Your Team Isn't Slow, Your Technology Is

Show Notes

Everybody is talking about the labor shortage. Almost nobody is asking the better question. In this episode of Handled It, Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand sit down with Eddie Lowry, Automation Systems Engineer at Carolina Handling, and Alex Haines, Head of Accounts at Toyota Automated Logistics, to make the case that most operations don't have a labor problem at all — they have a tooling problem. If your instinct when the numbers slip is to post another job ad, this conversation will challenge where that next dollar should actually go.

The group gets specific fast: why so many warehouse managers still read "moving" as "productive," why an empty forklift raises eyebrows but an empty-handed picker doesn't, and how operators learn to look busy just to get by. From there, it's a practical tour of what augmentation actually looks like on a floor — goods-to-person, AMRs, conveyor, vertical lift modules, shuttles — and an honest accounting of why these projects fail. Spoiler: it's almost never the equipment. Eddie and Alex get into over-scoping and under-scoping, the assumptions buried in every proposal, the machine rate that doesn't survive contact with a real human being, and the financing and phasing options most operators don't know exist.

In this episode, you will learn:

- Why "we can't find people" is often a tooling problem wearing a labor-shortage costume

- Why managers reward movement instead of output, and what that costs you

- How to decide whether the next dollar goes to a new hire or a new tool

- What actually kills automation projects, and why the box is rarely the culprit

- Why you should never automate a process you haven't mapped

- How scaling in, financing, and phased rollouts lower the barrier to entry

- Why the biggest return may be the people who stop quitting 

Timestamps

0:00 Cold Open: Tooling vs. Labor

1:51 Meet the Panel

3:18 Busy ≠ Productive

8:12 Hire or Automate?

10:19 Key Technologies Explained

17:33 Executive Buy-In Matters

24:38 Augmentation vs. Replacement

35:24 Agree or Disagree 

Transcript

Hiring more people will not solve every productivity problem.

Sometimes the work itself needs to change.

When experienced associates spend their shifts walking, searching for product, moving materials, and repeating the same manual tasks, adding headcount can expand the inefficiency already built into the operation.

The team stays busy. Labor costs increase. Yet throughput, accuracy, and retention may not improve.

Automation creates an opportunity to remove the work that slows people down and give them better tools to perform the work that matters.

But the decision begins long before a company selects a robot, conveyor, or storage system.

It begins with understanding what people actually do, where the process breaks down, and what the operation needs to achieve.

Busy Does Not Always Mean Productive

Walking is one of the most familiar forms of waste in a warehouse.

It is also one of the easiest to overlook.

Associates move through aisles, retrieve products, carry cartons, and return to their stations. Because everyone is moving, the operation appears productive.

Some managers have become so accustomed to measuring effort through visible activity that an employee standing at a workstation can look less productive than one walking across the building.

But movement alone does not reveal whether the work is creating value.

An empty forklift traveling through a facility often attracts immediate attention. A person walking the same distance without carrying anything may not receive the same scrutiny.

Both movements consume time. Both deserve to be understood.

The question is not whether associates look busy. It is whether the process allows them to complete necessary work with the least unnecessary movement.

More Volume Should Not Automatically Mean More People

Changes in the business can expose weaknesses in an existing workflow.

An operation designed to serve business customers may add an e-commerce channel. Order profiles change, volumes increase, and associates begin handling work that does not fit the original process.

In one example discussed during the episode, a growing e-commerce operation was competing for attention with an established business-to-business operation preparing for peak demand.

The immediate response was to add people.

But pick paths were not optimized, associates were moving throughout the facility, and the operation was struggling to manage the new volume efficiently.

More people helped keep work moving without addressing the underlying problem.

Labor measurement can help leaders understand where time goes, how tasks are performed, and whether additional volume truly requires additional headcount.

The goal is to create a process that can support growth without increasing labor at the same rate.

That requires visibility into the work itself, not simply the number of units completed at the end of a shift.

Understand the Process Before Choosing the Technology

Daily shipping demands make it difficult to step back.

When the priority is getting orders out the door and meeting service commitments, process analysis can feel like work that must wait until tomorrow.

Yet that analysis is what allows an organization to determine what should be automated.

Leaders need to understand how materials move, which tasks repeat consistently, where associates encounter delays, and what standard procedures should guide the work.

The process described in a meeting may differ from the process on the floor. Employees may have developed workarounds that are essential to completing their tasks but absent from the official documentation.

