terrain. It was called the DARPA Grand Challenge.

My professor decided that our research lab would compete in the race. Over 100 teams attempted the challenge; only 15 were able to get robots to the starting line, and none made it through more than five percent of the course. It was a complete failure. Most robots veered off track and crashed, some got stuck and ran their engines until catching fire. Ours plowed itself through barbed wire until it tangled itself to death. We made the most of the experience, but we couldn’t help but feel defeated that day. I remember saying to my teammates that it would be many years before anyone would complete the challenge. No one disagreed.

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