Supply chain disruptions are always a threat, and enhanced tariffs are only exacerbating that, says Kait Peterson, vice president of product marketing at Locus Robotics. That's why warehouse automation needs to be flexible.
There are three key areas where flexibility is key, Peterson says: volume, certain use cases and in a company’s business model.
As to volume, she says, “You think about the throughput of the facility, and peaks and valleys in that, whether that's a peak season or a sales season.
“Then, you've got different flexible use cases, whether you're talking about picking or put away, returns and replenishment. And then, you think about your business model, whether you're looking at a capital expenditure or at different operating expenses and how you accomplish your automation journey through that.”
Disruptions to the supply chain are inevitable, and ,of course, tariff turbulence has introduced great uncertainty in day-to-day operations.
Resilience, which is another word for flexibility, is the answer to disruptions, whether great or small. “We've seen everything from the pandemic to the containership getting stuck in the Suez Canal a few years ago to tariffs now,” Peterson says. “And the key for the supply chain is that you have to think about resiliency. How do you handle everything that's thrown at you? And one of the answers to that, particularly in automation, is flexibility. It allows you to flex up and down to deal with different ways of doing your business, in a way that you're not locked into for a long period of time where something could change tomorrow.”
A resiliency scenario may include reshoring or moving factories to low-tariff nations, but neither is done overnight. “The flexibility to change your processes in a matter of weeks instead of months or years is going to be key for businesses, particularly 3PLs.”
