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The Hidden Bottleneck Slowing Every Warehouse · Speaking of Supply Chain

0:00
Speaker 1: We're not just building robots, We're enabling faster, safer, and
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Speaker 1: more resilient supply chains, which has a huge trickle effect
0:06
Speaker 1: across the entire industry itself.
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Speaker 2: Wow, that's impressive to be able to impact these industries,
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Speaker 2: these facilities in such a profound way that is noticeable immediately.
0:20
Speaker 2: This isn't a six month ROI, this isn't a three
0:22
Speaker 2: year ROI. This is you will feel this today. Hello,
0:30
Speaker 2: and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where we explore trends,
0:33
Speaker 2: current events, and innovations impacting the logistics and supply chain industries.
0:37
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Ellen. Wood Loading docks remain one of
0:40
Speaker 2: the biggest choke points in modern supply chains, slowing down operations,
0:45
Speaker 2: straining labor, and creating real safety risks for warehouse teams.
0:49
Speaker 2: Despite decades of investment in automation, the doc itself has
0:53
Speaker 2: barely changed. Today, I'm joined by Mason Cole, and we're
0:57
Speaker 2: going to dig into how slip Robotics is tackling these
1:00
Speaker 2: challenges head on and why their approach is less about
1:03
Speaker 2: replacing people and more about empowering them all with the
1:06
Speaker 2: solution that can be deployed in just minutes. Mason, welcome,
1:13
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you for having me Ellen. So before
1:15
Speaker 2: we get started hearing about this innovation in dock doors,
1:20
Speaker 2: let's get to our icebreaker today, and our question is
1:23
Speaker 2: what is the dumbest way you have injured yourself.
1:27
Speaker 1: I've played sports my whole life, so I've had a
1:29
Speaker 1: lot of dumb injuries. But the one that I think
1:32
Speaker 1: of is, unfortunately the one that also ended my sports career.
1:36
Speaker 1: But I actually tore my hamstring off the bone if
1:41
Speaker 1: you could imagine what would be like. But it was
1:44
Speaker 1: in a very dumb fashion of it was actually at
1:48
Speaker 1: a wrestling practice and that we were goofing around a
1:52
Speaker 1: little bit, and we never have fun, and you know,
1:55
Speaker 1: the coach that hey, let's have some fun. And we
1:58
Speaker 1: weren't even really actually doing this itself. It was just
2:01
Speaker 1: a game we were playing. And you know, seven screws
2:04
Speaker 1: later into my pelvic bone. Here I am but all
2:08
Speaker 1: is well. Outside of that.
2:10
Speaker 2: Oh ouch, that sounds painful.
2:13
Speaker 1: It was not an enjoyable.
2:15
Speaker 2: I've never done anything quite that drastic. Now, my dumbest
2:20
Speaker 2: injury is I have broken the same toe four times.
2:28
Speaker 1: Is that from stubbing stubbing it on tables and things?
2:31
Speaker 2: Actually yes. But the first time I broke it, I
2:36
Speaker 2: was I want to say, I was probably thirteen or
2:38
Speaker 2: fourteen years old, and I was I was babysitting this
2:41
Speaker 2: little girl and I was chasing after her and we
2:45
Speaker 2: were running on a hardwood floor in socks and playing
2:48
Speaker 2: tag and catch, and she was probably three or four
2:51
Speaker 2: years old, and I was chasing her and she stopped suddenly,
2:54
Speaker 2: and I kept going and my socked foot slid into
2:58
Speaker 2: her heel. And that's how I initially broke the toe.
3:00
Speaker 2: And it's broken a couple of times since then, but
3:03
Speaker 2: like it doesn't bend anymore. It's my ring toe, and
3:07
Speaker 2: it's just the stupidest injury. It's the only bone I've
3:10
Speaker 2: ever broken, but I've broken this same bone multiple times,
3:14
Speaker 2: and all because that one time when I was babysitting,
3:17
Speaker 2: I ran into some kid's heel.
3:19
Speaker 1: Well, it could be worse, so at least it's just
3:21
Speaker 1: a ring toe instead of anything major.
3:24
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I had no idea that yours would be such
3:28
Speaker 2: a disastrous injury. But you know what that goes to
3:32
Speaker 2: show that no matter what we're doing, you know, at
3:35
Speaker 2: any point, we could get hurt. And I think that
3:38
Speaker 2: really leads into our topic today about safety within facilities,
3:44
Speaker 2: especially around the dock doors and what happens and how
3:48
Speaker 2: that breaks down. So let's back up just a little bit.
3:52
Speaker 2: What was the moment that your team realized that this
3:57
Speaker 2: needed change? I mean, it's a door, it's an overhead door,
4:01
Speaker 2: is a doc door. What possible need for change could
4:05
Speaker 2: there be? What was that aha moment for you guys.
4:09
Speaker 1: No, that's a great point, and you know it's it's
4:13
Speaker 1: really interesting. I think the industry itself is putting a
4:15
Speaker 1: large emphasis on trely loading andloading automation for many, many reasons.
4:20
Speaker 1: But the reason that really Slip was founded and and
4:25
Speaker 1: really what drew me to the company was the founding story.
4:29
Speaker 1: You know, it's in robotics not to put a band
4:32
Speaker 1: name on the industry in itself, but there are a
4:35
Speaker 1: lot of companies that develop a product and then they
4:38
Speaker 1: try to find the market fit right. There's not a
4:40
Speaker 1: lot of intension with developing a product around a specific problem.
4:46
Speaker 1: And you know, that's really where Slip is a little
4:49
Speaker 1: bit different in that our co founder and our CEO,
4:52
Speaker 1: Chris Smith, he actually spent his time doing factory design
4:56
Speaker 1: and material flow analysis and simulation at Tesla and commons,
5:01
Speaker 1: and you know, the dock was always the bottleneck. You know,
5:04
Speaker 1: when when Elon says, hey, we want everything automated in
5:07
Speaker 1: our facilities at Tesla, the dock was always something that
5:10
Speaker 1: was very difficult to do just because of the nature
5:13
Speaker 1: of how you know, material flows and the different skew
5:15
Speaker 1: mixes that you have and and everything else that encompasses that.
5:18
Speaker 1: And so he eventually joined a startup that he was
5:24
Speaker 1: a CTO to startup called Volley Automation that did automated
5:28
Speaker 1: parking garages. So essentially it was a large AMR platform
5:32
Speaker 1: where it would pick up your car and move it
5:35
Speaker 1: and park it within a parking facility, so you know,
5:38
Speaker 1: moving a heavy payload with a large autonomous platform. And
5:42
Speaker 1: coupled with his past experience of the troubles of automating
5:46
Speaker 1: the dock, he kind of put two and two together
5:48
Speaker 1: and that's where the idea started of hey, I think
5:51
Speaker 1: there there could be something here. And so, you know,
5:54
Speaker 1: essentially him and two of our other co founders meeting
5:58
Speaker 1: in that past adventure, they they started building the first
6:01
Speaker 1: you know prototypes slip Bot in their garage in San
6:03
Speaker 1: Francisco and kind of show the concept and that's kind
6:07
Speaker 1: of how we've spun up into to what we are today.
