ProMat C-Suite Interview: Joe Colletti, President and CEO at DMW&H
Robotics, blockchain, AI, IoT, predictive analytics and virtual reality are all part of the material handling world today.
Q: What is your number one takeaway from ProMat 2019?
Joe Colletti: It was striking to see how quickly technology on the show floor has advanced. Robotics, blockchain, AI, IoT, predictive analytics, and virtual reality were all buzz words a couple of years ago and are now tangible products. The fact that these and other technologies were on display was great, however the real success is that nearly all have been successfully installed within our industry. That was impressive.
So many times, the latest bright shiny technology amazes us, but we often struggle with where it can be applied within our respective markets. That’s no longer the case with the technologies I saw at ProMat. They are now being used in facilities, solving unique problems and delivering measurable ROIs. The application of these technologies was my top takeaway from the show.
Q: What are the three key market trends from your perspective?
Joe Colletti: I’ll start with the labor shortage. Nothing new here, but it still has to be mentioned because it is real and is impacting our industry.
The second trend is the evolution of end-to-end supply chain management. It’s all about visibility. Technologies, such as blockchain, AI, and IoT, are providing more actionable information that literally changes how the supply chain works. Both are being used now and are no longer futuristic.
Most of the uses of blockchain, for instance, are outside the four walls today. But it will soon have an impact on what happens inside the four walls. We are not that far away from the day when operations will need information from blockchain to better manage processes inside the DC.
The third trend continues to be e-commerce. It’s been a trend for awhile but, for the first time, we’re seeing a growing number of companies not just talking about making eventual system-level changes, but actually implementing those changes as quickly as possible. No longer can they continue to stretch their existing systems to handle the increasing demands of e-commerce. Action needs to be taken now.
Q: How is DMW&H reacting to these market trends?
Joe Colletti: We have created a dedicated technology team that looks at new technologies and where they can be used. The team vets the new technology and evaluates its capabilities with risk/reward and ROI calculations. But the team is not just looking at technologies in a vacuum. They also need to evaluate the application of such technologies within our overall solutions; making sure they are not only technically feasible but also beneficial to our customers.
Also, top of mind for us is making our software platforms more robust. They need to be able to accommodate, incorporate, and maximize new technologies that are being developed at a faster rate. Bar codes, for instance, are well established for tracking items, but blockchain is not. Our software platforms must be able to support both and everything in between.
And that creates a whole new challenge. We have to be sure our solutions don’t just manage the data flood, but make that data actionable. There is already an overload of data and there is just going to be more going forward. The upgraded software platforms need to be faster and smarter to extract the relevant big data so it can be used for decision making throughout the supply chain.
To learn more about DMW&H, click here.
