Ep. 141 - AI & Supply Chain: The War for Speed

Headlines love humanoid robots, but the real wins in supply chain are happening on the warehouse floor, pallet by pallet, move by move. We sit down with Dr. Matt Waller, Brian Nachtigall from ArcBest Vaux , and Brad Umphres from Deloitte to unpack how autonomous forklifts with human-in-the-loop teleoperation cut costs, boost safety, and create the clean data that WMS and AI engines need to make faster, better decisions.

We start with the practical: why pairing sensors and remote teleoperation with proven forklift platforms beats ripping and replacing, and how that approach thrives in messy, changing DC environments. From there, we map the ripple effects; accurate, time-stamped pallet moves reduce lost inventory, unlock smarter slotting, and fuel interleaving and pick-path optimization. That visibility compounds across the network as TMS models incorporate forecasted weather and traffic, while drones accelerate cycle counts. The result is speed where it counts: speed of decisions. When your data is trustworthy, you move goods faster without accelerating bad processes.

The conversation then zooms out to the big picture. We connect rising productivity, resilient labor, and moderating inflation with capital deepening in AI and automation, a shift already visible in earnings and capex trends. For leaders deciding how to act, the playbook is clear: choose high-impact use cases, set hard metrics, educate teams, and commit beyond pilots. We share patterns that work, top-down sponsorship, real change management, and a “burn the ships” mindset that turns tools into adoption and pilots into programs.

If you’re weighing where autonomous forklifts fit in your DC, how to get clean inventory data without a rebuild, or what it takes to scale AI from a test bay to network-wide impact, this conversation is your blueprint. Subscribe, share with your ops and IT leaders, and leave a review with the one use case you’re ready to implement next.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Doing Business in Bentonville. My name is Andy Wilson, and I'm so excited about this podcast. It is going to be exciting. If you are thinking about AI and supply chain, now it's the time to lean in because the experts are in the room. We just finished this great live event talking about this topic. And now you're going to get to hear a summary of this. Plus, the entire topic is podcast is recorded, and we're going to like share that later on. But let's get straight to it today. First of all, let me introduce Matt Waller. Dr. Waller, welcome. Thank you for having me. It's so great to be you. I love being across from you, you know, hanging out with you, because I get I feel like I get really smarter after I talk to you. I don't know. You just your intelligence just flows. So Dr. Waller. I'm just saying random things. So good for you. Well, uh, Dr. Waller uh is a professor at our great school, University of Arkansas, Sun Walton College of Business. And Dr. Waller is uh you can check him out on LinkedIn. You can see all of his his things that he does and he's done and what he works on, the companies he works for, the books he's written, all of that is there on LinkedIn. If you don't follow Matt Waller, you should because you'll learn in B Smart.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Well, and my books are particularly good if you have insomnia. That's that's what that's what they were designed for.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Okay. Well, there you go, guys. You know, great bedtime reading. So here we go. Well, Dr. Waller, thank you again for making this happen. And we've got two extinguished guests with us today. I know you're going to introduce them. We're going to get straight away into this. So again, Matt, thank you. What a great morning we had. Oh, it was one day at the um Supply Chain Hall of Fame, located here in Northwest Arkansas. What a great facility. It's the right place for it. It is, absolutely. And then as you look across the wall there, all the people that have gone in front of us and what they've done for the supply chain.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Well, that supply chain hall of fame is the CSCMP, uh supply chain hall of fame. And CSCMP is in Chicago, but the Hall of Fame is here where it should be. It's a really nice facility. And I was surprised it was full this morning.