6:10
Speaker 2: Wow, So what types of safety risks or even just
6:18
Speaker 2: you mentioned bottlenecks. I mean, it is obviously it's a
6:22
Speaker 2: tiny door in a big warehouse, and there's lots of them,
6:25
Speaker 2: but this is one area where just getting the material
6:30
Speaker 2: out of the vehicle and into the warehouse is you know,
6:36
Speaker 2: it's time consuming, it's a little bit chaotic, and it
6:40
Speaker 2: literally is a bottleneck. Like you've got this tiny little
6:43
Speaker 2: space into the warehouse. So what what disruptions were they
6:49
Speaker 2: seeing that required such a big reaction as to automate
6:54
Speaker 2: this process.
6:56
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, you know, when when you look at trioading
7:00
Speaker 1: and unloading at the surface, it seems, to your point,
7:02
Speaker 1: relatively simple. It's a door to truck, You put product in,
7:05
Speaker 1: you take product out. All seems well, right again, Jack.
7:09
Speaker 2: Got to do it exactly.
7:11
Speaker 1: It's been done the same way for years and years
7:13
Speaker 1: and years, and you know, you know, realistically, it is
7:16
Speaker 1: a difficult challenge to automate in general. So that's why
7:20
Speaker 1: it's never really been on the forefront of understanding, hey,
7:22
Speaker 1: can we go attack this one is challenging too. It
7:25
Speaker 1: seemingly doesn't need automated because everything that's there, but when
7:29
Speaker 1: you actually dig deeper the dock being the bottleneck is
7:32
Speaker 1: a major major issue for a lot of folks, especially today.
7:36
Speaker 1: You know, not only are we seeing bottlenecks from material flow,
7:40
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of associations to what that means. Right.
7:44
Speaker 1: So you know, manufacturing is a big, a big market
7:48
Speaker 1: for us, you know, specifically automotive and several other manufacturers.
7:51
Speaker 1: But you know, when you look at and really it
7:53
Speaker 1: comes back to the emphasis on why Chris started the company,
7:56
Speaker 1: it is you know, hey, we load product into the
7:59
Speaker 1: truck from our warehouse for forty five minutes, we drive
8:02
Speaker 1: it five minutes down the road, and then we unload
8:05
Speaker 1: it for another forty five minutes. So it takes them
8:07
Speaker 1: literally three to four hours to get apart from the
8:09
Speaker 1: warehouse that's a mile away to the plant to be
8:12
Speaker 1: able to be consumed, right, And so you look at
8:15
Speaker 1: a bulk of that and a lot of it is
8:17
Speaker 1: just lost time and waste of double touching product. So
8:21
Speaker 1: what that leads to is a very challenging aspect in
8:27
Speaker 1: material flow and production planning of getting product to the
8:31
Speaker 1: plant in a just in time manner. Right. So A
8:33
Speaker 1: big thing in manufacturing is just in time production, meaning
8:37
Speaker 1: as soon as you get product there, it's consumed and
8:39
Speaker 1: then it goes into the vehicle. Now, when you have
8:41
Speaker 1: an unreliable bottleneck in the supply chain of exactly what
8:45
Speaker 1: we're talking about, that predictability becomes extremely extremely difficult, and
8:50
Speaker 1: so it's not reliable, it's not consistent, and so that
8:54
Speaker 1: causes a lot of trickle down effects. You know. Realistically,
8:57
Speaker 1: what when you look at a manufacture, they have their
9:00
Speaker 1: off site warehouse where they have you know, supplier consolidation,
9:03
Speaker 1: and then when they bring it to the plant, because
9:06
Speaker 1: of that inefficiency, they typically have safety stock. So additional
9:09
Speaker 1: inventory on hand of arts at the plant, well, that
9:12
Speaker 1: leads to additional revenue just for the pure product itself,
9:16
Speaker 1: but additional space and in manufacturing, square footage is a premium, right,
9:21
Speaker 1: So the more spare parts are safety stock or working
9:25
Speaker 1: production that you have stored at the manufacturing side, the
9:28
Speaker 1: more dollars that cost. Right. And so when a plant
9:32
Speaker 1: is you know, everyone's talking about, oh, we've all grown
9:34
Speaker 1: our four walls of our facility, so we either have
9:36
Speaker 1: to expand ork notock a well down. But when you're
9:39
Speaker 1: you know storing that safety stock or additional product at
9:42
Speaker 1: the facility. It's eating into that square footage that could
9:45
Speaker 1: be used for production space for dollars, right. And so
9:49
Speaker 1: when you start to look at it from an end
9:51
Speaker 1: to end perspective, there's a ton of value of expediting
9:55
Speaker 1: that process and making it more predictable, right. And so
9:58
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that tie into it, Like
9:59
Speaker 1: I said, the production side, but there's obviously the labor
10:03
Speaker 1: the labor piece as well, right. So DOC labor is
10:06
Speaker 1: extremely high turnover, right, So having that workforce there that's
10:11
Speaker 1: going to be there every day, or even finding that
10:14
Speaker 1: labor is a challenge.
10:15
Speaker 2: Uh.
10:15
Speaker 1: But not only that, it's also truck drivers, trailers you know,
10:20
Speaker 1: fork lists themselves, and there's an equipment aspect which we'll
10:22
Speaker 1: talk about of how slip you know eases with that.
10:26
Speaker 1: But more so even than that is safety aspects. You know,
10:31
Speaker 1: there's a huge, huge push in the industry overall to
10:33
Speaker 1: go fork free. Right in the area that's hard to
10:37
Speaker 1: do again is the DOC because of how difficult of
10:40
Speaker 1: a process that is to automate, you know, and unfortunately,
10:43
Speaker 1: even in recent news, there has been you know, deaths
10:46
Speaker 1: associated with that function. In itself at ups and Cummings
10:50
Speaker 1: and several others just this past year, right, So you
10:54
Speaker 1: know that that's a huge push because obviously we you know,
10:57
Speaker 1: companies want to you know, harbor a safe environment for
11:00
Speaker 1: their employees, and inherently the doc is the most congested
11:04
Speaker 1: area where those incidents can happen, and so you know
11:07
Speaker 1: that's part of our mission as well as to make
11:09
Speaker 1: the dock a safer place because there is a huge
11:11
Speaker 1: impact from a workplace environment perspective as well.
11:16
Speaker 2: It seems to me, and I am not a logistician.
11:21
Speaker 2: I am not someone who plans out these processes, so
11:24
Speaker 2: I have to rely on the expertise of others. But
11:29
Speaker 2: it seems to me just logically that just scheduling and
11:34
Speaker 2: paying attention to safety could be solutions to this problem
11:39
Speaker 2: you're worried about just in time. I get it. You
11:41
Speaker 2: don't want safety stock. You know, it seems that just
11:43
Speaker 2: a different scheduling might be sufficient, But I mean, clearly
11:47
Speaker 2: it's not. We have labor issues, as you said, we
11:50
Speaker 2: don't always have the people physically there to do the work.