Automating the documented process without understanding those differences can build the wrong assumptions into the system.

Start with the people performing the work.

Ask which repetitive task they would remove from their day. Find out where they spend time searching, traveling, or compensating for a tool that does not meet their needs.

Once the actual process is clear, the organization can identify the work that should be standardized, improved, or automated.

Hiring or Automation Requires a Complete Business Case

When a leader has money to invest, the choice between another employee and a better tool is rarely automatic.

The comparison should include the cost of labor and the cost of technology, but it should also account for what the current process costs the business.

Overtime, downtime, inventory problems, limited capacity, and missed service expectations all affect the decision.

An unfilled shift may strengthen the case for automation. It does not establish that every available technology will be a worthwhile investment.

The organization still needs to understand what capacity it is losing, what overtime it is paying, and whether the proposed solution will address the constraint.

Sometimes the best next step is to improve material flow. Sometimes additional staffing is appropriate before automation makes sense.

A capital budget should support a defined operational need.

It should not become a reason to purchase equipment before the problem is understood.

Automation Can Start With a Simple Conveyor

Automation does not have to begin with a highly complex system.

Consider an associate who packs a carton and then carries it 50 or 60 feet to a shipping station. A conveyor connecting those locations could remove the repeated trip and allow the associate to remain focused on packing.

That is a meaningful improvement even if the technology is familiar.

Basic transport conveyors and sorters can still address important material-handling needs. More advanced equipment becomes appropriate when the application, volume, and operating requirements justify it.

Autonomous mobile robots can support material movement. Goods-to-person systems bring products to associates and reduce the need to walk to storage locations. Automated storage and retrieval systems can support storage density, retrieval, and inventory control.

The right starting point depends on the work the operation needs to perform.

A simple solution that removes a recurring problem can provide more value than sophisticated equipment applied to the wrong task.

Match the System to the Operation

Automated storage and retrieval includes a broad range of technologies.

Vertical lift modules, crane-based systems, and shuttle systems serve different applications. Several technologies may be worth evaluating for the same operational challenge.

A manufacturer trying to recover floor space for another production line may have different requirements than a distribution center seeking greater pallet storage capacity.

Order profiles, item characteristics, operating shifts, available space, and future volume all influence the selection.

Running out of space or struggling to staff an operation can be a reason to begin the conversation. Those challenges do not identify the correct technology on their own.

A useful partner begins by understanding the operation and evaluating alternatives.

Before purchasing a system, everyone should understand what it is expected to achieve, its limitations, how employees will interact with it, and how it can support future growth.

Improving One Area Can Create a Bottleneck Somewhere Else

A faster process does not necessarily create a faster operation.

If automation increases output in one area beyond what the next area can handle, the constraint moves downstream. The new technology may then operate below its potential because the rest of the process cannot keep pace.

The same problem can occur upstream when equipment does not receive materials quickly enough to maintain its expected rate.

That is why automation decisions must consider the entire flow.

Storage, picking, transport, packing, and shipping affect one another. Optimizing one step without understanding those relationships can limit the return on the investment.

The question is not simply how fast a machine can work.

It is how the complete operation will perform after the machine is introduced.

Accurate Inputs Determine the Right System

An automation design is only as useful as the information used to create it.

If a system is scoped to move 1,000 pallets per shift when the operation actually moves 200, the business may invest in far more capacity than it needs.

If the same system is designed around 1,000 pallets when actual demand is 5,000, the equipment may become a new constraint.

Both outcomes begin with a misunderstanding of the operation.

Accurate volume data, realistic order profiles, and a clear view of current and future requirements help establish the appropriate scope.

The assumptions in a proposal deserve as much attention as the equipment specifications.

Everyone involved should understand what the design assumes about demand, staffing, workflow, and system use.

A missed assumption can become a performance gap after installation.

Machine Speed Is Not the Same as Operational Throughput

Equipment ratings describe only part of the work.

Actual throughput also depends on the people interacting with the system and the tasks they must complete.

An associate may need to perform an additional scan, inspect an item, complete a quality check, or move between work areas. Breaks, fatigue, and the physical demands of the job also affect achievable output.

Those activities must be included in the design.

A system that appears capable of reaching a target on paper may fall short if the calculation assumes uninterrupted machine performance without accounting for the surrounding work.

Understanding the full interaction between people, equipment, and process creates more realistic expectations.

