The Material Handling Blog

The internet, since its adoption in the 1990s, is an amazing place that consistently opens new doors and creates new opportunities. Business models continue to adapt to our new connected reality. Increasingly, consumers are working their way up the supply chain. Retailers first felt this push as customers are happy to cut brick and mortar stores out of their daily routine and make purchases directly from the warehouse through digital storefronts. This has led to the development and dominance of omnichannel distribution models, delivering a variety of goods and brands under one company. They are required to compete with online-only retailers like Amazon. This was a dramatic shift for the distribution center.

Various goods-to-person technologies have risen to the challenge of social distancing by creating naturally spaced workstations for employees and allowing companies to continue their business momentum. In some cases, ramping up to match shifts like we’ve seen in ecommerce. In Q3 2020, about $1 in every $5 was spent on online sales, according to U.S. Commerce Department retail data.

Our second webinar of the Supply Chain Explained: LIVE series featured advice from Bastian Solutions’ Director of Consulting, Jason Tenorio, on challenges everyone in the B2B warehousing world is facing. The country has seen a large increase in onshoring due to international transportation issues, along with shutdowns or extreme volume losses in the food service, retail and entertainment industries. In some situations, B2B warehouses are being converted to ecommerce shipping sites, and are being asked to drop-ship direct to consumer orders. We’ve also seen an increase in labor shortages and turnover rates – making it that much harder to meet demand.

Over the years, Bastian Solutions has partnered with several OEMs & spare parts distributors to improve their order fulfillment systems. We’ve found that goods-to-person systems are a great fit.

There are many automation technologies available to improve omni-channel fulfillment – but which are right for your operation? Read: Automated Picking Technologies for Omni-Channel Fulfillment

Just as the internet has been an enabler for e-commerce, today’s modern goods-to-person (GTP) automation technologies have been an enabler for e-commerce order fulfillment, especially when those orders are delivered on the promise of next-day or same-day delivery. Continue Reading: GTP Tech Impacts Building Design

Modern manufacturing facilities are relying on new technologies and innovations to produce higher quality products at faster speeds with lower costs. Implementing more intelligent software and hardware is the only way to compete; however, those technologies have levels. Read: Manufacturing Automation, Material Handling, and the 21st Century