Warehousing is under more pressure than ever. Customer expectations continue to rise, labour availability continues to shrink, and margins remain relentlessly tight. Automation and innovation are no longer optional; they are strategic imperatives. Yet as many logistics leaders are discovering, technology alone does not deliver results.
In a recent episode of Does Logistics Matter?, I spoke with René Schrama, Chief Commercial Officer at Peak Technologies, and Michael Robson, Founder and Lead Consultant at Aspire 360. Their conclusion was clear: the future of warehousing depends not just on what technology you deploy, but how you introduce it, and who you bring along.
Automation Is No Longer a Competitive Advantage; It Is Survival
Warehousing is a highly competitive, cost-sensitive environment. As René Schrama explains, innovation has become essential simply to remain viable. Automation helps eliminate errors, reduce waste, and protect margins in an industry where every cent matters.
Over the past decade, logistics has rapidly followed manufacturing’s path: moving from manual, paper-based processes to increasingly automated, data-driven operations. Robotics, mobile computing, RFID, AI-driven analytics, and warehouse execution systems are now commonplace, or at least firmly on leadership roadmaps.
The direction of travel is obvious. The challenge lies in execution.
The Hidden Constraint: People and Change
Technology does not operate in a vacuum. Warehouses are people-intensive environments, often staffed by diverse, multilingual, and highly transient workforces, especially during peak season. This creates a fundamental tension.
On the one hand, automation is introduced to reduce dependency on labour and to standardise processes. On the other hand, those same processes still rely on people to adopt, trust, and use new tools correctly.
As Michael Robson points out, even the most advanced solution will fail if the workforce is not engaged. Resistance is rarely about the technology itself. More often, it is about fear, fear of job loss, fear of disruption, fear of the unknown, or fear of being excluded from decisions that directly affect daily work.
In extreme cases, that resistance becomes active rejection. One anecdote shared during the conversation described drivers literally discarding mobile devices to avoid new accountability. The cost was not just lost hardware, but missed service levels and operational chaos.
From Boardroom Vision to Shop Floor Reality
A recurring theme in the discussion is the disconnect between strategic intent and operational reality. Too often, innovation starts in the boardroom: a leadership team sees an impressive solution at a trade show, signs off on the investment, and expects results to follow.
Do you want to learn more about how to implement innovation and automation in a sustainable way and ensure they land in the organisation? Then listen to the episode Automation in the Warehouse: The Human Side of Smart Warehouses, via the player below or wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode is powered by Peak Technologies and Honeywell.
The header image was created with AI, based on the content of this blog article
