Juan Carlos Croston

At MODEX 2026 in Atlanta, Scott Luton caught up with Mike Harris, VP of OMRS at Ocado Intelligent Automation, to explore how robotics, software, and evolving customer expectations are reshaping modern warehouse operations. While robots may grab the spotlight, Harris makes it clear: the real value lies beneath the surface, as in the intelligence that powers them.   Rising Expectations and the Cost-to-Serve Challenge Warehouse operators are under increasing pressure from both ends of the supply chain. Costs continue to climb, while customer expectations are rising just as quickly. “Cost to serve is continuing to increase and customers expect things faster and completely accurate” Harris explains. This dynamic creates a constant balancing act. Organizations must improve speed and accuracy while controlling costs, a challenge that requires more than incremental improvements. It demands smarter, more adaptive systems.   Flexibility and Long-Term Thinking Take Center Stage In today’s volatile environment, Harris sees a clear shift in how companies approach automation investments. “We’re finding that customers are looking to invest in technologies and partners that they want to stay with for a while,” he notes. Rather than chasing one-off solutions, organizations are prioritizing long-term partnerships and scalable platforms that can evolve with their…

Stay in the loop with Supply Chain Now! We’ve got all the latest episodes, interviews, conversations, and livestreams from this week right here. On Monday, we released 2 new episodes! On Supply Chain Now, hosts Scott Luton and Ben Harris welcomed two bold and innovative CEOs to the podcast: Cloe Guidry-Reed with Hire Ground and Pierre Laguerre with Fleeting. On This Week in Business History, guest host Kelly Barner remembers key innovations, inventions, and firsts that took place between April 12th and the 16th, including Metallica’s legal stand against Napster, the relative advantages and costs of the Pony Express and postage stamps, and two ‘Titanic’ operations – the RMS Titanic and McDonald’s Inc. On Tuesday, we released 2 new episodes. On this episode of Logistics with Purpose, powered in partnership with Vector Global Logistics, our hosts Scott Luton, Enrique Alvarez, and Kevin Brown sat down with Good360 CEO Matt Connelly to learn more about delivering goods – and good – in the era of disruption, globalization, and digitization. On TECHquila Sunrise, host Greg White sat down with Peter Stangeland, Chief Commercial Officer of DB Schenker, to talk about the exciting progress his teams have made in clearing the path to…