#8 – Parth Pethani

Mark Taylor:

Welcome back to Supply Chain Saga. Joining me today is Parth Pethani, founder of warehouserobotics.com. As a mechanical engineer by trade, Parth has been involved in warehousing and warehouse automation for the last 10 years. His pragmatic approach to designing robot enabled warehouses shines through as he sits down and helps me begin to understand the step-by-step thought process needed to automate your warehouse. Let’s dive in.
And we’re live. Welcome.

Parth Pethani:

Thank you.

Mark Taylor:

So, how about you start by introducing yourself, and just tell us a little bit about what it is you do and how you got to where you are today?

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, I would love to.
Hello everyone. My name is Parth Pethani. I am a mechanical engineer by education, but I just completed a decade in the warehousing technology space.
If you have to sum up my last 10 years in the warehouse technology space, the way I look at it is, imagine a three circle Venn diagram. First circle, representing your typical industrial engineer, mechanical engineering skills, capabilities. Second circle being your WMS, enterprise software consulting. So, designing, configuring and implementing. Then final circle being your solution designing for robotics.
So, imagine these three circles intersecting at one point, that’s where I thrive. So, the last 10 years has been pretty much that. The last few years have been very much focused on robotic space. I have started a website called whserobotics.com. I do constantly post on LinkedIn. I try to educate the industry about how to enable robots in the warehouse, because I think that’s where the knowledge gap exists.
So, yeah. That’s who I am. I’m trying to design robot-forward warehouses and just help enable the knowledge gap that exists.

Mark Taylor:

Okay. So, if I understand, it’s your typical mechanical engineering path, and then you for a while went off into the WMS. Which for anybody not aware, it’s the warehouse management system path, so really enabled on the software side. And then the last one, which has been, what? Really the last 10 years, has been all about automation. And how to take, really, I mean, warehouses from being a more manual situation to being more efficient, helping us deal with the worker shortages and things like that.

Parth Pethani:

Yup. So, started software… In the world, started as a software, but then moved to hardware.

Mark Taylor:

Yes. Yeah. Makes sense.

Parth Pethani:

It’s a combination of my undergrad, if you will. So, in undergrad I used to build robots and stuff like that. Like, oh, I need to find a place to use them. And eventually the robotics wave hit the warehousing space, and I’m like, “Yeah, I think this is where I should go.”

Mark Taylor:

Wow, that’s cool. So what kind of robots were you building when you were in college?

Parth Pethani:

So I made a line follower, which is like typical AGVs in today’s world, where they have a magnetic field and it follows the line.

Mark Taylor:

And an AGV is automated-

Parth Pethani:

guided vehicle.

Mark Taylor:

… guided vehicle.

Parth Pethani:

Yes. Automated guided vehicle. So I made line followers. It was a small bot that I made then. Light follower, so it follows a specific light. And then also a wall follower, so whatever the wall is. It’s a different version of a line follower robot. But yeah, made those small bots, never found a use case, if you will. That was back in late 2000s. And I found a use case for that.
And then suddenly, post 2015, 2016, that’s where the robots, I think, hit the warehousing industry. Because, the Amazon Kiva acquisition happened in 2012. And then after that, I think people started seeing the benefits of robots and started thinking about it, not implementing, but at least thinking about it.

Mark Taylor:

Well, the interesting thing is, is, I mean, you had robotic companies born out of Amazon taking over Kiva and not supporting those warehouses anymore-

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yep, that’s exactly, Locus, right?

Mark Taylor:

Yup. That’s what happened with Locus. I saw a fascinating chart, I think it was in the middle of the pandemic, but basically for a long, long time, robots did not equal employees at Amazon. And then around 2019, they basically equaled, they hit the breakeven where it’s like number of robots was the same as the number of humans, human capital there, and laborers. Then it just goes exponential where robots outnumber people by so much.

Parth Pethani:

There’s the value in it, right? So I have family who works in warehousing, right. So I have family who works in Amazon warehouses. I know how much they work, I know how much hard work they do. So I feel like robots definitely help them when… Compared to like less working, less sortation, for example, just pushing a conveyor. So, I have a family member who basically works in a warehouse where they push cartons on a conveyor belt, right? And those are heavy cartons, typically like 20 pounds cartons. They keep pushing it. And at the end of the day, their hands are pretty much tired, and I feel like… I wish I have a solution for that. I wish we had a solution for that. Because at the end, the human is the most MVP, right? They’re the MVP for our warehouses.
So I feel like these robots are definitely going to help them. And I would like to have a healthy debate when someone says, replacing. No, it’s not replacing, it’s more of benefiting them.