11:56
Speaker 2: So how exactly does this solution mitigate all of those challenges?
12:03
Speaker 1: Again, labors is hard to keep and retain, and especially
12:06
Speaker 1: on the dock. Again, it's a very high turnover area
12:09
Speaker 1: of the facility. And so not only that it's driving
12:12
Speaker 1: a forklift is a skill, true.
12:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to have a certification for it.
12:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, and doing that daily, you know, hundreds
12:22
Speaker 1: and hundreds of times a day. That's where those safety
12:24
Speaker 1: occurrences can happen. And not only that, but product damage.
12:27
Speaker 1: You know, one thing that our customers talk about all
12:29
Speaker 1: the time is we're not seeing as much product damage
12:31
Speaker 1: because we're not touching it as much. Right, But to
12:34
Speaker 1: your question, you know, from what we're aiming to do
12:38
Speaker 1: is you know, an automation. The conversation always has always
12:41
Speaker 1: been replacing headcount, replacing headcount, et cetera, et cetera. While
12:46
Speaker 1: you know, our solution is is more so of a
12:48
Speaker 1: Cobot style approach where we're not necessarily completely replacing that headcount.
12:52
Speaker 1: We're just making that headcount more efficient. So you know,
12:55
Speaker 1: when you have five laborers that are loading trucks all day,
12:58
Speaker 1: well that goes down to one or less than one,
13:00
Speaker 1: and that labor that you are short on can be
13:02
Speaker 1: redistributed throughout the you know, the facility to do harder
13:06
Speaker 1: tasks you know, again, you know, tasks that are not
13:10
Speaker 1: as unsafe, I would say, right, So it's more so
13:13
Speaker 1: of a labor reallocation of how do you uplift your
13:16
Speaker 1: workforce for folks that don't necessarily have the capability to
13:20
Speaker 1: drive a forklift. Right. We have some customers where they
13:23
Speaker 1: have people that are unlifting restrictions or climbing restrictions, that
13:26
Speaker 1: historically can't drive a forklift, right, but now they're managing
13:31
Speaker 1: all the trailer loading at that site by themselves because
13:34
Speaker 1: of what slip offers.
13:36
Speaker 2: Oh so, because it offers the ability to do the
13:39
Speaker 2: same job with maybe more assistance that someone who couldn't
13:45
Speaker 2: do the job previously could now do this job. So
13:49
Speaker 2: opening up your talent pool.
13:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, So again it's it's really interesting. We've,
13:55
Speaker 1: like I said, we have some folks that have been
13:57
Speaker 1: at the same company for thirty thirty five years that
14:00
Speaker 1: are now at the tail end of their careers where
14:04
Speaker 1: again they have those restrictions where they can't you know,
14:06
Speaker 1: drive a forklift, and so they're maybe doing some paperwork
14:09
Speaker 1: or doing dock operations, and so those folks are now
14:12
Speaker 1: able to do that and you know, do additional tasks
14:15
Speaker 1: that they haven't traditionally been able to do in a
14:18
Speaker 1: fun way. Right. A lot of people, especially in that generation,
14:21
Speaker 1: they talk about, Oh, I was telling my grand my
14:23
Speaker 1: grandchild that I get to play video games at work now, right,
14:25
Speaker 1: And so's it's a pretty funny, uh conversion of labor
14:29
Speaker 1: and what they're able to actually accomplish now well.
14:32
Speaker 2: And I love that that you're phrasing this and approaching
14:36
Speaker 2: it as enabling the people who are there rather than
14:39
Speaker 2: replacing them, because it's it's such an important distinction, especially
14:44
Speaker 2: as the automation topic comes up in so many more
14:47
Speaker 2: other areas of logistics and supply chain that you know,
14:51
Speaker 2: we're concerned that we're not dehumanizing this industry by putting
14:58
Speaker 2: everything into automation or robotics or or something digital. And
15:04
Speaker 2: this is a way to really bring those workers back,
15:07
Speaker 2: and in some cases, i'd imagine even putting maybe perhaps smarter,
15:12
Speaker 2: more detail oriented people in charge of this process that
15:16
Speaker 2: is rife with, you know, potential problems, instead of just
15:22
Speaker 2: the strongest guy who can pick up the biggest things
15:25
Speaker 2: or lift the biggest things, you know, it's you can
15:28
Speaker 2: really be more selective and intentional about the person that
15:33
Speaker 2: you're putting into this role because it doesn't have to
15:37
Speaker 2: rely on their physical capabilities one hundred percent.
15:40
Speaker 1: And that's exactly right. Right. Is, again, with labor replacement
15:45
Speaker 1: being such a challenge and turn and training and everything
15:48
Speaker 1: else that comes with that, it becomes more and more
15:51
Speaker 1: difficult for employers to fill those roles, and so having
15:55
Speaker 1: the capability to you know, upscale their employee force that
15:58
Speaker 1: for folks that are liable and consistent and you know
16:01
Speaker 1: they want to learn more and do more, we provide
16:04
Speaker 1: that capability. And again it's you know, one thing, like
16:06
Speaker 1: I said before, we always talk about with our customers,
16:09
Speaker 1: it's reallocation of labor. Right. You know, at the end
16:11
Speaker 1: of the day, it's hard. A lot of automation projects
16:14
Speaker 1: are based on headcount. Right, that's just the reality of
16:16
Speaker 1: the world that we live in. But what we try
16:19
Speaker 1: to frame it for folks is, you know, don't think
16:21
Speaker 1: about it is just pure headcount replacement. It's think about
16:23
Speaker 1: that headcount that you need to add that you no
16:25
Speaker 1: longer have to, right, So it's reallocating that headcount versus
16:29
Speaker 1: just a peer cut. Right.
16:31
Speaker 2: So you had mentioned a minute ago that like one
16:33
Speaker 2: person could do this job that typically would have taken
16:37
Speaker 2: five individuals to do, and the system claims to be
16:41
Speaker 2: able to unload a trailer in five minutes with no
16:45
Speaker 2: changes to the existing infrastructure. So how how does that
16:49
Speaker 2: actually work? Because I've seen some unloading technologies that are
16:54
Speaker 2: very very interesting, but unloading a trailer in five minutes
16:58
Speaker 2: that that is impressive?
17:01
Speaker 1: Yes, it is, yes, So you know the fun part
17:04
Speaker 1: is it's I'll definitely explain it. But for the viewers
17:08
Speaker 1: that haven't seen slip check us out. We have plenty
17:10
Speaker 1: of content online. You can actually see what I'm describing.
