WMS providers adapt to pandemic-driven challenges by getting creative with remote implementation and training—and in the process, improve their service capabilities.
Victoria Kickham started her career as a newspaper reporter in the Boston area before moving into B2B journalism. She has covered manufacturing, distribution and supply chain issues for a variety of publications in the industrial and electronics sectors, and now writes about everything from forklift batteries to omnichannel business trends for DC Velocity.
Demand for remote technology implementation took off last year, as the pandemic forced companies to limit human interaction in their facilities. For many software vendors, this meant a quick switch to the way they research, develop, and carry out complex projects—especially in the warehouse, where being on site allows a firsthand view of processes, problems, bottlenecks, and other critical issues. For warehouse management system (WMS) providers in particular, developing a distance-based protocol has created a whole new approach to understanding customers’ challenges and developing the right solutions.
“If you’re a software vendor … there’s a benefit to being on site,” explains Don White, CEO of Synergy North America Inc., developer of the cloud-based WMS SnapFulfil. “Translating the end quality of those interactions and bringing them remote [is challenging]. Can the customer be as successful if I’m not in the room? These are questions we had to answer.”
In answering those questions, WMS providers say they have adapted their approach to consulting, training, and delivering new solutions so they can best meet customer needs from a distance—a process some say will have lasting effects on the ways in which they interact with clients.
BUILDING A BETTER PROCESS
SnapFulfil began developing a remote implementation (RI) plan for its WMS well before the pandemic, but interest and adoption have soared since the program’s launch a year ago, White says. The RI program allows onboarding of the WMS from anywhere in the world within a matter of weeks and also provides customized virtual support and training. Essentially, the program is a document that guides managers and staff through the implementation process, offering online training, development, and consulting support along the way. Developing the product required SnapFulfil to rethink its approach to service and retrain its project managers with a focus on curiosity and questioning—especially in the early phases of project development, White reports.
“We worked a lot on our project teams being curious [because] you don’t get the depth of answer if you’re remote,” he explains. “The way we interact today is a lot more Socratic; we ask why business processes are the way they are. This requires the customer to give it a bit more thought, and it’s a different approach for the project manager too.”
Training and education have changed considerably as well. Typically, project leaders will conduct three full days of on-site training, White says, but with the RI program, they provide two- to three-hour sessions over five or six days. In addition to reducing screen time, the process also allows employees to step away from the classroom and handle other aspects of their job that are often difficult or stressful to put aside during a traditional technology implementation.
“We’ve changed our training methodology to give them more flexibility,” White explains, adding that the increased flexibility benefits SnapFulfil as well. “A project team descending on a facility is, by nature, disruptive. [Being remote] allows you to more tightly schedule calls with different resources at the client, so you can be more flexible in how and when you [engage with them].”
White describes SnapFulfil as a highly configurable WMS suited for a wide range of businesses—from the Etsy-based entrepreneur all the way up to large multilocation enterprises. The company’s earliest RI implementations occurred in the first few months of 2020, but the pandemic accelerated the use of that model. White says the shift to RI helped SnapFulfil initiate or continue eight projects in 2020, four of which had gone live by the end of the year.
“We were in process [with the RI program], but the catalyst for speeding it to market was the pandemic,” White says, emphasizing customers’ changing service needs in a remote environment. “Adversity breeds solutions. We had a successful year closing new business. To do that, you have to be good at the service piece.”
TAPPING INTO NEW TECH TOOLS
SnapFulfil is not alone when it comes to facing down such challenges. Managers at Zethcon Corp., which specializes in WMS for third-party logistics service providers (3PLs), say the pandemic necessitated a sharper focus on the tools it uses to communicate with clients during project implementation—a factor that helped smooth projects that were already well underway last spring, according to Lance Jordan, Zethcon’s director of professional service.
“As an organization, we were prepared,” says Jordan, adding that project leaders were scheduled to be on site with a client to implement Zethcon’s Synapse WMS when the pandemic hit last March. “We reset. We had to leverage new tools.”
Zethcon’s first step was to upgrade its internal business platform to a more robust program for video conferencing, document sharing, and so forth. The change helped accommodate broader use of those tools as employees and projects went remote. The company also got creative with existing technology; in lieu of a site visit, clients were asked to take cellphone videos of their facilities as project development began, for example.
“We need to see what the building looks like,” Jordan explains. “In the absence of being there, we relied on video. We typically want to be in the room with our clients—to create that relationship from the beginning. We had to manage all of that on a fully remote basis.”