It also helps the organization evaluate the flexibility it will need as operating conditions change.

Leadership Support Must Continue After Installation

Executive support matters when an automation project is approved.

It matters just as much after the equipment begins operating.

Employees may return to familiar habits, develop new workarounds, or use a system differently from the way it was designed. Without continued attention, those changes can weaken performance over time.

Leadership needs to make adoption a priority, establish accountability, and remain engaged with how the technology is being used.

That also requires listening.

If associates are bypassing part of the process, leaders need to understand why. The issue may involve unclear expectations, a misunderstanding of the system, or a workflow that does not reflect actual operating conditions.

Supporting adoption means addressing those causes while reinforcing the intended process.

Executive involvement should also leave room for honest conversations about whether a proposed technology solves the right problem.

Approving the investment is the beginning of the commitment.

Maintaining its value requires continued ownership.

Better Tools Can Improve the Employee Experience

For growing operations, automation can help an existing team handle additional volume without continually adding people.

It can also make the work more appealing.

Reducing repetitive travel and manual handling allows associates to spend more time on tasks that use their judgment, adaptability, and problem-solving skills.

Employees may find greater satisfaction in working with technology when it makes their jobs easier and gives them more engaging responsibilities.

That can support retention, which deserves attention in the business case.

Replacing an employee involves recruiting, hiring, and training. It also takes time for the new associate to become proficient. The cost extends beyond the vacancy itself.

Throughput improvements are often easier to measure, but the effect on the workforce can be equally important to understand.

The conversation should be clear about how roles will change and how the organization intends to use the capacity automation creates.

The Benefits Can Reach the Customer

One e-commerce example discussed during the episode began with a hiring constraint.

The company could not add enough people to keep up with demand. Orders accumulated, and customers were waiting about two weeks to receive their purchases.

According to the example shared, automation helped reduce that wait to two or three days.

Products came to associates instead of requiring them to walk to each item. The system also guided picking, helping employees select the correct products.

The improvement affected several parts of the experience at once.

Associates traveled less. The business worked through demand more effectively. Customers received orders sooner and benefited from improved accuracy.

This is why automation should be evaluated beyond the speed of an individual task.

Its value can extend from the warehouse floor to the customer receiving the order.

Start at the Right Scale and Plan for Growth

Upfront investment remains a concern for many organizations.

In the LinkedIn audience poll discussed during the episode, 38% of respondents identified upfront investment as a barrier to automation. Another 32% pointed to a lack of internal expertise. Unclear return on investment and operational disruption were also raised.

A project does not always require purchasing its full future capacity on the first day.

For a scalable application, an organization may begin with a smaller number of robots, become comfortable with the process, and expand as volume grows.

Space can also be planned around future expansion, allowing the business to add capacity when demand supports it.

The episode discusses leasing, robotics-as-a-service, and financing structures as potential ways to approach the investment. The available options depend on the technology and project.

These conversations may involve finance and real estate leaders as well as operations and engineering.

The objective is to align the investment with the business's needs today while preserving a practical path to growth.

Internal Expertise Does Not Have to Cover Everything

Many organizations do not have a dedicated engineering team focused on improving their operations.

Technology integration can be another source of uncertainty, particularly when a warehouse management system needs to exchange information with automation.

The first step is to define what the systems actually need to communicate.

In some applications, that exchange may be relatively straightforward: an order identifier, the items required, and the quantities to retrieve. Other applications require more involved integration.

Understanding those requirements helps turn a broad concern into a specific scope of work.

Where the application allows, an organization may begin with a less connected solution while planning the infrastructure for deeper integration later.

External partners can help evaluate the process, compare technologies, design the system, and clarify the support required.

The relationship should begin with understanding the problem and whether automation makes sense.

That foundation helps the organization move forward with a clearer view of what it needs to own internally and where a partner can contribute.

Final Takeaway

A labor challenge may also reveal a process or tooling problem.

Before adding another person to an inefficient workflow, examine how the existing team spends its time.

Look for unnecessary travel, repeated handling, unclear tasks, and workarounds that have become routine.

Listen to the associates performing the work.

Use accurate data to understand the constraint.

Evaluate the full process, including what happens upstream and downstream.

Choose technology around the application, and account for how people will actually use it.

Support the change beyond installation.

Hiring may still be the right decision. Automation may create the capacity the operation needs. The business case should determine the next step.

The goal is to give people the tools and processes that help them do more valuable work and allow the business to grow with them.