Why AI In Supply Chain Matters Now

Vox Autonomy And Forklift Automation

SPEAKER_00 2:34

I'm not at all. Well, why would you what we hear people talking about supply chain? Because it's AI and supply chain, number one. And because we're reading about AI every multiple times a day. It's it's it's really leading us. And you know, at doing business in Bentonville, one one of the things when we begin is around this whole space of omnichannel, which is AI. Yeah. You know, and so you know, it's everyone has so much interest. So let's get to the key topics and the things that we talk about, because I know our people are like, okay, you got to tell us what's going on. And the experts are in the room. They are. So let's do it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Well, Brian, thank you for joining us today. And Brian, I know you moved here within the last year, and you are leading the Vox team at ArcBest. And the Vox team is uh utilizing hardware and software in very innovative ways uh to make warehouse management more effective and efficient. And um your background, I remember reading about them hiring you, and I was really impressed because you had worked with Boston Dynamics on warehouse automation kinds of issues, and you had been um working for Bain as a consultant and and many other things. Um thank you for joining us today. Really appreciate it. And um and Brad, of course, uh you've been around for quite a while. Quite a while. Um, so Brad, I know you're a two-time alum uh undergrad and grad of the Sam Walt College business, but you have an incredible background in managing a wide variety of things. I mean, you managed hourly labor when you were running McDonald's. And uh I personally think experience that kind of experience where you're dealing with the customer right there in your face and hourly employees, that's a lot to juggle. It's definitely a learning curve, for sure. But you also have experience in technology at JB Hunt, Walmart, and now leading to Deloitte's uh efforts in end-to-end supply chain management. Uh thank you for joining us today. Absolutely. Happy to be here. Ryan, I'm gonna start with you. Um and of course, uh one technology that Vox has that's really impressive and I found uh amazing when I first visited you and I had the tour of the Vox facility is the autonomous uh forklifts. I know you have more than that. Um but and I know you already had some experience in um robotics and automation um in where in the warehouse environment. Uh but what made you lean towards that? What got you interested in that?

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Yeah, I've uh yeah, I've had the good fortune of kind of getting on this trend of of industrial automation and and machine vision and robotics over the course of my career after after leaving consulting. And uh, as you mentioned, had the opportunity with the Boston Dynamics to kind of really see uh a group that's at the forefront of what's possible with robotics and and using these AI tools to tangibly illustrate what's possible with physical robotics and what they're able to do. Um but then when I when I came across uh what they're doing in Vox here within ArcBest is is is looking at a specific application. And and as we as we're starting to understand, I think the world is looking at AI, should I say it's all about the application. You know, these foundational models that the big tech companies are building, but then how are companies applying it? And here we have um a business that's applying it to equipment that exists, you know, we don't really have to build new robotics. There are a lot of forklifts out there in the world operating in a very um, you know, often chaotic uh uh and disorganized environment in warehouses, if we if we look at that, and saying, how do we automate that? And and they're not going straight towards full automation. We're saying, how do we put a solution in place that adds value today and then uses this technology to further automate it? And so the building blocks that uh that Vox has uh has built, and then the opportunity to come in and and create a business and grow a business out of that is just um is just a phenomenal opportunity. And I and I'm uh I'm really enjoying working with the people uh that are on the team uh and our and our customers. It's um you are it it's a it's very enjoyable to you know work with our customers and you know help them figure out how to add value. And uh and building this has been a lot of fun. It's what uh you know a lot a lot of people might not, you know, if you if you're joking about your books, you know, a lot of people might not think that warehouse automation are is uh is the most exciting in the world, but it is what uh what gets me up in the morning. I'm excited to be doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

You know, I'm one thing I want to underline here, Brian, what you said, because you know, we as we talk about it, the prospect of AI is so expensive. I think I want to underline what you said that you can work with some existing equipment here, right? Is that use some existing equipment and use AI with that? Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 8:14

Yeah, so we have I mean it's it's it's a forklift. The the idea of a forklift exists. Yeah. We do uh we we have you know take take some work to put our sensor suite and get uh uh get a forklift working with ours, so we have our portfolio forklifts. We don't necessarily just um you know outfit uh a customer's existing forklift, but the idea that um you know there are forklifts and they work. Yeah. You know, we don't have to convince a customer that a forklift will work. Right. Uh and they're and they're reliable, they can be maintained and and whatnot, but then getting them to work in an autonomous way and um and improving your safety and data integrity using a solution like this. And accuracy. Right, yeah exactly.

Humanoids Hype Versus Practical Robotics

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Well, I think that's just a very important point that we that people when they're looking at this, you know, instead of shying away, lean into it because there's uh options here as well I heard opportunities. And and we'll and we'll you know, and just so everyone knows, these guys everyone will have their contact information on our website and our so don't worry about that. If they have questions, they can reach out to you. Okay. But great point. Thank you. Well, you know, uh so Brad, are you seeing lots of interest in this area as well?