Mark Taylor:

It’s augmentation.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. Augmentation.

Mark Taylor:

And I think I’ve spoken to people who are far smarter than I am on this, and the conversation always comes, it’s like, “We have to have robots to keep up.” Like it’s just, it’s not… The workforce isn’t there for the jobs that we needed to be done. And then of course, I mean, fewer and fewer… I think BJ Patterson says this, he says, “Remove the suck-

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, that’s certainly what they say. That’s correct.

Mark Taylor:

… out of the job.” And so it’s like, really the robots and the putting automation into warehouses is what that’s all about.
Now, as I think, when you’re a large company, you can experiment, you can figure out best practices, you can do all these sorts of things. And I think there’s, to quote BJ Patterson again, it’s like, you don’t automate for the sake of automation when you’re a smaller player. When you really have to watch your balance sheet, where you deploy your cash and things like that, you have to be a lot more intentional about things.
And what I’ve also noticed from my own perspective in the warehouse, and this is something that we’re really focusing on this year, is I personally am convinced that we are not using our WMS to its full capabilities. And that WMS has got little algorithms and things like that, you know, what… Basically AI-

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, that’s true.

Mark Taylor:

… that’s really helping to route. And it’s recognizing patterns. And like, “Okay, well this is here.” And you put away functions. And most people aren’t using that.

Parth Pethani:

You just said a gold nugget, right? So WMS has a lot of potential even before thinking of robotics. WMS’s, good warehouse management systems, are so well-trained, they have been in business for at least 20 plus years now. If you think about [inaudible 00:07:30], one player started in 1990s, they have 30 years of experience behind them and lot of others, tier one, tier two, tier three WMSs have come up and all are solving the same problem, like having an enterprise software solution for four walls of the warehouse. So, everyone has their niche, everyone has their capabilities. So I feel like lot of operators, if you will, needs to really explore and exploit their WMS systems because I feel like they forget that it has more power even before a robotics. So for example, you mentioned about put away.
So there is another functionality called slotting, right? You can slot your warehouse, pick path areas or pick areas in such a way that you didn’t reduce your working, which is definitely helpful because eventually that’s what AMRs are going to do. Autonomous Mobile Robot like Locus or 60 where is helping you with your pick path improvements and reducing your time to complete that. So WMS has that power. So WMS also has a power with batching. For example, when I think about batching or people are also used to the term called waving. Waving or batch is when you have a pool of orders that you batch together and send it for picking, a lot of warehouses don’t do that right now. A lot of warehouses are doing discreet order picking or cluster order picking, which means that you have a cart, you have a cart can, let’s say, do 16 totes and 16 totes represents… One tote represents one order.
So at the time you’re only picking 16 orders, that’s cluster picking. You push the cart, you’re in your pick path, and at the end of the pick path, you go to the pack station, you have a 16 orders that you pack it. But then there is another concept on top of that. It’s called wave picking or batch picking. Basically you cluster all those 16 orders into one tote and then just have a sort after the picking side, which can really reduce your travel time or reduce how many locations you visit, but at the same time increase your throughput as well. So there are many opportunities. I would, and I’ve been very vocal about this, there are many opportunities to explore even before going to the robotics path.

Mark Taylor:

And even as you’re speaking here and I mean telling me about these things, I’m like, “Yeah, we’re not using all those.” And to your point, as I understand what you’re saying, your batch picking just says, “Okay, we’re going to go after these 16 orders. And so the person, your picker may be going in through the same aisle more than once.” So they pick one order and that takes them to three aisles and then they pick the second order and it might take them back to the first aisle. Whereas your wave picking is, if I understand correctly, that’s saying, “Okay, every order in your 2000 orders that are pending that has this particular SKU in this location, you need to pick 102 of these items.”

