The morning sky is still dark as the plane takes off and I say goodbye to Kansas City.  The “Technology Night” event went well last night, wrapping up just before the start of the Oklahoma-Florida football game (the reason why the event started at 4:00).  I think my talk went well, even though it wasn’t PowerPoint free.  In retrospect, giving up PowerPoint “cold turkey” probably wasn’t a realistic goal.  I need to wean myself gradually, use fewer and fewer slides with each presentation, until I free myself completely from communicating in bullet items.  In the meantime, let me continue where I left off yesterday.

In yesterday’s piece, I outlined six attributes that I predict will define tomorrow’s industry leaders.  Today I’ll highlight some technologies companies should invest in to achieve these attributes.  The chart below (from my presentation last night, and probably the only slide I really needed) summarizes both the attributes I wrote about yesterday and the technologies that enable them.

This list is by no means complete; it’s just a representative sample that aligns well with the exhibitors at last night’s event (Catapult International, EnVista, GT Nexus, ILOG, IntegrationPoint, Kiva Systems, Motorola, NextView Software, Sterling Commerce, Voxware, and Warehouse One).  Since I plan to write a more detailed report on this topic in a couple of months, I’ll focus my comments today on technologies related to improving labor productivity.

I really believe labor trends will have a significant impact on logistics in the years ahead, especially for logistics service providers.  I’ve written about the Employee Free Choice Act in the past, a proposed law that many LSPs oppose because it would facilitate unionization (translation: result in increased labor costs and less flexibility).  But EFCA is not the only labor issue on the table, and it’s probably not the most important one either, at least from a long-term perspective.  I think the aging and diversification of our labor force is the most significant trend.  Consider the following 10-year projections by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• The number of workers in the 55-and-older group is projected to grow by 46.7 percent [between 2006 and 2016], nearly 5.5 times the 8.5 percent growth projected for the labor force overall.
• Youths-those between the ages of 16 and 24-will decline in numbers and will see their share of the labor force fall from 14.8 to 12.7 percent.  The number of prime-age workers-those between the ages of 25 and 54-will increase by 2.4 percent, but their share of the labor force will decline from 68.4 to 64.6 percent.
• The Hispanic labor force is expected to grow by 29.9 percent, reaching 26.9 million by 2016, while the non-Hispanic labor force is projected to grow by only 5.1 percent.

Companies have always improved their productivity by replacing manual processes with technology.  I believe the labor trends cited above will lead companies to accelerate and increase their investment in labor-saving technologies (despite the current economic environment) in order to “do more with less.”"eadch as those listed in the table above,  

My colleague Steve Banker has written extensively in the past about Labor Management Systems and Speech Recognition (e.g., “Incentive Pay in the Warehouse” and “Speech Recognition for Warehouse Operations,” both available to ARC clients only).  Both of these solutions, when implemented successfully in the right environments, can yield significant productivity gains.  For example, in the case of speech recognition, typical productivity gains ranged between 6 and 25 percent, depending on the type of picking activity and other factors.

Trends on the hardware side, such as wearable scanners/computers and “next-generation” warehouse automation systems, also improve productivity. For example, UPS announced in November that it collaborated with HP to develop a mobile, wireless printing/scanning solution called the HP Handheld sp400 All-in-One (pictured at left).  In a video showing the device in action, UPS states that the more streamlined process enabled by the device will save the company 92,456 hours per year and $30 million by 2013 (along with “green” benefits too).

I can go on, but I don’t want to steal my thunder in case I give this presentation again, preferably somewhere warm with a beach.  But le me know what you think.  Do you agree that labor trends will drive technology investments in the near future?  Are there other labor-saving technologies that I should add to the list?