SPEAKER_02 9:26

In warehouse automation. Oh, absolutely. Uh warehouse automation has been I it's been top of mind for warehouse operators for a decade or two. I think the the interesting thing is we saw the development of um, you know, ASRS systems over time, right? Uh conveyance systems, things of the that nature. What's interesting now, though, is the application of AI on top of the automation that's been built, right? And it's further enhancing it. Um, so optimizing um, you know, slot selection to match incoming trucks or pick paths, for example, right? This whole concept of interleaving is being unlocked at a much more efficient uh scale through leveraging AI models to help help optimize routes and and processes. So yeah, we're seeing we're seeing a lot of interest in the warehouse space among everywhere else in supply chain.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Well, you know, uh what a lot of times when people are thinking about robots and automation, they're thinking about humanoid robots. And I know your robots are forklifts. Right. So how how does this fit into your view of the future and where it's humanoid?

Better Warehouse Data And Visibility

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Yeah, I mean it uh there's there's a lot of excitement around humanoids, and I think for for good reason, I mean, well, it's it's fascinating to see a robot that looks like one of us and and doing things that we wish we could do. And um and and you know, the reason why that technology is taking off is the basically on the manufacturing front, um you have most robotic applications, you can design a robot to do it, a purpose-built robot to do that application, but chances are that application doesn't, you know, there aren't enough instances of that application for it to be economically worthwhile to design a robot for it. Now, so a humanoid robot is a you know the ultimate general purpose robot. Uh now, how do you get it to work? And now that's where the AI and and some of the techniques were, you know, with cameras and sensors on people, you know, the 60 Minutes episode, you know, the other week where they had the 60 Minutes host outfitted, you know, the Boston Dynamics had the 60 minutes um host, you know, outfitted with uh with sensors, and they're showing how just a person moving around and doing something can then be used to simulate and train the robot to do that over time. And so that's where the AI and the software piece of it comes together with the potential to manufacture at scale, and the and the scale manufacturing enables the cost and quality, you know, of of the equipment to be a bit better. It's still a ways off to really figure out how to how to truly use that. And um and that's where that's where I guess we come come around to say, okay, on the forklift side of what we're doing, we have our approach is to have this kind of remote teleop approach where we say uh we can't automate everything, or or it would take a lot of investment and infrastructure to and and process management to say we're gonna define the process, we're not gonna change the process, and then we can fully automate it. That's not reality. Warehouses change their processes all the time. So how so we have a uh a solution that designs in kind of human remote teleoperation from the beginning to do this the parts that are difficult to automate. We automate what we can over time, though you know that that human uh teleoperation is the the signals and the and the input and the data of how to do things is training an automated system to automate more and more of that over time uh as we as we make progress.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Great. You know, when I think about your autonomous forklifts and human in the loop autonomous forklifts, you're you're getting all kinds of data because you're you're picking things, you're putting them away, you're the the the robot is seeing where things are. And when you think about transportation management systems and warehouse management systems, the data is such a problem still. And here we are in 2026, you wouldn't think it would be a big problem. Is is this something you all are addressing as well with this?

SPEAKER_03 13:59

Yeah, I would say uh we we absolutely see that. I mean, when we Yeah, I would say with our with our solution today, uh when you have a uh an automated system or robotic system putting pallet, moving pallets in a warehouse, you have a record of where those pallets are moving. And so you know you have good data about where those pallets are. Whereas a manual forklift driver will put a pallet wherever they find the space to put a pallet, and you don't necessarily know exactly where that is. So just by using the solution, you have better data. But then we're also, you know, a lot of times I I define our market space and and the and the that where we're working as just this idea of of digital warehouse or the digitization of warehousing and you know, through machine vision and other techniques, where uh there are better ways of seeing where your freight is and and uh we're bringing that kind of you know, just better data integrity about. If if a customer knows where their freight is in their warehouse, that better data integrity just amplifies the value of their WMS system and the AI tools that uh that they do want to use that are providing you know guidance about you know what what to do next and activities.

