Logistics Tech Summit: Labor shortage, space constraints challenge warehousing industry

BIO:  Montgomery has spent more than 30 years with Kenco Logistics Services, headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She leads the Kenco Innovation Lab, a dedicated team of specialists who identify, research and prototype creative ideas with the potential to impact the supply chain. 

KEY QUOTES FROM MONTGOMERY:

“I think there is a bit of a misconception for sure that there’s high levels of automation in every warehouse out there. … We are seeing that change a little bit as the pandemic has hit and automation is growing, but you still see a lot of manual processes in the warehouse today.”

“The biggest challenge that every warehouse I know of today has is labor, just the shortage of labor, finding labor. Space constraints is another big one. So you combine ‘I don’t have enough space’ and ‘I can’t find enough labor’ and we are significantly challenged right now within the supply chain to get things to where they need to go on time and in full. So we are driving a lot of innovation around those two key components. How do we overcome those challenges that are in the marketplace today? 

“Another challenge that is also a trend in our industry is the digitization of the supply chain and how do we help our workers do a better job through digital versus doing everything manually?”