St. Onge Company’s Norm Saenz and Howard Turner were featured in a recent Logistics Management roundtable where they discussed the future of the supply chain industry. Norm discussed automation in the form of AMRs and AGVs. Howard talked about SCM applications such as WMS, TMS, YMS, and LMS. Use the link below to read the article!
LM: You recently worked with our Peerless Research Group (PRG) team to analyze our 2025 Outlook Survey, which captures where and when our readership plans to invest in automation inside the four walls this year. Based on that data, how would you characterize the current mindset toward automation investment?
Norm Saenz: Based on the 2025 Outlook Survey, about a one-third of the respondents say they’re looking to add automation in 2025. And we can see and feel the urgency from our clients to keep up with the pace of adopting automation. I think the urgency is fueled by the ongoing labor market constraints, and market share competition.
It’s also hard to ignore the developments of technology, like AI and the vast array of goods-to-person and related automation. So, the current mindset is to at least evaluate automation as a possible solution. Still, while there’s excitement and a sense of urgency to rush to automation, we encourage companies to take their time to learn more, identify feasible use cases, and evaluate the many options.
LM: Beyond labor, what are the biggest operational challenges managers face today when optimizing warehouse/DC operations?
Saenz: For sure, labor management, productivity, availability, and high turn-over are at the top of the list of challenges to be solved and minimized by automation. Related to these labor challenges is the need to decrease the order cycle time or speed up the throughput of fulfillment operations.
Automation can greatly decrease the time it takes to fulfill and ship orders. And another challenge faced by operators is increasing storage density—reducing the amount of required warehouse square footage. Most AS/RS solutions provide an increase in storage density over traditional warehousing—such as, 100’ tall AS/RS cranes, pallet and tote shuttles, and other cube-based designs.
Click here to read the article!
