The WMS market continued its persistent growth in 2022. In fact, growth in constant currencies was likley close to 10 percent. The WMS market continued its shift from perpetual licensing to SaaS licensing, with the SaaS revenue type being one of the market’s fastest growing segments. WMS suppliers indicated that their users continued to operate within tight labor markets and with a shortage of reliable workers […]
Kiva Systems was absolutely fundamental to the germination of the robotics community in Boston. The organization and its culture spawned many knowledgeable people and served as a feeder for Mass Robotics and many successful robotics start-up companies in the greater Boston area, and actually, globally. Prior to his time at Kiva, Mark Messina, currently CEO of Addverb Americas, began his career as a mechanical engineer working in the medical device and consumer products fields. It was this experience working at Philips – a company with and amazing process and dedication to quality, that attracted Kiva to Mark’s capabilities. In a meeting shortly after the acquisition, an Amazon senior executive bluntly said that anyone below director level exit the room. He then explained […]
The marijuana supply chain is an interesting market to follow. Like any agricultural product, there are ebbs and flows to its supply and demand. However, there is one caveat in the marijuana supply chain that makes things a bit trickier: in most states, cannabis products can only be sold and consumed within the state that […]
Today’s supply chain and logistics operations are balancing multiple competing objectives while contending with substantial uncertainty. Simply put, the disruptions of the recent past have exposed the vulnerabilities within supply chains. The operational impacts have been severe enough for executives to take action in support of supply chain resilience. At the same time, competitive forces have made supply chain operations more relevant to the customer experience and revenue generation. Executives are taking action to ensure […]
Raymour & Flanigan evaluated its warehouse software capabilities as part of a broader systems upgrade initiative. Raymour & Flanigan, in partnership with Alpine Supply Chain, uncovered great opportunities for productivity improvements that could be realized from system-directed put-away and picking, and from the introduction of opportunistic cross-docking. Furthermore, the insights […]
Warehouse performance continues to evolve into a more complex, multi-faceted measure. Performance today embodies not only the traditional measures of accuracy and cost-efficiency, but also responsiveness and agility. The importance of these capabilities has increased due to some interesting competitive pressures in the market. And the stimuli continue to change, gradually shifting the relative importance of these capabilities. There were a range of reasons given as to “why” a given performance objective increased in importance. But there were two common threads. The reasons boiled down […]
Cal Petty is the quitessential Atlanta-based, Georgia Tech educated WMS veteran. He provided me with an insightful, broad-based overview of the WMS consultancy ecosystem. So much so, that I asked him to provide his insights to Logistics Viewpoints readers. His insights include the ways in which experienced consultants are differentiated from the generallists, how roles and responsibilities at independent consultants have evolved over the years, and his advice to young professionals just beginning their career in the WMS space.