Speed Of Decisions As A Profit Driver

SPEAKER_00 15:18

You know, one Matt, one thing that comes to my mind is is being uh a user of what you're talking about in a kind of Walmart store, is that we would talk about speed all the time. And you know, we speed is critical, speed is profit. If lack of speed is all the bad things, what I hear you're talking about, Brian, is the speed of getting the things in the right place, getting them quickly in the right place, know where they are so that way you're not you're not wasting time finding those again, getting them on the truck, et cetera, getting them ultimately to the consumer or whoever that is. And I think what that's one of the things, Matt, when you talk about the uh AI is speed. Speed is critical to any business you're in. And uh and and I I, you know, because I had read you talked about this. Uh I read something about you talked about recently, and I just heard you heard you recently too at the event, but you talked about you you talked about speed. Yeah. That's critical to everything we're doing, or you would not invest these millions into AI. Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

And I would add to that it's it's speed of decision making. And if you even step back when I when I took on Vox, I said, well, how do we make decisions? So that doesn't have anything to do with AI, maybe it's a tangent, but how do we make decisions faster? And and iterate. So speed of decision making, and then you think about what information do we have to make those decisions and how and can we trust that information? Well, if I can trust the information, then I can make decisions faster. Yeah. And then you get into the physical world, and then you then you kind of get to this space of like, well, maybe maybe slow is fast. Because if we if we if we take our time and we if we make sure that the material is in the right place, we know where it is, then we have the information to make faster decisions. Yeah. Because it's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Thank you. That's a really good thing. Yeah, it it ties in. And and I think you're right. Like, first, you don't want to automate or speed up bad processes. Right. And so to Ryan's point, right? Yeah the the automated forklifts are are placing pallets and freight in in slots and has a record, right? You know, we see very very often like warehouses run as efficiently as they run, there's still a lot of room. There, there are there's lost product clogging slots, there's expired products sitting there that could have been cleared out. By optimizing things like that, you you get better utilization of the warehouse, warehouse space itself, right? And so I I think there's a big component there. But the other piece is quick decision making. You don't have groceries delivered to your house in 30 minutes without rapid decisions being made all across the supply chain, right? You don't enable that type of rapid delivery without rapid decisions in your warehouse, right? And and then further upstream. But I think they're all they're all tied in together.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Well, it begin it begins at that warehouse. You know, it all begins there. Before it gets to your front door, it begins there. It's got to go, you know, then if it goes to the store, then to your house, or directly from the warehouse to your door.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

That's the critical piece that we're talking about. You know, as a consumer, when I know it's gonna be, I get told it's gonna be there in two hours and it's five hours, or the next day, I'm not a very happy consumer. Yep. But it begins what you're talking about, what you're talking about. That's where he begins.

End-To-End AI Use Cases Across Supply Chain

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Well, you know, um, Brad, you see a lot of different organizations, and um I know you've been really focused on end-to-end supply chain management, but there's a lot of noise around what AI can do in each of these areas inventory management, transportation management, warehouse management, forecast management, et cetera, et cetera. What are you seeing there?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

You know, it's it's interesting. We we uh we discussed this a little bit earlier as well, right? But I two years ago, I would say there's a lot of noise, right? A lot of hype around everything, right? Um what we've seen, especially with the the organizations making such strides in the LLMs and then uh the the rise of agentic AI, what we're really seeing is a lot of that hype and noise when targeted to proper use cases are actually starting to come to reality and be implemented in and um within the supply chain. So if we uh we we kind of look across the spectrum, we have demand planning that that now incorporates consumer sentiment and social trends, right? We have material resource planning that can or incorporate um environmental impact and political risks and the speed at which raw materials are discovered and project out months or years in advance, right? Um fast forward into warehouse, right? We've talked a lot about that already and the capabilities that are there. You have autumn, you have drones being implemented in warehouses to manage inventory, right? Cycle counts, water counts, things of that nature. And then even on the transportation side, we have a lot of autonomy um being built into the actual trucks, right? And so we see, we see those starting to surface more and more in pilots, right? So autonomous, autonomous trucking. Um, and then we see we see the rise of of really advanced optimization that incorporates not just weather and traffic as it is right now, but forecasted weather, three days out, five days out, right? We have projected traffic impacts from you know historical time series data, but they can incorporate that and then project out into the future, right? And AI is able to consume so much data and influence the decision making, even in route optimization. So we're seeing a lot of use cases come to fruition, and and so a lot of creative minds are out there working on solving the next set of problems. And so what was hyped two years ago is reality now, and what's hyped now, there's a good chance you'll see some of it come to come to fruition in the next year or two.

