Warehouses lack agility necessary to respond to unplanned disruptions and are paying a high cost as a result, according to market study insights released from Lucas Systems, a distribution center technology company providing software to workers in more than 400 warehouses worldwide.

In the study, more than half (51%) of U.S. supply chain executives said their automation systems are unprepared to deal with unforeseen changes, new requirements and disruptions that are happening.  And warehouses haven’t done what it takes to be adaptable as 77% of respondents admit that at least half of their hardware or software systems are too rigid to meet need for responding to unplanned disruptions.

Supply chain executives are paying the price for lack of agility. About 60% of those who reported rigidity say they’ve incurred between 11%-25% additional operating costs or losses from lack of automation adaptability when dealing with disruptions or new requirements.

The study, conducted by Lucas Systems in partnership with Wakefield Research, polled 114 U.S.-based supply chain executives to examine the nature of their automation adaptability.

Disruptions such as system downtime, equipment failure, labor shortages and unexpected demand spikes can paralyze a warehouse. The rate of these disruptions does not appear to be slowing down. The study showed that 85% of respondents experienced up to 10 significant, unplanned disruptions in just the past year. And another 7% experienced more than 10 of these disruptions. 

About 51% of the study’s respondents report more unplanned operational disruptions than three years ago in the aftermath of COVID.

Other insights from the market study:

• 86% of supply chain executives said adaptable warehouse tech is critical
•  72% of those surveyed said it would take considerable effort to reconfigure their automation in response to disruption
• More than 1 in 4 (26%) of survey respondents said adaptable automation helped reduce their operational costs by more than 25%.

About Lucas Systems
Create a dynamic distribution center operation with Lucas Systems. We harness the power of data with AI, Machine Learning, speech recognition, and optimization models to drive operational agility and improved distribution center performance.