60 Seconds With… Randy Neilson & Stephen Pickfield of Scan, Label, Apply, Manifest (SLAM)

Randy Neilson is the chair of the Scan, Label, Apply, Manifest (SLAM) industry group at MHI. He is also president of Cubiscan.

Stephen Pickfield is the vice chair of SLAM, and the co-CEO and director of sales and marketing for PSI Engineering.

Location: Charlotte, N.C.

Modern: Our readers know the two of you from your day jobs at Cubiscan and PSI Engineering. But now you’re involved with SLAM. What does the acronym stand for, and how did this new industry group come about?

Neilson: The acronym stands for Scan, Label, Apply, Manifest. The group came about after Modex 2019, where a group of industry professionals discussed whether an industry group focused on this area of the distribution process was warranted. The consensus after a few more meetings was that the interest was there, and we made the decision to put SLAM together.

Modern: Why now? In other words, what’s happening that drove the need for this group?

Pickfield: The why now is that this is an area of the distribution process that has been underdeveloped from an automation standpoint. Yet, in the last 100 feet of the warehouse, which is what we call it, there’s a big opportunity to reduce costly errors and increase quality and throughput.

Neilson: I would add that Covid disruptions and the significant increase in e-commerce activity has put more pressure on the last 100 feet, exposing more of the pain points in order fulfillment and shipping. Those can be solved because there’s equipment that can help.

Modern: Has the increase in e-commerce put the spotlight on data?

Neilson: Absolutely. For us working in the SLAM area, data is critical to pick the right size packaging, find economies and save money in shipping costs.

Modern: We have been scanning, labeling and creating shipping manifests for years. What will come under the umbrella of this group and what will you address?

Pickfield: Over the years, the materials handling industry has spent a lot of time figuring out how to store, sort and move packages through the distribution center. That’s important, but it all comes to a grinding halt if you still have manual processes at the packing stations and you can’t get shipments out the door. That’s especially true at peak times. By automating the last 100 feet with the technologies from the SLAM industry group, you improve your accuracy rates— shipping errors are expensive—and your ability to provide more throughput grows dramatically.

Modern: Who should get involved and why?

Neilson: Any company that provides automation equipment or integration services to an area where packing, sealing up the box, measuring it, weighing it, creating and applying a label, doing verification checking at the end and making sure that accuracy is in place is a candidate. I’d also suggest that companies that provide shipping sortation equipment or software related to shipping, like rate shopping software providers, are candidates. Lastly, we shouldn’t leave out the practitioners who might want to participate because they need to improve their operations, or educators who are working with students in this area.

Modern: How do they get involved?

Neilson: They can contact Christian Dow ([email protected]) or Kia Schmit ([email protected]) at MHI.