Amid the swift integration of collaborative robots (cobots) in operations management, our study offers an overarching perspective of their transformative role in warehousing.
We conduct a bibliometric-based systematic review of 80 articles using VOSviewer to map keyword co-occurrence and thematic clusters in a conceptual way.
Four thematic clusters are identified and mapped to sensing (strategic orientation, organizational drivers and moderators), seizing (adoption decisions and human–cobot operational design) and transforming (implementation mechanisms, enablers and barriers) to realize value through practices and outcomes. The resulting framework integrates 10 interdependent building blocks, explaining how capability alignment rather than technology deployment alone drives sustained operational performance.
Managers can employ this proposed framework, including its 10 blocks as a feasible roadmap to facilitate transitions toward efficient cobot-enabled warehouse automation.
This study contributes a structured synthesis of a fragmented literature, articulates a staged process logic for cobot adoption in warehousing and integrates operational, organizational and contextual factors into a unified framework.
