A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Adopting Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) in E-commerce Fulfilment Centers

The rapid growth of e-commerce has transformed warehouse operations and increased the demand for faster, more efficient, and cost-effective fulfilment systems. Traditional warehouse systems face several operational challenges including labour shortages, rising labour costs, delayed order fulfilment, warehouse congestion, and inventory management inefficiencies. These operational issues have encouraged organizations to adopt advanced warehouse automation technologies to improve operational productivity and customer satisfaction. Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) have emerged as one of the most effective warehouse automation technologies capable of improving warehouse operational efficiency and fulfilment performance. The findings of this study indicate that AMRs significantly improve throughput performance, order fulfilment speed, inventory accuracy, labour productivity, and operational flexibility while reducing manual labour dependency and operational costs. The study also found that AMRs help organizations optimize warehouse workflow management and improve overall operational coordination in fulfilment centers. The primary research findings further confirmed that the majority of respondents positively support the implementation of AMRs in warehouse operations and believe that robotic automation technologies represent the future of smart warehouses and Industry 4.0 logistics systems. Respondents strongly agreed that AMRs improve warehouse efficiency and reduce repetitive manual tasks through intelligent automation systems. The novelty of this study lies in combining both operational and managerial perspectives to evaluate the cost-benefit impact of Autonomous Mobile Robots in e-commerce fulfilment centers. Unlike many previous studies that focused mainly on technical aspects of robotic systems, the present study examines warehouse efficiency, labour productivity, operational cost reduction, and respondent perception toward AMR adoption using both primary and secondary data analysis. Although the implementation of AMRs involves high initial investment costs, maintenance requirements, and software integration challenges, the long-term operational and financial benefits outweigh these limitations. Therefore, the study concludes that Autonomous Mobile Robots represent a transformative technology in warehouse management and will continue to play an important role in future supply chain and logistics operations.

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