With the progress of modern logistics as well as the growth in demand for replacing workforce by machinery, forklifts have become the most widely used tools for handling materials in logistics industry. In 2014, global forklift sales volume exceeded one million sets for the first time, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.5%; wherein, China sold 360,000 ones, up 9.4% year on year, still ranking first worldwide.

Scanner guns - the barcode readers used in warehouses worldwide - are getting a makeover, as retailers scramble to boost productivity amid a surge in online orders.

At its core, a warehouse management system offers warehouses and distributors a tool to help improve customer service. That means knowing what you have, where you have it and how soon you can promise delivery.

By using adaptive software tools, you not only can lengthen the life of your existing WMS products, including legacy systems and systems no longer supported, you now can have all kinds of new functionality at your fingertips.

With robots like BigDog and the Terminator-like Atlas, Google's robotics efforts have been a smash success - if you measure by YouTube views and buzz. Amazon's work has been more behind scenes (apart from the widely discussed plans for delivery drones). But Amazon's energies in robotics have also had a more immediate payoff than Google's "moonshots." The differing philosophies illustrate how Amazon and Google have taken starkly different paths so far in the race to automate the physical world.

Automation is the buzzword of the moment when it comes to distribution. But many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) feel that automation is cost prohibitive - that it's something for the big guys. An investment in automation, however, doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition.

The potential of artificial intelligence and advanced robotics to perform tasks once reserved for humans is no longer reserved for spectacular demonstrations by the likes of IBM's Watson, Rethink Robotics' Baxter, DeepMind, or Google's driverless car.

Robot orders and shipments in North America set new records in the first nine months of 2015, according to Robotic Industries Association (RIA), the industry's trade group.