17:12
Speaker 1: But the easiest way that I tell folks to think
17:15
Speaker 1: about us is think of us as a mobile staging lane. Right,
17:19
Speaker 1: So when you stage product to flow between facilities, you
17:22
Speaker 1: have a staging lane, you q up product before the
17:24
Speaker 1: trailer gets there, and then you have an additional touch
17:27
Speaker 1: or additional workforce even that is loading that product individually
17:30
Speaker 1: into the truck. We basically replace that staging lane, right,
17:34
Speaker 1: And so our slip bot is what we call it,
17:37
Speaker 1: So it's an autonomous loading robot. Is kind of a
17:39
Speaker 1: new thing that we've kind of termed but essentially three
17:42
Speaker 1: slipbots fit into a standard fifty three foot trailer. And
17:46
Speaker 1: so with that and with this controller that you see here,
17:49
Speaker 1: this is the only user interface that our customers need.
17:52
Speaker 1: They can control the slipbots on dock and we automate
17:56
Speaker 1: the loading and unloading process. So the bots themselves have
17:59
Speaker 1: sensored technology, same thing that AMAR technology uses today. And
18:04
Speaker 1: so with that we're able to see a viable trailer
18:06
Speaker 1: and it gives the operator an option to hit enter
18:09
Speaker 1: and so that slipbot will autonomously self aligned, self adjust
18:12
Speaker 1: and drive into the truck. So an operator is able
18:14
Speaker 1: to do that with that series of three slipbots in
18:17
Speaker 1: less than five minutes. So you're able to load a
18:19
Speaker 1: full fifty three foot trailer in five minutes.
18:23
Speaker 2: All right, So what does this do in terms of
18:27
Speaker 2: unloading trailers or is it only on the loading side.
18:31
Speaker 1: It's on both right, So you know, with current product,
18:34
Speaker 1: our slipbots do stay inside of the truck. So what
18:36
Speaker 1: we specialize in currently is what we call short haul
18:39
Speaker 1: high frequency shuttle routes. You know, initially, a lot of
18:43
Speaker 1: people see that and they say, oh, there's not a
18:45
Speaker 1: it's kind of a niche market. What people don't realize
18:48
Speaker 1: is that over fifty percent of the freight in the
18:51
Speaker 1: entire United States is less than one hundred mile movements, right,
18:54
Speaker 1: And so that's what our wheelhouse is, and it is
18:56
Speaker 1: a huge market. It doesn't matter what you're making, it
18:59
Speaker 1: could be are appliance. Again, like our customer base is
19:03
Speaker 1: very heavy. In the manufacturing world, they're all set up
19:06
Speaker 1: the same to where you have a plant or a
19:08
Speaker 1: manufacturing facility that's producing products, and you have warehouse locations
19:12
Speaker 1: nearby that support that plant for whether it's raw goods
19:15
Speaker 1: coming in for production or finish goods going out, and
19:18
Speaker 1: you have trucks that are running these loops all day
19:20
Speaker 1: every day between these facilities. And so the way that
19:23
Speaker 1: our system works is we have three bots at the warehouse,
19:27
Speaker 1: three bots at the plant, and three bots in a trailer,
19:30
Speaker 1: and the trailers doing constant loops all day every day.
19:33
Speaker 1: So it's five minutes to load the truck, five minutes
19:35
Speaker 1: to unload the truck, and that trailers turned in ten
19:37
Speaker 1: minutes and off to the next destination.
19:39
Speaker 2: It would seem to me that there's so many different
19:43
Speaker 2: use cases for this kind of speed. The one that
19:48
Speaker 2: occurs to me, and I've talked about it on the
19:50
Speaker 2: show before. My father was in food manufacturing, and my
19:54
Speaker 2: very earliest memories of anything having to do with logistics
19:58
Speaker 2: is unloading a so mind full of refrigerated mushrooms. Yes
20:03
Speaker 2: it was fragrant, but I could see a use case
20:08
Speaker 2: for refrigerated trucks, especially when you're dealing with refrigerated or
20:11
Speaker 2: frozen produce that this could be, you know, a time saver.
20:16
Speaker 2: I'm also thinking, you know, just in general and cold chain,
20:19
Speaker 2: when we're talking about you know, pharmaceuticals, things like that,
20:24
Speaker 2: do these stand up to that kind of that kind
20:27
Speaker 2: of environment with that cold temperature.
20:31
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So the only limitation, and realistically this is
20:34
Speaker 1: with a lot of automation, is temperature change in fluctuations.
20:38
Speaker 1: So condensation and electronics don't mix well together, right, So
20:41
Speaker 1: there's ways to curb that, but to curb that is
20:44
Speaker 1: gets rather expensive. So but in most in most cases
20:48
Speaker 1: cold store or frozen type applications, it is end to
20:52
Speaker 1: end controlled. So it's really not an issue for us.
20:55
Speaker 1: So as long as we're not seeing huge temperature swings
20:57
Speaker 1: where that condensation is going to be a problem, you're
20:59
Speaker 1: exactly we write food and beverage industry, especially where it
21:02
Speaker 1: is an extremely high volume of output of product. From
21:06
Speaker 1: your talk in fifty to one hundred trucks a day
21:08
Speaker 1: that are going two miles down the road, that's a
21:10
Speaker 1: perfect application for us.
21:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, to a grocery store. Well, and not only the product,
21:14
Speaker 2: but the product itself is very dense, very heavy. I mean,
21:18
Speaker 2: I'm thinking beverages especially. You know, it's just it's pounds
21:22
Speaker 2: and pounds and pounds tons of weight that now people
21:27
Speaker 2: don't have to physically interact with. So that's that's terribly interesting.
21:32
Speaker 2: So what have your customers seen in terms of results
21:35
Speaker 2: when it comes to whether speed or throughput or safety
21:40
Speaker 2: or any of the things that we've been talking about
21:41
Speaker 2: here today. Are there some success stories that you can share?
21:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, It's this is one of my favorite questions
21:47
Speaker 1: we get because you know, there's there's often in automation
21:51
Speaker 1: in general, there's oh see this you know, white paper
21:54
Speaker 1: case study that we did with X y Z customer,
21:57
Speaker 1: and they're all very cookie cutter and you know, seemingly
22:01
Speaker 1: smoke in mirrors in some cases. Right, you know, So
22:04
Speaker 1: when I talk to our customers and our potential customers
22:07
Speaker 1: about what they see, really it comes down to four things.
22:11
Speaker 1: With slip right, So speed, safety, simplicity, and savings, right,
22:14
Speaker 1: that's kind of our core tenets. And I'm going to
22:17
Speaker 1: kind of go out of order a little bit here.
22:18
Speaker 1: I know you touched on it earlier. The simplicity part
22:20
Speaker 1: we talked about for SLIP and how it's a very
22:23
Speaker 1: simple solution to implement and realistically, the way we try
22:27
Speaker 1: to explain it to people is while we automate a process,
22:30
Speaker 1: think of us as a piece of equipment, right, a
22:32
Speaker 1: material handling piece of equipment, a forklift where you can
22:35
Speaker 1: go buy a forklift and you can deploy it in minutes.
22:38
Speaker 1: The same thing applies for SLIP. Right to your point
22:41
Speaker 1: earlier about no IT integration, no Wi Fi or infrastructure changes.
