Risk mitigation has always been a part of supply chain management and will continue to be of great importance, says Jamie Rutherford, director of sales, supply chain, for Vector Security Networks.

Getting the warehouse "closer" to the end user is important in supply chains today, says Brian Keiger, director of business development and marketing with Stow Robotics.

It's important that companies prepare now for a coming growth spurt, says Gregor Baumeister, director of warehousing and distribution at Beumer Group.

Companies of just about any size can take advantage of robotics technology, says Brian Reinhart, vice president of sales, solutions and marketing at HAI Robotics.

The “democratization” of the digital twin means companies of any size can benefit from the technology, says Guy Courtin, vice president of industry and advanced technology at Tecsys.

Will Quinn, director of industry solutions and strategy at Infor, outlines the technology needed to deal with the labor shortage and other issues faced by distributors.

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

All of the problems experienced in e-commerce sales during the pandemic are continuing, says Paul Ambruso, VP and general manager, mobile robotics, at Berkshire Grey. The challenges, however, are opportunities for technology vendors.

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.

Today's highly complex supply chain has to contend with a lack of skilled labor, says Dirk Hejnal, CEO of Körber Supply Chain. That necessitates investment in automation technology.