Where Autonomous Forklifts Fit In DCs

SPEAKER_01 21:28

That's really a good point. Um how about you? What are you seeing? Um, I know when I think about autonomous and human in the loop, and especially for forklifts in a DC, there's a lot of noise there as well, um, in terms of you know um what this can do, what these kinds of key things can do. But within a DC, there's so many different operations. Right. Right. Right. Where does this specifically fit in?

SPEAKER_03 21:59

Yeah, so we're Focused on moving pallets. There's a lot. I mean, there's a lot of work in in DCs around especially fulfillments and working with eaches and individual boxes. When I was at Boston Dynamics, we, you know, had a case handling or box handling robot. So we were not touching the pallets. We were down at the box level. And even then, we had to tell people, oh, we're not at the eaches level. We're at the box, we're at the case level. So what what we're doing today with Vox, we're at the pallet level. We're moving pallets using forklifts and and and that sort of thing. And um, and helping helping companies that are at that stage in their in their warehousing and just really focused on, you know, how do we how do we nail this segment of the world? You know, there are all sorts of challenges and all sorts of other segments of it. And uh I know there's a lot of uh you know, all sorts of challenges in in in fulfillment and in return handling and and all of that sort of stuff. And um, you know, but where where we're really focused is on the pallet movement. Say how do we help, how do we help companies have greater, greater, you know, um both visibility and control over kind of the you know, moving pallets and knowing where their pallets are and then and then reducing their cost. I mean, ultimately it's it's cost reduction. I mean, it's as you mentioned, you know, you want the consumer wants their product uh either delivered to them or in the store when they when they go to the store to get it. Um uh, you know, obviously any company, it's you know, the the supply chain is a cost. You know, if you could manufacture it and just have it show up at the you know where your consumer wants it, you know, and snap your fingers, you would. Everything that goes into getting it there is a is a cost center. And you know, all all of our effort is just how do we reduce that cost, right? You know, and and get that product to where the consumer wants it as fast as possible. And so as excited as we are around the technology and the services and and everything, it's it's all about reducing cost at the end of the day. And I think we're we're uh we're having success with that with our customers.

From Pilots To Scale: What Works

SPEAKER_01 24:06

It's good. You know, with automation and AI both, um a lot of companies right now are in the piloting phase of some of these uh cutting-edge tools. Um what are some success factors in your mind in terms of taking a successful pilot and operationalizing it?

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Yeah, the you know, it's interesting because there's not a there's not a one-size-fits-all answer here. Um small organizations are right more startup-like, right? So that they have fewer constraints, fewer governance controls, right? Allow them to move more quickly. Um, and so for organizations like that, I just be very specific about the use cases that that are most relevant and and make sure you build out the guardrails and then the metrics to track it, right? Uh the larger organizations, right, the risk to uh a failure implications to a large supply chain are higher, but they can all be controlled, right? And put the right governance in place and and manage the risk accordingly. But it it still comes back to the same fundamental, like start with the pilot, start with the use case, expand to a second pilot, expand to a third area, right? And let it grow almost organically, but don't don't fear the technology, just learn how to embrace it and and drive value back to your bottom line or to the to speed to the market, things of that nature.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

So uh Brian, I know you've got an interesting experience with this.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

What yeah, we were talking a little earlier about when you talk about implementation, success, you know, successful implementation. We had a you know made me think of a customer that we have who who ran a pilot and the pilot went well. Uh went well enough that they said, okay, let's we let we're gonna move forward with this. We're gonna apply this and roll this out in our other facilities. And then the second facility that we applied it to, it went really well. So it went much better. And I think that we were trying to you know work with the customers and say, well, what what was different? And we think what was different was when they went into that second facility, they said, okay, this is what we're doing. Like we're we're committed, we're doing this, and everybody said, Okay, this is what we're doing. How do we use this tool and the solution to make our lives better, to get better productivity and to and to use this? And I think versus the pilot, like I said, it worked well, but I think people, okay, here's some technology to experiment with, let's see, let's see how this works. And but we still kind of have to get our day job, get get our work done. And uh, and so I think that what we experienced there was the the difference between just you know, like buy-in and kind of being um kind of being dedicated to it and saying, hey, we're we're gonna put this in. And then the then the experience and the productivity and the performance of the system all it all kind of kind of went a lot more smoothly, I suppose, with that.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

It's kind of like the burning of the ships kind of mentality, right? We're doing this. Like we better figure out how to do it. The ships are gone.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