22:44
Speaker 1: We work at any dock with any trailer. We don't
22:47
Speaker 1: require a Wi Fi network or Wi Fi dedicated whatsoever.
22:52
Speaker 1: IT infrastructure there's none. So one that's a huge hurdle because,
22:56
Speaker 1: especially in today's day and age, the IT team is
23:00
Speaker 1: the enemy of the automation team, right, you know, the exactly,
23:06
Speaker 1: and so it's a huge hurdle. That is, it's an
23:09
Speaker 1: internal hurle. It's hard to overcome. And so that's a
23:12
Speaker 1: huge piece for us, is we you know ten times
23:14
Speaker 1: out of ten, we don't even have to have the
23:15
Speaker 1: conversation with it. We explain how we work, they say, perfect,
23:18
Speaker 1: you don't touch any of my data or my infrastructure.
23:21
Speaker 1: Have at it exactly. So it's a huge win. And
23:24
Speaker 1: so you know, with that, we can deploy almost instantaneously.
23:28
Speaker 2: Right.
23:28
Speaker 1: So the reason that's important is especially in automation, and
23:33
Speaker 1: we're talking about you know, real world examples of savings
23:36
Speaker 1: and you know customer examples. It's what I like to
23:40
Speaker 1: call time to value. Right in automation, when a company
23:43
Speaker 1: makes an investment, they want that investment to have a
23:46
Speaker 1: quick payback and start generating positive ROI. Right. And because
23:51
Speaker 1: of our simplicity, we can deploy in less than a week.
23:54
Speaker 2: Right.
23:55
Speaker 1: So that means that once bots hit a dock of
23:58
Speaker 1: a customer that they can still implementing and using them
24:01
Speaker 1: within the same week. Realistically, the first three days we
24:05
Speaker 1: train the employees of how to use the system. After
24:08
Speaker 1: that they're often running and we're there to support, so
24:11
Speaker 1: that time to value becomes almost immediate, right, Whereas if
24:15
Speaker 1: you're you know, deploying traditional ASRS systems or you know
24:19
Speaker 1: AGVs or MRS, it's weeks and weeks and months and
24:21
Speaker 1: months to even hit the rates that you're expecting to right,
24:24
Speaker 1: whereas ours are our implementation is instantaneous, and that value
24:29
Speaker 1: generation happens extremely extremely fast. So that's a big piece
24:33
Speaker 1: of it is is that time to value which ties
24:35
Speaker 1: into the simplicity piece that is mentioning. Now that simplicity
24:39
Speaker 1: unlocks the rest, right, the speed, the safety, and the savings.
24:41
Speaker 1: So you know, when we look at our customer feedback,
24:45
Speaker 1: you know, we have several case studies that folks can
24:47
Speaker 1: take a look at, but you know, just to give
24:49
Speaker 1: folks an idea, you know, when again drawing back to
24:52
Speaker 1: that manufacturing example, production planning is all based on how
24:57
Speaker 1: long does it take to get product from me to
24:58
Speaker 1: be so we accelerate that process by fifty percent. Right,
25:02
Speaker 1: that's just you know, statistics from customers. So that's you know,
25:05
Speaker 1: forty five to sixty minute loading time and unloading time
25:08
Speaker 1: at each end now goes down to five, right, you know,
25:11
Speaker 1: eighty nine percent less driver idle times, right, so you're
25:15
Speaker 1: not having truck drivers themselves sit and wait to be
25:18
Speaker 1: unloaded or loaded, you know, So that idle time that
25:21
Speaker 1: ties into the savings piece, because not only are we
25:25
Speaker 1: affecting the dock labor, but we're also affecting the truck
25:28
Speaker 1: driver pool. You know, when you typically say, have five
25:31
Speaker 1: truck drivers that are doing these hundred bops a day
25:33
Speaker 1: that you kind of mentioned with the food and beverage
25:35
Speaker 1: type customers, that fleet gets cut down by half or
25:39
Speaker 1: even more because you're not just waiting at the docks, right,
25:43
Speaker 1: and so you know, again with that is dock door usage.
25:47
Speaker 1: One way I always like to explain it to people
25:49
Speaker 1: is your output can only keep up with your input, right,
25:52
Speaker 1: So you can only produce as much as you're bringing in, right,
25:55
Speaker 1: and so with that you need doors. But when the
25:58
Speaker 1: process is slow and you slowly outgrow your footprint, dock
26:02
Speaker 1: door utilization becomes a huge, huge issue, which inherently people
26:07
Speaker 1: listening have definitely heard of dropyards, you know. That's the
26:09
Speaker 1: whole point of a dropyard is to keep material flowing.
26:12
Speaker 1: It's closer to the plant, but not necessarily ready to
26:15
Speaker 1: be unloaded because there's no dock doors available to do so.
26:18
Speaker 1: You know, one example I like to give is one
26:19
Speaker 1: of our automotive customers, they only had five receiving doors
26:23
Speaker 1: at the plant for material coming from their logistics center,
26:26
Speaker 1: which created a very large bottleneck. Coming back to the
26:29
Speaker 1: earlier point of doc bottlenecks, where you now have a
26:33
Speaker 1: thirty to fifty trailer dropyard, where now you're not just
26:37
Speaker 1: double handling product, you're double handling every trailer as well.
26:41
Speaker 1: And so once slip was implemented, that went down to
26:44
Speaker 1: using two doors, so they actually have additional capacity with
26:48
Speaker 1: the rest of the doors, and that dropyard was eliminated. Right,
26:51
Speaker 1: So when we talk about savings, it's not just the
26:53
Speaker 1: labor aspect, but there's a big equipment tied to that
26:56
Speaker 1: as well, so trailers and trucks. Right. So with that,
27:00
Speaker 1: like I said, dock labor as well, right, that reallocation
27:03
Speaker 1: of dock labor, where again that activity of loading unloading
27:07
Speaker 1: a truck for forty five to sixty minutes now goes
27:10
Speaker 1: down to five. You extrapolate that out to hey, we're
27:13
Speaker 1: doing one hundred trucks a day. That adds up very
27:16
Speaker 1: very fast, so that labor pool shrinks significantly, So seventy
27:19
Speaker 1: percent less dock labor for customers. And again it's realistically
27:23
Speaker 1: we like to approach as a reallocation, so, hey, you
27:26
Speaker 1: need more folks, you're not keeping up with your picks
27:28
Speaker 1: in your warehouse. Well here you go, here's seventy percent
27:31
Speaker 1: of your workforce that was on the dock that can
27:32
Speaker 1: now go do that activity, that's already trained to do
27:35
Speaker 1: that activity as well. Right, And so again, like I said,
27:39
Speaker 1: that ties into forklifts as well, So not just dock labor,
27:42
Speaker 1: but doc equipment. So again, a lot of folks they
27:46
Speaker 1: usually even have segmented equipment groups where if high bay
27:49
Speaker 1: pickers are going to be doing picks in the warehouse,
27:51
Speaker 1: if counter balance trucks they're going to be loading trucks,
27:54
Speaker 1: well you don't need counterbalance trucks anymore. The pickers, the
27:57
Speaker 1: high bay pickers can load directly to the bots and
27:59
Speaker 1: we take care of the truck loading itself. And you know,
28:02
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, the interesting thing is when you
28:06
Speaker 1: touch something less with a forklift, you're not going to
28:08
Speaker 1: damage as often. Right, So it's a it's an interesting
28:12
Speaker 1: statistic that people don't like to track is how much
28:15
Speaker 1: damage or you know, loss they have of product purely
28:18
Speaker 1: from damage just from double touching triple touching product. And
28:23
Speaker 1: we've seen customers give as statistics as much as forty
28:25
Speaker 1: percent reduction of that. So that adds up quick depending
28:28
Speaker 1: on you know, the value of the goods that you're moving, right,
28:30
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a pretty high impact that. Again,
28:33
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily a measurable that people like to track
28:35
Speaker 1: because it doesn't look good on the organization overall, but
28:38
Speaker 1: it does have significant impact to the bottom line. Right.
