Shawn Semer, director of sales and marketing with Signode, lays out the key deciding factors for companies looking to automate processes or integrate new equipment into the warehouse.

The Teamsters said they would refuse to negotiate until UPS signed regional supplement contracts with the union. But, to date, two regional supplemental agreements remain unresolved.

The need to engage the average warehouse worker with technology has intensified dramatically, says Lori Keston, sales account executive at Generix Group North America.

Reducing the distance between products and transportation speeds fulfillment, which in turn helps with sustainability efforts.

Huge growth in sales led to the need to optimize inventory, fulfillment and warehouse operations at Ecentria, say Michael Wohlwend, managing principal of Alpine Supply Chain Solutions, and Andrew Mironov, head of operations at Ecentria.

"Flexibility" can be a vague term when it comes to logistics and distribution operations, explains Andy Williams, executive vice president of sales for North America with Exotec.

Michael Marcum, general manager of autonomous vehicles at Bastian Solutions, discusses the launch of the company's new automated guided forklift.

Getting inventory closer to the end user saves money on transportation and is much more eco-friendly, says Corey Apirian, chief executive officer of Davinci Micro Fulfillment.

If any technology is making up for the labor shortage and boosting productivity in the warehouse, it's robotics, says Jake Heldenberg, head of solution design, warehousing, North America, for Vanderlande.