Zethcon’s training regimen changed as well. Training sessions were chopped into smaller blocks, using multiple trainers instead of a single one as a way to keep clients engaged, Jordan explains.
Zethcon applied these principles to a Synapse implementation for a 3PL last spring, first targeting a pilot facility in Philadelphia and then bringing on a second facility, in Toronto. A local Zethcon representative was eventually able to visit the Philadelphia site, but due to ongoing travel restrictions, the WMS provider had not set foot in the Canadian facility as of this January. Both facilities were live with the WMS by the end of 2020, and Zethcon was set to begin deploying robotics at the Philadelphia site this year. Jordan says the company will begin a project at a third facility for the same 3PL on the West Coast this spring.
“There was no slowing down for sure; we just had to get creative with our communication, our reporting, and how we manage things,” Jordan says of the project. “I think in the end, when the dust settles in late February and early March, [this client] will have gotten about a million square feet, possibly, on the system within 12 months.”
Michael Wohlwend, managing principal of systems integrator Alpine Supply Chain Solutions, agrees there is no slowdown in sight, noting that demand for WMS software is up and will continue to rise in 2021. He also agrees that remote implementation strategies make that work harder and place a greater emphasis on vendors’ and integrators’ creativity in delivering service.
In lieu of site visits, Alpine, too, utilized virtual tours as a way to “really understand how the operation works to help with the design process,” Wohlwend reports. He adds that the company will continue to utilize those strategies as needed, especially as demand for technology grows.
“We just finished our sixth [WMS] selection, and now we’re strategizing on our eighth implementation in the last year,” he says, emphasizing a strong outlook for enterprise solutions. “Demand is way up.”
A move by federal regulators to reinforce requirements for broker transparency in freight transactions is stirring debate among transportation groups, after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published a “notice of proposed rulemaking” this week.
According to FMCSA, its draft rule would strive to make broker transparency more common, requiring greater sharing of the material information necessary for transportation industry parties to make informed business decisions and to support the efficient resolution of disputes.
The proposed rule titled “Transparency in Property Broker Transactions” would address what FMCSA calls the lack of access to information among shippers and motor carriers that can impact the fairness and efficiency of the transportation system, and would reframe broker transparency as a regulatory duty imposed on brokers, with the goal of deterring non-compliance. Specifically, the move would require brokers to keep electronic records, and require brokers to provide transaction records to motor carriers and shippers upon request and within 48 hours of that request.
Under federal regulatory processes, public comments on the move are due by January 21, 2025. However, transportation groups are not waiting on the sidelines to voice their opinions.
According to the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), an industry group representing the third-party logistics (3PL) industry, the potential rule is “misguided overreach” that fails to address the more pressing issue of freight fraud. In TIA’s view, broker transparency regulation is “obsolete and un-American,” and has no place in today’s “highly transparent” marketplace. “This proposal represents a misguided focus on outdated and unnecessary regulations rather than tackling issues that genuinely threaten the safety and efficiency of our nation’s supply chains,” TIA said.
But trucker trade group the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) welcomed the proposed rule, which it said would ensure that brokers finally play by the rules. “We appreciate that FMCSA incorporated input from our petition, including a requirement to make records available electronically and emphasizing that brokers have a duty to comply with regulations. As FMCSA noted, broker transparency is necessary for a fair, efficient transportation system, and is especially important to help carriers defend themselves against alleged claims on a shipment,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said in a statement.
Additional pushback came from the Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC), a network of transportation professionals in small business, which said the potential rule didn’t go far enough. “This is too little too late and is disappointing. It preserves the status quo, which caters to Big Broker & TIA. There is no question now that FMCSA has been captured by Big Broker. Truckers and carriers must now come out in droves and file comments in full force against this starting tomorrow,” SBTC executive director James Lamb said in a LinkedIn post.
The “series B” funding round was financed by an unnamed “strategic customer” as well as Teradyne Robotics Ventures, Toyota Ventures, Ranpak, Third Kind Venture Capital, One Madison Group, Hyperplane, Catapult Ventures, and others.
The fresh backing comes as Massachusetts-based Pickle reported a spate of third quarter orders, saying that six customers placed orders for over 30 production robots to deploy in the first half of 2025. The new orders include pilot conversions, existing customer expansions, and new customer adoption.
“Pickle is hitting its strides delivering innovation, development, commercial traction, and customer satisfaction. The company is building groundbreaking technology while executing on essential recurring parts of a successful business like field service and manufacturing management,” Omar Asali, Pickle board member and CEO of investor Ranpak, said in a release.