28:41
Speaker 1: And then again from a safety perspective, you know, that's
28:44
Speaker 1: not something you can quantify, but it is a very
28:47
Speaker 1: important measure from the fact that you no longer have
28:50
Speaker 1: someone entering and exiting a trailer hundreds of thousands of
28:53
Speaker 1: times a year, right, So that is, you know, hundreds
28:56
Speaker 1: of thousands of times that you've removed the possible incident
29:00
Speaker 1: that could happen, that could result in significant damage or
29:03
Speaker 1: even death. And unfortunately in some cases.
29:06
Speaker 2: I have a couple questions.
29:08
Speaker 1: Of course, watch it, so feel free to no.
29:11
Speaker 2: There was so much there, and there's there's so many
29:15
Speaker 2: thoughts pinging around in my head. So the first one is,
29:17
Speaker 2: and you showed us this control device that looks very
29:22
Speaker 2: much like my son's switch.
29:25
Speaker 1: People ask all the time if it's a Nintendo switch.
29:27
Speaker 1: It is not. It is exactly like Yes, So the
29:32
Speaker 1: newer generations are very good at driving slippots.
29:35
Speaker 2: I will say I was gonna say, what does this
29:37
Speaker 2: what does this mean in terms of some of these skills.
29:40
Speaker 2: I mean, my seventeen year old would probably be really
29:43
Speaker 2: good at maneuvering these bods, whereas I might have more trouble.
29:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's the fun part. It's again anyone can
29:52
Speaker 1: do it. We make the user interface extremely extremely simple
29:55
Speaker 1: to where it is you know, quote unquote dummy proof,
29:57
Speaker 1: to where it's not going to allow you to do
29:59
Speaker 1: something that's not possible or not safe. Right, So we
30:02
Speaker 1: have all the onboard sensors and all the user interface
30:06
Speaker 1: doesn't allow for that to happen. Right. So I could
30:08
Speaker 1: literally take you to our facility or bring a bot
30:11
Speaker 1: to you. And that's one thing that I'll talk about
30:13
Speaker 1: is our demo process. But seeing is blaving in our eyes.
30:16
Speaker 1: So we like to bring the product to folks and
30:18
Speaker 1: we can instantaneously teach you to drive the bot and
30:21
Speaker 1: operate the bot efficiently in ten seconds. It literally is
30:25
Speaker 1: that quick to learn. So that's a huge piece Again
30:27
Speaker 1: when we talk about churn at the dock and employee
30:29
Speaker 1: turnover and training and everything associated there. You don't have
30:33
Speaker 1: to learn how to drive a forklift. It takes about
30:34
Speaker 1: two weeks to learn how to drive a forklift. It
30:36
Speaker 1: takes about two months to learn how to drive it well, right,
30:39
Speaker 1: there's a difference between the two. So for us, it's
30:42
Speaker 1: here's the controller and you're off and running and literally seconds.
30:46
Speaker 1: And you know, just as an example, you know one
30:49
Speaker 1: thing we do at our trade shows, you know Promat
30:52
Speaker 1: and Modex, and know we have Modex coming up. We
30:54
Speaker 1: let folks operate the bots just as they would in
30:58
Speaker 1: the field. And so you know, any given point at
31:01
Speaker 1: Promat we had I think a total of almost eight
31:03
Speaker 1: hundred people drive the slippot right to where you know,
31:06
Speaker 1: it takes literally seconds to learn how to do and
31:09
Speaker 1: now you can load a unload a full trailer in
31:11
Speaker 1: five minutes.
31:13
Speaker 2: But there is a safety involved with the sensors so
31:16
Speaker 2: that that seventeen year old or eighteen year old new
31:19
Speaker 2: Hire can't just drive the bot out the door with
31:22
Speaker 2: no trailer there.
31:23
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. No, yeah, absolutely, so we have safety
31:26
Speaker 1: in measure, right, So we have a two D light
31:28
Speaker 1: our system that has obstacle detection, so that is always
31:31
Speaker 1: active regardless if it's an autonomous mode or in self
31:35
Speaker 1: dry or in manual mode where the operators are driving.
31:37
Speaker 1: So we're going to see objects, we're not going to
31:39
Speaker 1: let the operator hit them. So even if they hold
31:41
Speaker 1: the button down, it's not going to let them do it.
31:43
Speaker 1: It'll actually flag warnings to tell them, hey, there's an
31:46
Speaker 1: object that's so far away on the front or the
31:48
Speaker 1: back of the left of the right, so they know
31:51
Speaker 1: if there's obstructions and they have that idea of hey,
31:54
Speaker 1: there's something in my way, but yes, you're a hundred
31:56
Speaker 1: percent correct, we will not allow that to happen. Again.
32:00
Speaker 1: Safety is a big part of our goal here.
32:03
Speaker 2: And the other thing I was wondering about was, you know,
32:06
Speaker 2: we're talking about getting the product in and out of
32:09
Speaker 2: the vehicle in a very short amount of time, which
32:12
Speaker 2: is great, but there is time getting it onto these bots.
32:18
Speaker 2: There's time loading it and getting it ready and unloading
32:21
Speaker 2: it once it gets to its destination. So I imagine
32:25
Speaker 2: that's where you're able to really drive home. The value
32:30
Speaker 2: is that those individuals that would normally be there just
32:34
Speaker 2: getting it off the truck are now capable of being
32:37
Speaker 2: reallocated to the putaway or the delivery of this cargo,
32:43
Speaker 2: this material, whatever's needed. But is that ever, like a
32:50
Speaker 2: secondary bottleneck that happens because of the quick unloading that
32:54
Speaker 2: now you've got all of these bots sitting here loaded
32:57
Speaker 2: up inside your dock doors that you just unloaded, and
33:01
Speaker 2: now now you've got a mountain of stuff in the
33:02
Speaker 2: middle of the floor.
