Warehouse Automation and Sustainability With Kim Baudry From Dematic - Ep. 21

No initiative is an island—and that includes sustainability. By implementing efficiency-boosting changes like automation, your business will also limit its carbon footprint. Kim Baudry, market development director at Dematic, explains how automation helps people, profits, and the planet.

Sustainability, labor, and automation

Because labor is a resource, sustainability includes making people’s jobs physically and mentally easier.

Kim explains, “Automation brings everything to the level where you're not bending, you're not lifting. It can reduce the amount of time that you're walking back and forth. … We have to think about how we're treating [people] so we can retain and attract them.”

How software helps

Warehouse automation isn’t all robotics; software plays an essential role. As Kim puts it, “Good software creates efficiencies in operations. When you have inventory tied to where it needs to be and where it needs to go, you're spending less time, which means less energy. You should be able to take up less space, and you have higher accuracy on your order. All of those things are good for sustainability.”

Balancing the costs and benefits of eco-friendly practices

Is sustainability worth the cost? According to Kim, the answer is an unequivocal yes—when you look at the big picture. “It's a gut reaction to go, oh my gosh, this is going to cost me a lot of money. But you really have to look at the long term. If [automation] benefits your people, you're going to have a more stable workforce. You can avoid getting more space. If you can cube your trucks, you have fewer trucks on the road, fewer expenses.”

Links

• Connect with Kim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimjbaudry/ 
• Visit Dematic’s website: https://www.dematic.com/en-us/