Third Wave Automation is back from a packed week at CSCMP Edge 2022 in Nashville! Between three speaking engagements and a booth sponsorship, we’ve come away from the show with new friendships, partnerships, conversations and a lot to think about. But more than ever, with the realization and confirmation that now more than ever, a flexible automation solution is what the industry needs from its solution providers.
CSCMP (acronym standing for “Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals”), although not new to the supply chain trade show circuit, has evolved through the years from a deep focus on academia as it relates to supply chain to attracting more and more in-field professionals seeking solutions to their supply chain issues. This being Third Wave’s first Edge show, it kicked off touting just under 3000 individuals in attendance. We quickly learned that although Third Wave was new to the scene, the demand for a solution and product like ours had been asked for since before Third Wave was founded in 2018.
So what does Third Wave Automation do and what sets us apart? The short answer is we create multimode forklift trucks that focus on shared and collaborative autonomy. But what sets us apart? The flexibility of our multimode forklifts, key word being “multimode”. By no means are autonomous mobile robots new to the supply chain scene, and by no means will any fully autonomous solution provider tell you that technology is at where it needs to be to run fully autonomously 100% of the time. That’s where “multimode” comes in. With Third Wave’s products you get to decide how to operate your fleet of forklifts with the options of fully autonomous, remote operation, remote assistance or manually.
We kicked off day two with dual speaking sessions, “Forklift Automation 101: A Fireside Chat with GEODIS on Innovation and Automation” and the much talked about panel, “The Future of Warehousing: Human and Robot Collaboration” some key takeaways from each of those sessions:
- Supply chain visibility appears to be a major focus area, between standalone software platforms to WMS providers highlighting their capabilities, especially coming out of Covid. There’s still a long way to go to providing holistic visibility – we need to find simple and meaningful ways to bring along the independent drivers and small carriers.
- Warehouses remain complicated, if not chaotic, environments. As a result flexibility is still King, and flexible automation, in turn, has quickly become Queen.
- CSCMP Edge’s panel discussions were a hit this year and we believe for years to come. We expect next year’s Edge to have a continued focus on robotics application in the warehouse space, with introducing concepts focused on systems orchestration beyond what the current marketplace offers.
Additionally, a recurring concept in the automation world is robots taking jobs from people. That adage is falling by the wayside, today and into the future, at least as it concerns manufacturing and warehouses. The operations team reality is that finding enough employees to fulfill the throughput demands is a day to day struggle. Many operations leaders have been stuck between a rock and a hard place – either sit on multiple staffing calls per day or implement rigid automation. With Third Wave Automation, this is not the case. We realize the struggle in facilities with high turnover rate in employees. Third Wave Automation works as an extension of your workforce. Multiplying human potential by maximizing your forklift potential and ability to manage a whole fleet of forklifts versus your traditional 1:1 ratio with traditional manual forklifts and RC only solutions. Interested in learning more about Third Wave Automation and what our multimode forklifts can do for you?
Written by Amel Ali