33:04
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, it's so that's a big piece, right. So again,
33:08
Speaker 1: think of us as that mobile staging lane. Right, So,
33:10
Speaker 1: operators are traditionally going to be placing product on it off.
33:13
Speaker 1: But now you're exactly correct, You're now going to have
33:16
Speaker 1: a larger pool that can actually dispatch product where it
33:19
Speaker 1: needs to go. So, say, if we're delivering to a plant.
33:22
Speaker 1: The example I love to use is one of our
33:25
Speaker 1: production control folks. They said that not only does it
33:30
Speaker 1: speed up the overall process, but it makes product access
33:32
Speaker 1: even better because traditionally, even if I did send a
33:35
Speaker 1: truck and the product that I needed right now is
33:38
Speaker 1: in the back, good luck, You're.
33:40
Speaker 2: Not going to get it till tomorrow exactly.
33:41
Speaker 1: And so you have to have all that product come
33:44
Speaker 1: out right So now hey, even though it is in
33:46
Speaker 1: the nose of the trailer, I can grab it right
33:49
Speaker 1: away because I have access to all four sides. Right.
33:51
Speaker 1: So it's what we call swarm loading or unloading. A
33:54
Speaker 1: lot of our customers utilize that technique of pulling product
33:57
Speaker 1: off very quickly because you can access all four sides.
34:01
Speaker 1: An example I like to use, you know, one of
34:03
Speaker 1: our customers, they're a wholesaler and traditionally it's a furniture wholesaler,
34:09
Speaker 1: and traditionally they would dolly you know, it's it's all
34:12
Speaker 1: big boxes, awkward product. They would hand dolly you know
34:15
Speaker 1: product into the trailer. So their pickers would pick products,
34:18
Speaker 1: they would redistribute it throughout their buildings and then send
34:21
Speaker 1: it out to you know, customers, and they would hand
34:23
Speaker 1: doll ate product once it was picked from the warehouse
34:26
Speaker 1: with these carts they put on the floor, and then
34:28
Speaker 1: the workforce would hand dolly you know, thirteen people at
34:32
Speaker 1: a time would hand dolly product into the truck. And
34:35
Speaker 1: so it becomes very challenging to do that right, especially
34:39
Speaker 1: from the unloading perspective to your point of how are
34:43
Speaker 1: you going to get all that product out now? Right?
34:44
Speaker 1: So you have to hand alley everything and then you
34:47
Speaker 1: have to second touch it when it's all on the floor.
34:49
Speaker 1: In general, so that company was actually able to eliminate
34:53
Speaker 1: a reallocate I would say fifty percent of their contracted
34:58
Speaker 1: workforce just doing that piece in the first three weeks, right,
35:02
Speaker 1: So it's a huge improvement. But not only that, it
35:05
Speaker 1: improved the overall process. So you know, the way they
35:07
Speaker 1: utilize it to your point around that swarm loading and
35:10
Speaker 1: unloading is their pickers are able to place product directly
35:13
Speaker 1: from their pit cards directly to the bots, and then
35:15
Speaker 1: when the product comes out of the truck at the
35:17
Speaker 1: next facility, they have, you know, instead of thirteen people
35:20
Speaker 1: taking ninety minutes to get the product out and reallocate
35:23
Speaker 1: it to the warehouse that it's going to, and now
35:25
Speaker 1: four people that can unload all the bots from the
35:27
Speaker 1: all four sides in a very fast manner and then
35:30
Speaker 1: they can be redistributed faster, you know throughout the distribution.
35:34
Speaker 2: Wow, that's that's impressive to be able to impact these
35:41
Speaker 2: these industries, these facilities in such a profound way that
35:46
Speaker 2: is noticeable immediately. This isn't a six month ROI, this
35:50
Speaker 2: isn't a three year ROI. This is you will feel
35:53
Speaker 2: this today.
35:56
Speaker 1: Correct, It's like I said, it's it's really interesting too
35:59
Speaker 1: to see how our customers feel that value. Right again,
36:04
Speaker 1: you do have the immediate impact. You see it immediately
36:08
Speaker 1: from your dock, labor workforce, your truck driver labor workforce,
36:12
Speaker 1: the equipment that you're using, everything involved there. But the
36:15
Speaker 1: more the interesting thing for me that I love to
36:17
Speaker 1: see is how creative customers take that right and how
36:20
Speaker 1: far they take those improvements down their supply chain, because
36:23
Speaker 1: again drawing back to what I was talking about earlier
36:27
Speaker 1: about yes, you have the immediate impact on the dock
36:30
Speaker 1: and the trucks and everything else in the equipment. But
36:32
Speaker 1: now let's look at well, hey, previously we would trigger
36:37
Speaker 1: orders from the warehouse for product on a four hour
36:39
Speaker 1: window because it took so long to get product. Well,
36:43
Speaker 1: why are we still doing that with slip. Let's re
36:45
Speaker 1: look at why we do that. Let's look at how
36:47
Speaker 1: much safety stock we're holding, and so it becomes an
36:50
Speaker 1: inerative process after that of how do you drive additional
36:52
Speaker 1: value purely because of what slip unlocks. Right, one that
36:56
Speaker 1: I love to use. It is the simplest thing folks
36:59
Speaker 1: can do, and our customers, most of our customers have
37:04
Speaker 1: started doing this now as well. Is it's just an
37:07
Speaker 1: additional iteration on value for us, is you know when
37:11
Speaker 1: you are trying to dispatch products to the facility, you
37:14
Speaker 1: typically scan it to a location and then getting it
37:16
Speaker 1: into the truck, you re scan everything going into the
37:18
Speaker 1: truck to make sure everything made it right. One thing
37:22
Speaker 1: that again we don't require any integration. But one thing
37:25
Speaker 1: we unlock is you slap a barcode or a license
37:28
Speaker 1: plate on the bot as a location, and as your
37:30
Speaker 1: pickers are putting product onto the bot.
37:33
Speaker 2: You scan to that location, just a new location.
37:35
Speaker 1: Exactly, and so it's captured virtually and physically of where
37:38
Speaker 1: it is. And so rather than rescanning everything going onto
37:41
Speaker 1: the truck, you scan the three locations to that truck
37:43
Speaker 1: and it dispatches. It makes your bill of lading and
37:46
Speaker 1: your bill of material on that truck much faster. So
37:49
Speaker 1: you're not re scanning everything coming in and the same
37:51
Speaker 1: thing on the receiving side, you're not scanning every single
37:53
Speaker 1: thing coming into the plant. Scans three barcodes on the
37:56
Speaker 1: bots and everything is received at the same time.
37:59
Speaker 2: That's that's a stroke of genius. That's brilliant.
38:03
Speaker 1: And again it's it's it's so simple. I mean, it's
38:06
Speaker 1: it's so simple. It's just something we unlock. It doesn't
38:08
Speaker 1: require any system communications. It's it's as simple as depending
38:12
Speaker 1: on your w mess how easy is it to make
38:14
Speaker 1: location in your system and in slap a barcode on
38:17
Speaker 1: the bot exactly.
