The Material Handling Blog

In the dynamic warehouse operations and logistics industry, a prominent issue consistently arises in corporate discussions and daily floor operations: the challenge of labor shortages and high employee turnover. As supply chain, operations, and production leaders, you know how these labor issues strain daily operations and threaten long-term growth and efficiency. The current scenario presents a stark contrast – while there's a booming demand for logistics and warehouse services, finding and retaining skilled labor to meet this demand has become increasingly more difficult. Frequent turnover amplifies these issues, leading to operational delays, escalating costs, and a decline in employee morale.

In a recent webcast, Matt Kohler, Bastian Solutions’ Applications Director, and other industry leaders discussed how both online and traditional retailers can take advantage of automation as peak season approaches. A key topic discussed during the webcast was the importance of collecting and analyzing data to provide timely and actionable insights for customers.

Over two decades ago, the internet made its way into households, retail, and manufacturing environments, providing a foundation for commerce to occur in a more rapid and convenient fashion. Since then, ecommerce has undoubtedly become the platform of choice for procuring everything from household products to industrial equipment. While present strategies such as warehouse execution systems, sortation, rainbow palletizing, and GTP (goods to person) systems have certainly helped meet these aggressive order fulfillment pursuits, a new robotic solution is proliferating the material handling industry that can further improve operations and customer satisfaction.

The warehousing industry has grown in the last few years by becoming more intentionally planned, multifaceted and accessible. It’s a push towards automation. This will progress further in the upcoming years, especially as companies look to meet customer’s fast fulfilment expectations and challenges like labour and real estate availability continue. The last few decades have shed a light on how products get to consumers, bringing increased attention to warehousing and distribution which has evolved the focus bringing substantial study and investment.

Adapting to uncertain markets, goods to person continues to prove to be a robust foundation for distribution center operations that can grow and adapt.

Real estate is a hot item right now. Coupled with changing consumer grocery and ecommerce buying habits and frozen goods growth, cold storage is in demand. Whether a metropolitan location, to satisfy microfulfillment and hyperlocal needs, or as a regional distribution center, commercial real estate availability has dropped according to Real Capital Analytics. Cold storage industry growth, however, is projected at 4.5% by 2023. This means storage providers are faced with the challenge of optimizing facilities while handling increased inventory volumes and speed. How can cold chain supply professionals effectively prepare for this expected growth? By eliminating inefficiencies and leveraging the right material handling automation.

In the very near future, robotic picking will become mainstream, facilitating a 24/7 picking and order fulfillment environment. Improvements in a few existing technologies have helped pave the way.