Introduction to Robots-as-a-Service

​The business model for buying and selling industrial equipment is rapidly evolving. The convergence of cloud-based solutions for IT infrastructure and the success of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) enterprise software licensing is now influencing how Autonomous Mobile Robot companies are selling their solutions. Autonomous Mobile Robot companies such as inVia Robotics, Savioke, Cobalt Robotics and Knightscope have demonstrated success in delivering solutions with business models which enable customers to pay-as-they-go in a subscription or metric-based financing model. Let’s look at how you should evaluate a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) offering from a potential robot supplier.To get more news about RaaS, you can visit glprobotics.com official website.

​This article introduces the business model for deploying robotic-based solutions as a service or as a subscription model. For the buyer of Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) solutions, this white paper will outline how the concept of subscription based pricing and service delivery is different from the classic capital equipment sales and support model. This will prepare you to conduct an educated proposal process and acquire the right solution ​for your automation needs.For more than 30 years, the robotics market has operated on the “classic” capital equipment product design and sales business model. Under this sales strategy, new products are developed to meet a market need and then marketed and sold to target customers as a capital asset purchase. As a customer, you own the equipment, depreciate it as a capital asset over its working life and are responsible for the maintenance and repair of the equipment over its lifetime. At the end of the product life, you are responsible for disposal of the obsolete equipment. RaaS changes all of that. In a Robots-as-a-Service contract, you only pay for what you consume and all of the deployment, integration, support and equipment maintenance costs are included in the service level contract. Like any subscription business model, you will get better rates by signing a longer term contract with the RaaS vendor.

​This article is focused on the RaaS story from the perspective of the automation buyer, and you should finish reading it. However, we’ve produced ​a separate article which helps robotic automation vendors design, build and optimize a RaaS-based automation business.

​The annual nature of the capital asset purchasing cycle imposes a purchasing cycle which can vary anywhere from 3 to 18 months. Depending upon your organization, you might be subject to an annual budgeting process in which you need to submit capital budget requests months ahead of when you anticipate you might need the equipment in your facility. Building the business case for expensive, fixed asset, capital equipment often requires many layers of management approval.

A subscription model such as Robots-as-a-Service changes the entire purchasing process, often simplifying and shortening it. With a RaaS contract, you can pay for the automation out of your operating budget, a budget that you likely control without having to seek a capital approval within your organization.

Finally, to manage the pace of innovation and hyper growth within some business segments (such as ecommerce), you may be faced with short planning horizons to predict automation needs. It can be impossible to accurately predict your warehouse throughput requirements twelve to eighteen months down the road. The promise of RaaS is that it provides an opportunity to better utilize your capital while shortening the window required to acquire and deploy an automation solution which meets your needs.

​A RaaS model allows you to scale up and scale down your consumption as your automation needs change. You are purchasing a complete end-to-end service rather than a good, in the same way that you might sell your lawn mower and outsource your lawn care: ordering twice weekly service during peak season and canceling the service in the dead of winter. Not every automation application is a good fit for RaaS. Target applications for Robots-as-a-Service will have similar hallmarks to the lawn care example. Look for applications where you can leverage additional robot usage during peak periods and idle or halt service during slow periods, with a variable rate of payment based on consumption. Robots-as-a-Service is like hiring a temp agency for your robotic workforce.

​As you evaluate the viability of RaaS for your business, the first step is to understand the organizational changes that a RaaS business model imposes on your vendor. Some vendors are committed to a 100% RaaS business model, while others are offering RaaS as just one of the ways in which you can acquire their solution. Let’s look at some elements which are different in a RaaS vendor relationship over a CapEx purchase of capital equipment.

First, the vendor will continue to own the equipment. Therefore, the vendor will have the expectation and functionality to remotely monitor the solution in production. This will require remote access to the equipment through your corporate network. The benefit to your organization is that you don’t need to train and maintain in-house robot experts. The vendor will also carry the burden of 24/7 support. If a robot breaks down, the vendor will likely know before you do, through the remote monitoring system. The vendor will likely be able to remotely troubleshoot the equipment and schedule onsite repair, often without any interaction on your part.