Uh you know, yeah, it's interesting. So we had we had touched on this a little bit earlier, but to your point, like if reflecting on on um on processes where the implementation went well, right? And it comes down to we we see patterns that are successful, and it's top-down support, right, uh, in organizations that are making big shifts, especially in the technology, education of the organization, making sure the organization understands what's coming and what the risks are, but what the benefits are and how they can how they can work to support that type of transition. And then finally, the the actual change management, right? Especially with technology, we all know how fast technology changes, right? And our kids are probably the first one to, you know, tell us, tell us that we're behind the times. But the, you know, the point there though is that there's a lot of change in technology, and managing that change is really important within an organization to ensure that programs are successful.

Culture, Change, And Getting Buy-In

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah, you know, I you're talking about change, and of course I grew up at Walmart, and Sam Walton said the most consistent thing at Walmart was change. So he started with that. He he and and it was part of our DNA. If it wasn't, you probably didn't last, you know, there. And and and uh one day he even asked me when I was running human resource at Walmart, he said, could we put change on the evaluation? I said, we need to talk about that with some you know, with some other people. In other words, I talked to lawyers about it. But you know, but but that but he was making the point. Change was most consistent. I think we have to go back to that. You know, is that if if you're listening and you're involved in this, I think the mindset that you all have talked about is very critical about us all being open to this. Because what Doug Macmillan said, former CEO of Walmart, he said AI will affect everyone and their job and their roles. And there is that article in the Wall Street Journal that's exactly. So I think what our as our viewers listen to you all, I think they have to be very open-minded. And I think they've got to think about yes, change is going to happen. It's gonna change our jobs, our job descriptions, it's gonna change a lot of things. But be open to that. Because if you're open to it and lean into it, then get the experts around, like you gentlemen around them to help that coach and learn and train, it could be so exciting. You know, and I look at this, this is going to be very, very exciting for the not only the companies, but the consumer. Absolutely. You know, because that's really why what you're working for that ultimate consumer, what whoever that is. And that can be exciting times. And I think we're at uh a place in our country where we've heard about AI, we've been working towards it, everything from just in time inventory to now. So here we are. And uh so I I think what you gentlemen have done is really done a really good job of describing some a bit, but also bringing your expertise to the table to help. It's not it's not about job elimination, it's about job growth. If you're in a company today, I think it's about job growth. How do I learn and grow today with this new technology? And do my jobs more efficient, better, quicker, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Comes back to exactly what you said. Jobs are going to change, right? And change just has to be built into the the DNA of the of the process. Yes. It's exciting times, isn't it?

Macroeconomic Signals From Automation

SPEAKER_00 30:52

It is indeed. So, okay, Matt. Uh I want to what I'd love to do is we sort of begin to wrap and and um there as I mentioned, we're gonna make sure all three of these showman information, you can you can get that on our website and so you can contact them. But Matt, as we think about this for a minute at the top, what what if if I'm uh listening and or watching this today, what are the top two or three things I need to know? What what do what do you what do we need? You know, okay, this is a first, second, third step here. So so I'd love to know that. Yeah, this is my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Okay. I believe and this this is a little bit of a contrarian view. Um I believe that the efficiency of AI and automation and the combination, because really these things are very intertwined, if you think about it. I believe it's actually starting to affect macroeconomic numbers. Uh people disagree with me in some cases. We don't have enough data yet to know exactly. But uh but it's unusual. Um you look at productivity growth this on an annualized rate the last quarter uh grew by f almost 4.9 percent, almost 5%. Okay. At the same time, um the labor numbers look really good. At the same time, um the amount of capital that the the St. Louis Federal Reserve has a um has an article out recently that talks about how almost 20 percent of the GDP growth the last quarter is attributed to investment and capital expenditures around automation, AI, capital deepening, they call it. And um and the Phillips curve would typically say when you start moving towards full employment, you're gonna have inflation. We actually had a moderation of the most recent numbers were CPI was at uh 2.7 um and non-core uh CPI at 2.6. At any rate, I feel like there is evidence it's starting to happen. But also just personal observation there are some companies that are leaning into this, and there are some companies that are not leaning into this. So my number one takeaway is there are practical ways to implement automation and a distribution center for moving pallets. There are practical ways to implement uh AI in many different ways throughout the end and supply chain. Companies that are too concerned about governance, meaning they're too risk-averse, they're not moving forward fast enough, I think they're gonna lose. We saw this we saw this with the uh World Wide Web. Not so much the Internet, but the World Wide Web, right? Uh some companies jumped on it and some were slow. And it had long-term implications and affected shareholder value. And and I think one of the ways to learn to use automation, to learn to use AI is to do. You can't just evaluate, evaluate, evaluate. You've got to spend the money to do it. That's my number one takeaway.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

