{"id":3483,"date":"2020-04-16T15:08:48","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T19:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/?p=3483"},"modified":"2026-03-26T12:03:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:03:22","slug":"autonomous-last-mile-delivery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/autonomous-last-mile-delivery\/","title":{"rendered":"What challenges are last mile autonomous delivery manufacturers facing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How to build tomorrow\u2019s autonomous delivery with today\u2019s technology <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From cities in France to college campuses in the United\nStates the autonomous vehicle is becoming a reality. And while they may not be\ndriving people from place to place, they are bringing pizzas to dorm rooms,\ngroceries to customers and packages to doorsteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018Consumer Experience\u2019 is rapidly changing. Consumers\nwant products how they want it, where they want it and when they want it.\nBecause of this, the last mile of the shopping experience has gone through more\ntransformation in the past five years than in the preceding twenty. Now it\u2019s\nestimated that the changes predicted going forward will dwarf the past five\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The immediate\nchallenges<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Consumers are not yet sold on autonomous delivery, but they\nare watching with bated breath. Most of the stories of autonomous vehicles that\nthe consumer sees are in regards to testing on the road and not always in a\nfavorable light. The last mile delivery autonomous vehicles are occurring\nwithout much notice though, unless you\u2019re directly involved with one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, robots enabled by vision systems are being used\nwidely in warehouses and tested in the consumer space where distances are short\nand delivery sizes small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The University of Houston uses autonomous\nground robots<\/a> for food delivery. The fleet of robots are designed to\ndeliver goods locally in navigable environments. Students simply use an app to\nchoose the food they want from 11 locations, which include Starbucks, Panda\nExpress and Einstein Brother Bagels, and receive an alert once the food arrives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this is a major accomplishment, the challenge of last mile delivery is its inability to navigate beyond short distances, so they are mostly limited to college campuses or small, designated urban areas or even resort towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The human reaction to\nautonomous robots<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Autonomous delivery is still very new. The question, and\nfear, is whether they are used to replace humans or enhance limited human\ncapacity to deliver a better experience to the most valued customers. DoorDash\nwas the first to applaud the ability of robots to help enhance, not replace the\nhuman delivery driver. Now, they have over 7,500 employees, not including the\ncountless drivers in the 4,000 cities in which they operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continued investments in smart Infrastructure and communications between vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle will help drive the capabilities of autonomous delivery. As you can see, there is an entire ecosystem that has to support autonomous delivery vehicles transforming the last mile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the big one is that humans must be comfortable with\ncompletely autonomous vehicles extending their distance in delivery. You may be\ncomfortable with an autonomous delivery service driving a pizza to your house,\nbut are you comfortable with an autonomous ambulance taking you to the\nhospital?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be a fluctuation point though when people want it\nversus being afraid of it in their neighborhood. At that point the adoption\nwill accelerate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethan Goodman<\/a>, senior vice president of innovation at The Mars\nAgency, observes, \u201cUsing self-driving cars to transport people as\nopposed to product seems further out because of the regulatory and safety\nhurdles to get over. Nevertheless, Daimler, Fiat-Chrysler, BMW, GM, Ford,\nToyota, Honda, Renault-Nissan, Volvo, Hyundai and Tesla all have self-driving\ncars in the works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take another look at how humans and companies may be\nimpacted by last delivery technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As autonomous delivery in the last mile becomes more\nprevalent, consumers will become more intentional about what they buy. If you\u2019re\na company in the middle of the grocery store and sell products no one puts on\ntheir shopping list but is something a customer might buy when they see it on\nthe store shelf, it\u2019s important to start thinking about how your products will\nbe purchased in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iconic shelf space will no longer have the same value in the market if people are no longer walking the aisles of the store. Want to see how autonomous delivery is already changing the last mile of delivery?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out this video about six robots already on the streets and sidewalks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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