Automation continues to penetrate warehouses, providing companies with a competitive edge, but left relying on IT teams that lack time and resources to effectively qualify new solutions and how they will integrate with existing enterprise technology. In this article, Nick Leonard (SVP of Product at SVT Robotics) identifies the top three challenges IT teams face when tasked with integrating warehouse automation technologies and how to solve them.
The role of IT professionals has fundamentally shifted. Gone are the days of teams being located at a central company facility, ensuring core infrastructure remains safe and operational. With the rise of warehouse automation, new technologies have emerged that demand the attention of IT teams who must ensure the successful and secure, integration of disparate systems into enterprise infrastructure.
But with more than 250 hardware automation technologies currently available to customers, IT is left to conduct thorough research of each solution to determine the best option for organizational needs – a process that can be time-consuming and costly.
By including IT teams early in warehouse automation discussions, companies can position themselves to select the best technology for their business objectives without compromising the security of core enterprise infrastructure.
BARRIERS TO WAREHOUSE AUTOMATION
The promise of increased efficiency, reduced operational costs, and improved accuracy has driven many organizations to adopt warehouse automation solutions.
However, like any transformative technology, warehouse automation comes with its own set of challenges. Let’s explore some of them:
Warehouse Automation Challenge #1. Limited Resources
Traditionally, companies have relied on IT teams composed of a few individuals to maintain critical day-to-day operations at corporate headquarters. These smaller teams were sufficient to serve organizational needs, but as automation technology has become more readily accessible, companies require IT support at remote distribution centers that are often not near IT resources. This means that IT professionals must travel beyond corporate offices, splitting their time between routine software maintenance at HQ, and ensuring automation solutions are operational at warehouses. The added travel puts strain on smaller IT teams as they navigate addressing these two needs.
Additionally, these teams are being given an impossible task: maintaining core company infrastructure while simultaneously vetting automation vendors for security, compatibility, and alignment with company objectives. It’s a practice that stretches existing resources and puts pressure on IT teams to support sales. Not only that but after a technology solution is selected and integrated, IT teams are expected to maintain support for warehouses. It’s a situation where more and more tasks are being assigned to IT, but little is being done to ease burdens.
Warehouse Automation Challenge #2: Lack of Information About Automation Solutions
While there are numerous automation solutions currently available, the sheer number of options makes it quite difficult for IT teams to identify which ones best suit the needs of their organizations. One of the greatest challenges is the lack of information about each automation technology: which is best from a systems perspective, which ones are secure, and which ones are earlier in their adoption cycle? Without a central resource to answer these questions, IT must conduct thorough research and vet vendors under extremely tight deadlines, resulting in rushed timelines that may conclude in increased costs and, ironically, longer implementation timelines. The selection of technology is no longer an operational-only decision, as ROI is impacted by the cost of deployment, which is heavily impacted by the cost of integration and IT support.
Warehouse Automation Challenge #3: Conflicting End Goals
Considering the research that must be done to qualify automation vendors, IT teams are often caught playing tug-o-war with operations teams. The challenge lies in that IT is tasked with identifying automation options that also lower overall support costs for their organizations, while operations often push for solutions that will maximize business optimization. This creates pressure on IT to swiftly support a technology that will be mutually beneficial but may not align with the long-term strategy of IT. 
Additionally, once a technology is selected, IT must support its integration with existing enterprise systems. There may be a new third-party API for which IT must decode the connection technology and the data exchange between systems. After all, no two APIs are the same – even if they use the same dialect, the data formats are different and, by default, require custom code to be developed. This is a long and tedious task that can take weeks or months to successfully integrate. And as previously mentioned, IT already has very little time to work with.
Warehouse Automation Challenge #4: Open Communication
So, if IT is time-constrained, has limited information about vendor technology, and may have different end goals than operations, how can these challenges be overcome?
During the project cycle, operational teams will often begin the automation conversation. It’s good to get the ball rolling, but in the excitement (or urgency) to select a technology, IT tends to be forgotten until the end of the sale. That means that IT has limited participation early on regarding which vendor is chosen. As a result, they are often asked to qualify a technology, ensure it will integrate successfully, and review the security of the solution without having been a part of the initial discussion on the desired outcomes the automation should deliver. That, in turn, puts companies at a severe disadvantage and adds enormous pressure to IT teams, who must work within tight deadlines to determine if the chosen technology will be properly supported and comply with existing company security standards.
In order to solve this issue and alleviate the stress that IT finds itself under, companies must seek to involve all relevant parties the moment it is decided that automation technology is needed. In this way, all team members can begin the automation journey on the same page, with a clear understanding of company goals. This means bringing IT into the conversation from the beginning and allowing these professionals to help drive the discussion. It also means providing the bandwidth and support for IT to effectively conduct research on vendors before selecting the appropriate solution.
Conclusion
Currently, 80% of warehouses have no automation technology. By 2030, however, it is expected that robotics and automation technology adoption worldwide will grow to reach 85% of warehouses. That means the market is poised to expand fast, leaving no time for IT teams to be left out of the initial automation discussion. If companies desire to remain competitive, they must act now to provide IT with the resources and opportunities needed to successfully establish the core infrastructure required to integrate and support complex technologies with enterprise systems.