According to Pickle, its truck-unloading robot applies “Physical AI” technology to one of the most labor-intensive, physically demanding, and highest turnover work areas in logistics operations. The platform combines a powerful vision system with generative AI foundation models trained on millions of data points from real logistics and warehouse operations that enable Pickle’s robotic hardware platform to perform physical work at human-scale or better, the company says.
Bloomington, Indiana-based FTR said its Trucking Conditions Index declined in September to -2.47 from -1.39 in August as weakness in the principal freight dynamics – freight rates, utilization, and volume – offset lower fuel costs and slightly less unfavorable financing costs.
Those negative numbers are nothing new—the TCI has been positive only twice – in May and June of this year – since April 2022, but the group’s current forecast still envisions consistently positive readings through at least a two-year forecast horizon.
“Aside from a near-term boost mostly related to falling diesel prices, we have not changed our Trucking Conditions Index forecast significantly in the wake of the election,” Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, said in a release. “The outlook continues to be more favorable for carriers than what they have experienced for well over two years. Our analysis indicates gradual but steadily rising capacity utilization leading to stronger freight rates in 2025.”
But FTR said its forecast remains unchanged. “Just like everyone else, we’ll be watching closely to see exactly what trade and other economic policies are implemented and over what time frame. Some freight disruptions are likely due to tariffs and other factors, but it is not yet clear that those actions will do more than shift the timing of activity,” Vise said.
The TCI tracks the changes representing five major conditions in the U.S. truck market: freight volumes, freight rates, fleet capacity, fuel prices, and financing costs. Combined into a single index indicating the industry’s overall health, a positive score represents good, optimistic conditions while a negative score shows the inverse.
Specifically, the new global average robot density has reached a record 162 units per 10,000 employees in 2023, which is more than double the mark of 74 units measured seven years ago.
Broken into geographical regions, the European Union has a robot density of 219 units per 10,000 employees, an increase of 5.2%, with Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Slovenia in the global top ten. Next, North America’s robot density is 197 units per 10,000 employees – up 4.2%. And Asia has a robot density of 182 units per 10,000 persons employed in manufacturing - an increase of 7.6%. The economies of Korea, Singapore, mainland China and Japan are among the top ten most automated countries.
Broken into individual countries, the U.S. ranked in 10th place in 2023, with a robot density of 295 units. Higher up on the list, the top five are:
The Republic of Korea, with 1,012 robot units, showing a 5% increase on average each year since 2018 thanks to its strong electronics and automotive industries.
Singapore had 770 robot units, in part because it is a small country with a very low number of employees in the manufacturing industry, so it can reach a high robot density with a relatively small operational stock.
China took third place in 2023, surpassing Germany and Japan with a mark of 470 robot units as the nation has managed to double its robot density within four years.
Germany ranks fourth with 429 robot units for a 5% CAGR since 2018.
Japan is in fifth place with 419 robot units, showing growth of 7% on average each year from 2018 to 2023.
Progress in generative AI (GenAI) is poised to impact business procurement processes through advancements in three areas—agentic reasoning, multimodality, and AI agents—according to Gartner Inc.
Those functions will redefine how procurement operates and significantly impact the agendas of chief procurement officers (CPOs). And 72% of procurement leaders are already prioritizing the integration of GenAI into their strategies, thus highlighting the recognition of its potential to drive significant improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, Gartner found in a survey conducted in July, 2024, with 258 global respondents.
Gartner defined the new functions as follows:
Agentic reasoning in GenAI allows for advanced decision-making processes that mimic human-like cognition. This capability will enable procurement functions to leverage GenAI to analyze complex scenarios and make informed decisions with greater accuracy and speed.
Multimodality refers to the ability of GenAI to process and integrate multiple forms of data, such as text, images, and audio. This will make GenAI more intuitively consumable to users and enhance procurement's ability to gather and analyze diverse information sources, leading to more comprehensive insights and better-informed strategies.
AI agents are autonomous systems that can perform tasks and make decisions on behalf of human operators. In procurement, these agents will automate procurement tasks and activities, freeing up human resources to focus on strategic initiatives, complex problem-solving and edge cases.
As CPOs look to maximize the value of GenAI in procurement, the study recommended three starting points: double down on data governance, develop and incorporate privacy standards into contracts, and increase procurement thresholds.
“These advancements will usher procurement into an era where the distance between ideas, insights, and actions will shorten rapidly,” Ryan Polk, senior director analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Procurement leaders who build their foundation now through a focus on data quality, privacy and risk management have the potential to reap new levels of productivity and strategic value from the technology."