Warehouse automation is on the rise – the use of technology like artificial intelligence to overhaul business processes for cost savings and significantly higher output is becoming increasingly apparent, but so is a major stumbling block to their success.
What stands in the way? The warehouse workers originally helped to grow companies and keep their warehouses operating well. That doesn’t mean these workers need to be discarded. Far from it, executives who don’t look after these employees and involve them with every step of the automation process put the fate of such million-dollar investments in danger.
Business leaders have a challenge on their hands with overcoming workers’ resistance to automation. Forty percent, or just shy of half, of employees surveyed have a negative view of this transformative technology, as noted in a recent article by Business Reporter.
Opposition to warehouse automation can take many forms, including concerns among employees about not being able to use the technology, which leads to fears of job losses and an overall reduction in morale. Other staffers might view the push for automation as an implicit negative comment on the quality of their work, further imperilling morale.
That doesn’t mean this 40 percent figure will never budge. Indeed, some solutions can help companies not only achieve their primary goals with efficiency and other benefits of automation but also retain a happy and productive human workforce as well.
Pursuing such an approach is a vital step with such transformative projects, particularly as a SelectHub article says that warehouse automation will only keep rising in demand.
READ: MOVING TO MACH
Consulting is key
Far too often, company executives take an insular approach to massive spending projects like warehouse automation. This approach of thinking they know best results in top-down directives where such changes are imposed on lower levels of businesses rather than integrated.
And the difference between integration and imposition can make or break efforts to automate warehouses. In a report, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company told of a consumer good business that tried to launch a $150 million warehouse automation that goes largely unused, creating a massive waste of money. The reason? Workers were not engaged in the planning.
Take all the factors together – the interest in warehouse automation, the significant wariness among workforces, and the “I know best” mentality of executives – and it’s clear that whatever approach many companies are currently taking on this issue simply isn’t working.
The answer to this complicated dilemma could be appointing a change manager.
What does a change manager do? This can be a third-party consultant that companies bring in to help plan their warehouse automation project by relying on a series of key concepts that have been proven to make such efforts viable rather than another failed spending spree.
Change managers can oversee every aspect of a warehouse automation project and ensure that truly every voice in the workforce is heard; from the CEO down to the warehouse employees that will be expected to learn and adjust to working with robotics.
Getting the input of these workers and others is crucial to guarantee that an automation project will work. They want to feel that their voices count, and they will desire the opportunity to ask questions about the potentially huge upheaval they face in their daily work lives.
READ: CARGO HANDLING: FROM TRUCK TO TAKEOFF
Engaging for the future
When companies involve everyone at every level in warehouse automation planning, it boosts morale by making the project feel like a shared responsibility business-wide.
This, in turn, has the promise of making it more likely that the warehouse workers will strive to make the technology achieve everything it was designed to do and that they are energised to be a part of something that promises transformative, positive change for the business.
Given that warehouse workers are on the frontlines of every process that happens in storage, they can also provide invaluable insights to a third-party consultant, helping to craft an automation strategy that genuinely accounts for the needs of all members of a company.
Indeed, the efficiencies promised by warehouse automation can result in greater profits and stronger sales, which leads to happier, more productive workforces.
There are more than 1.5 million people employed in the storage and warehouse industry, according to the Business Reporter article. Changing this important demographic’s perception of automation from 40 percent negative to 100 percent positive will take time, and it will take thoughtful, organization-wide effort by company leaders to make it a reality.
The good news? With the right project manager, anything is possible.
The post Overlooking key staff can imperil ambitious automation efforts appeared first on Air Cargo Week.