38:18
Speaker 2: Now you've just got this. This essentially a mobile warehouse
38:22
Speaker 2: you can have and all of these locations. That's so cool.
38:26
Speaker 2: So what other innovations do you see taking place in
38:30
Speaker 2: the next few years, either with slip or just in
38:34
Speaker 2: the industry. I mean, this is this is some interesting
38:38
Speaker 2: ways of solving problems with these robotic and automated solutions
38:44
Speaker 2: to things that we didn't think needed a solution, and
38:47
Speaker 2: now yet we have them. What's going to happen to
38:52
Speaker 2: the robotics industry, to the warehousing and production facilities? What
38:56
Speaker 2: do you see coming up?
38:59
Speaker 1: Well, I'll avoid the uh, the uh A lot of
39:03
Speaker 1: the potholes that exist today with humanoids and all the
39:05
Speaker 1: conversations there. I'll keep those aside. Like there's I have
39:08
Speaker 1: my own opinions there. But you know, from what I see,
39:11
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's always been talk about the
39:13
Speaker 1: goal to go lights out, right, everyone wants to go
39:15
Speaker 1: to a lightshouse in lights out environment. I think people
39:19
Speaker 1: think we're going to get there faster than we are.
39:21
Speaker 1: I think there's still a long ways to go before
39:23
Speaker 1: we get there. But you know, realistically, what I see
39:28
Speaker 1: the evolution of how how do we get to that point?
39:30
Speaker 1: You know, what does it take to get to that point?
39:32
Speaker 1: You know, right now in the industry, there's a lot
39:34
Speaker 1: of point solutions, right, so there's a lot of hey,
39:37
Speaker 1: we do this one thing over here in this specific
39:39
Speaker 1: corner of the warehouse, and are we do with hey
39:41
Speaker 1: we do this at the dock or whatever. Maybe, So
39:44
Speaker 1: I think what the evolution is going to look like
39:46
Speaker 1: is more so of those siloed kind of point solutions
39:50
Speaker 1: being more of an ecosystem, right, and so it's going
39:53
Speaker 1: to be innerative steps of how do you get there?
39:55
Speaker 1: But you know, I think the last decade has been
39:57
Speaker 1: about proving out that the these point solutions work independently, right, So,
40:03
Speaker 1: you know AMRS within the warehouse, you know Tot's arm picking,
40:07
Speaker 1: you know vision picking within the warehouse, you know ASRS
40:10
Speaker 1: systems and kind of automating additional answer the things around that.
40:14
Speaker 1: But what I think the next decade and beyond will
40:16
Speaker 1: start to focus on is how do you connect all
40:19
Speaker 1: of these silos from a continuous data driven flow perspective
40:23
Speaker 1: right now. Obviously there's a lot of system integrators that
40:26
Speaker 1: try to bridge that gap, but even still, it's hard
40:28
Speaker 1: to get all of these different suppliers and products to
40:32
Speaker 1: talk together and in a sensical way to where it
40:34
Speaker 1: actually does continuously drive efficiency and not create additional complexity
40:38
Speaker 1: within the system. Right. So system orchestration I think is
40:42
Speaker 1: going to be a big piece of that. And you know,
40:44
Speaker 1: for us, you know, in my opinion, DOC GOP and
40:48
Speaker 1: realistically that's there's a ton of the tension happening with
40:51
Speaker 1: trio loading and dock automation in general because it's not
40:53
Speaker 1: something that people have traditionally looked at, right, And so
40:56
Speaker 1: for me, I think that is part of that unlocking
40:59
Speaker 1: that piece to getting to that journey is you know,
41:01
Speaker 1: getting to those additional use cases that haven't traditionally had
41:04
Speaker 1: a lot of attention, and that's happening now right in
41:07
Speaker 1: my opinion. The DOC is kind of that next forefront
41:09
Speaker 1: of automation, and that's what we're going after, right. You know,
41:12
Speaker 1: we have some new things coming that I can't necessarily
41:15
Speaker 1: you know, talk about, but it's going to open up
41:18
Speaker 1: a lot of additional market for us and open up
41:21
Speaker 1: a lot of additional applications. Definitely keep your eye out
41:24
Speaker 1: early twenty twenty six. We have a lot of fun,
41:26
Speaker 1: exciting stuff coming. But you know, our vision is to
41:29
Speaker 1: make not just what we do today with the short haul,
41:31
Speaker 1: high frequency shuttle routes, but really all trucking. You know,
41:34
Speaker 1: our vision is to make you know, five minute trailer
41:36
Speaker 1: turns the industry standard, right, and so when you do that,
41:39
Speaker 1: a lot of things can change. And so you know,
41:41
Speaker 1: when you do that at scale, we're not just building robots.
41:43
Speaker 1: We're enabling faster, safer, and more resilient supply chains, which
41:47
Speaker 1: has a huge trickle effect across the entire industry itself.
41:50
Speaker 1: And realistically, I think, you know, our role over the
41:53
Speaker 1: next decade is to be that connective tissue between the
41:56
Speaker 1: automation inside the warehouse where again we're talking about an
41:59
Speaker 1: ecosystem and the transportation network on the outside of it, right,
42:02
Speaker 1: So we're kind of living in that space of being
42:05
Speaker 1: that connection piece between them both. And so I really
42:08
Speaker 1: think that's where you know where things are going to
42:10
Speaker 1: start going, is that ecosystem type approach of how we
42:14
Speaker 1: get there. There's again a lot of different ways that
42:16
Speaker 1: can happen. And there's a lot of people trying to
42:18
Speaker 1: solve that puzzle piece itself. But that's where I think
42:21
Speaker 1: the next forefront is for the industry over all.
42:24
Speaker 2: Well, thank you Mason so much for joining us today
42:28
Speaker 2: and sharing how slip Robotics is rethinking doc operations.
42:34
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it was a pleasure. Ellen and I look forward
42:36
Speaker 1: to our next conversation.
42:38
Speaker 2: It'll probably be at Modex, and I'm looking forward to
42:42
Speaker 2: seeing whatever is coming out new in early twenty twenty six.
42:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little shameless plug. You'll see the first of
42:50
Speaker 1: new product coming out Manifest, and then we have some
42:54
Speaker 1: additional coming at Modex as well. So a lot of
42:56
Speaker 1: fun stuff coming for slip pad, a.
42:58
Speaker 2: Lot to look forward to. So for our listeners, if
43:01
Speaker 2: you'd like to learn more, please check out slip robotics
43:04
Speaker 2: dot com or come and see us at Modex or Manifest.
43:07
Speaker 2: You'll be able to see how a five minute deployment
43:10
Speaker 2: could transform your warehouse. Until next time, thanks to our
43:14
Speaker 2: listeners for tuning in. Please follow and subscribe on whichever
43:19
Speaker 2: podcast platform you prefer and keep innovating at the edge
43:23
Speaker 2: of supply chain.