In 2026, the domestic industrial automation industry will show a significant change: the focus of automation is shifting from the production end and warehousing end to the loading link at the logistics end.
Loading, a link that used to be considered “difficult to automate”, is now becoming a new competitive watershed for bulk cargo factories.
This trend is not accidental, but the inevitable result of the joint action of three industry development factors, and deserves the high attention of all bulk cargo industry bosses.
The first is to complete the automatic breakpoints of the entire link.
In the past ten years, the popularization of domestic factory automation has gone through two stages.
The first stage is production-side automation. The widespread application of automated production lines has increased production efficiency by 3-5 times. The second stage is warehousing-side automation. The popularity of three-dimensional warehouses, AGV unmanned handling, and automated sorting lines has increased warehousing efficiency by 2-3 times.
However, for a long time, the last link of the entire link-loading has become a bottleneck.
Even if the efficiency of front-end production and warehousing is high, manual loading of one vehicle every 2 hours will bring the efficiency of the entire link back to the original point.
Nowadays, with the maturity of 3D laser scanning, AI visual recognition, and motion planning algorithms, the technical bottleneck of loading automation has been broken.
The mature automated loading solution can be adapted to almost all bulk cargo types such as bags, barrels, ton bags, boxes, etc., as well as almost all vehicle models such as flatbed trucks, high-rail trucks, containers, train boxcars, etc. The efficiency is 3-5 times that of manual loading, and the loading rate is stable at more than 98%. The last piece of the puzzle of full-link automation has been completed.
Secondly, the rigid increase in labor costs has forced the implementation of automatic loading.
Labor costs in the loading process have entered a rigid upward channel, which is a reality that factories must face.
On the one hand, the labor structure has changed. The average age of stevedores has exceeded 50 years old. Young people are unwilling to engage in heavy manual stevedoring work. Even if wages have increased by 30%, they still cannot recruit people. This is a common problem in the entire industry.
In the next ten years, there will be fewer and fewer truck loading workers and higher wages, making the manual loading model unsustainable.
On the other hand, policy factors are also driving the process. Heavy outdoor work between 11 and 16 o’clock is prohibited in hot weather, safety production requirements are becoming increasingly stringent, work injury compensation standards are constantly increasing, and the policy costs and risk costs of manual loading continue to rise.
The rise in labor costs has forced more and more factories to replace manual labor with automated loading. This is no longer a choice of “whether to do it”, but an inevitable requirement of “when to do it”.
Finally, the core of industry competition turns to competition on cost and efficiency.
Since the development of the bulk cargo industry, the gaps in products, technologies, and channels have gradually narrowed, and the core of competition has shifted to cost and efficiency.
In the loading process, if the loading efficiency is 3 times higher than that of peers, it can accept more orders during peak seasons; if the cost is 10% lower than peers, it can sell at a lower price and maintain profits; if the delivery speed is fast, customers will give priority to cooperation.
For a factory of the same size, the annual cost of manual loading is 500,000 yuan, while the annual cost of automated loading is 100,000 yuan, with a cost difference of 400,000 yuan; manual loading of 8 cars a day, automated loading of 30 cars a day, the efficiency difference is nearly 4 times.
This gap will continue to expand over time. The sooner a factory realizes loading automation, the more obvious its cost and efficiency advantages will be, and it can seize more market share; factories that insist on manual loading will gradually be eliminated in the competition.
For factories in the bulk cargo industry, the popularity of loading automation is an inevitable trend in the development of the industry, just like automated production lines and three-dimensional warehouses back then.
By planning in advance, you can establish cost and efficiency advantages and take the initiative in the industry reshuffle; if you are slow to act, you may be widened by your peers and lose market competitiveness.