I I think that's I I think you're I don't want to agree with you. Numbers are they tell the truth, and there they are. When you get underneath the numbers, as you so well uh explained, I agree with you on your um on your thoughts on that. Um, okay, Brad and Brian, what is one or two things you would leave our guests with, our viewers with? Uh, because that's excellent. I mean, I know if I was watching this right now, I would go to work on what you just said. Okay, because the numbers are behind it. Okay, so but gentlemen, what would you talk about from your perspective?

Final Takeaways And Invitation To Act

SPEAKER_02 35:16

What what yeah, I I partly to reinforce Matt's point, right? If if we look at earnings releases in 10Ks from organizations over the last few quarters, you're seeing improved productivity, you're seeing reductions in capital and expenses within the organizations, and you're seeing record profits. And those typically don't parallel, right? And so I think it reinforces what we're starting to see in the data. Um, and then to Matt's point, at a more macroeconomic level, we're seeing it in other data sets as well. Um organizations that aren't actively pursuing AI right now, they're gonna be behind. They're losing their competitive advantage in their supply chain because other organizations are already ahead. And so if you think about it from the lens of um corporate governance and and SWOT analysis and things of that nature, they're they're losing, right? And so the advice would be get started now. Don't wait. You can learn so much. AI is such a powerful tool. Use AI to teach you, right? Reach out to organizations that specialize in moving moving uh moving companies forward, especially in supply chain, right? And so don't wait. Get started now, ask for help.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Great advice. Great advice. I indeed. Yeah. Okay, Brian. Um we're gonna have to we're gonna have to end it with you. You know, but yeah, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

Well, uh I suppose you know, we're on the ground helping companies do this. Um, and you know, in our niche of of warehouse automation, uh we are, we like to say we're the fastest way for a company to begin this automation journey uh with automated forklifts. Um, because of our our approach to you know solving you know challenging, sometimes chaotic environments, we can we can we can get in, we can start working with a relatively low kind of initial infrastructure cost and then get and get started and um and have have a solution that reduces costs and but then further automates over time. And so I would just say to to the audience listening to this, um, if you're you know, if you if you if you see an interest there, we'd love to love to speak with you and help uh help companies, you know, get started and and implement this uh you know some of these some of these tools.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Okay. Well, to our viewers, you heard it. From these three gentlemen, thank you so much. Thank you for spending the morning with us at the lab of it. And then thank you for coming to the studio and and recapping. This is such an important topic. And um you got to come back this fall, though, and give us an update. Okay. So we're gonna hold you. We got you gotta come back. Okay, this is so exciting. And and yeah, I don't care who you bring, just let's fill this room up. I'll hold you to that. All right. Well, you have an invitation right now to come back. I I I don't know from a standpoint of a more important topic that's facing businesses today. And I mean what you said, I mean, both all three of you, what you said, this is critical. If you if you bypass this or you ignore this, what what scares me is when you said you lose the competitive edge. Now, you cannot lose your competitive edge to this. You've got to lean in to this and surround yourself with the great people, great experts to teach you, to help your people and the organization and move forward. And now's your moment. Now's your moment. As a as a uh as an owner or as uh a leader of an industry, you you cannot ignore this to your point. You we cannot. Well, what a great morning. We could be here all day. I love this topic. I love it. But uh to all of our viewers doing business in Bidenville, thank you so much. You are absolutely doing such a great job uh uh viewing, uh watching our program. And because of you, uh we're now in over 100 countries today. We have over 2,000 viewers a day now because of you. Thank you so much. And many of you are riding me on LinkedIn. Keep doing that. I'll answer your question and offer suggestions on other podcasts. We're working really hard for that. We work for you. Again, our guests today. Thank you. Thank you for being here every day. Thank you. Okay, have a great day. Goodbye, everyone. Thank you.