Parth Pethani:

Correct. What is your cart capacity? So for 2000 orders, if my cart can only do hundred units, I go and create a task which will have one cart assigned to get to that one location and pick up a hundred units. And then once that pickup is done, now you need to marry the order. You need to create the order, which is, I say sought. So what happens is once you pick this order, let’s say, let’s take a smaller example, let’s say 10 orders, right? 10 orders. Each of them have two SKUs on them. So, we are looking at 20 SKUs. For example, for this 20 SKU, you are revisiting five locations to get this 20 SKU. So, five locations, so you do five walks, five carts, all those five carts come at the sort location, which is typical put wall or some or a put table or something like that.
You come to that sort and now you actually create the order there or marry the order there. People call it order consolidation. People call order creation or sorting mechanism or anything like that. But you need to add that sort because you are doing batch picking, right? There are pros and cons to each and everything. So with warehousing that the thing that I learned in last 10 years is a heuristic. It’s a iteration. There is no silver bullet to anything in warehouse. So free picking can work for some clients, whereas for some client doesn’t make sense because you’re adding a sought. I have seen wave picking very famous or very highly adopted in a cosmetic. So cosmetic clients using wave picking, have a put wall because their SKUs are smaller and it really works with them. So again, with batch comes a sought, that’s an additional touch, but that additional touch is taken away or the additional touch that you’d add is not that much because you’re saving so much on working.
So that’s how you have to think. And again, I have a graph I’ll share it with you where I try to plot on based on the SKU diversity, the volume, other volume, how actually you should be thinking about what solution. So batch picking, cluster picking, pick assist AMR or goes two person solution or variety of solutions out there. So yeah, it’s a heuristic. There’s no silver bullet.

Mark Taylor:

Of course. But I think the main point that I take away from this, the last few minutes is that everything we just discussed is typically within the WMS already.

Parth Pethani:

Yes.

Mark Taylor:

And you can design without, before you go to any kind of automation like that. So-

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah. And so the big thing is, I think especially for smaller operators like myself, is we want to make sure that you’re fully utilizing the tools that you already have.Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yes.

Mark Taylor:

And then those are free, it just takes a little bit of elbow grease.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. That’s true. And actually you make a solid point. And that’s something that we personally… People that I’ve been talking to are like, “Are you sure your WMS is optimized? Are you using all your capabilities?” Because each of those clients, for example, there are companies, tier twos, WMS provider who is very good at managing multi-tenant warehouses or multi that is typically if you’re an operator, smaller operator or just starting out, you try to take all the clients that you get, just give me anything I want to ship for you, right?

Mark Taylor:

Of course.

Parth Pethani:

At that point, a typical stand standalone out of the box tier one, or of course you won’t have tier one at that point, but let’s say you have a tier one WMS, they’re not the best at multi-tenant. That’s not their niche because the tier one WMS are like super… Can handle any super automated warehouses. So whereas there are clients that are WMS who are specifically focused on that niche where, “Hey guys, you have multi-tenant warehouse, my WMS can handle that. I’ll make sure that your multi-tenant warehouses are pretty solid. You have the capabilities that you need and we will help you out with that.” So to your point, yes, it takes learning, but I feel like if you are ready to invest some dollars in automation, I think use that dollars and invest on just learning the WMS you have. Some of them.

Mark Taylor:

Okay. So I think that’s excellent advice and a good segue before we jump ahead, I think it’s an interesting point to make where it’s like… So we do multi-tenant warehouses. I mean, you could almost view the number of customers we have under on a given set of square footage is very, very, very high compared to something like Manhattan or something like that would never work. I mean, it would work, it would just be incredibly inefficient and get terrible use of capital.

Parth Pethani:

Correct? Yes.

Mark Taylor:

Because you have to go through multi-step processes to answer hundreds of questions.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

And stipulations and this and that and what if then statements and really sort those things out for each customer.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

Whereas, so in our warehouse right now, we use the artist formerly known as 3pl central. So now that’s-

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. Okay.

Mark Taylor:

Now called extensive. And it’s great because I mean we can onboard our clients in hours and we just have it and we know we need this set of data, we have the forms created, if the customer can provide us with it, we can get them onboarded very, very quickly.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. And that’s the thing with… As I was saying, the niche, right? Because you cannot imagine that easy way to onboard a client in a tier one warehouse, right?

Mark Taylor:

Of course.

Parth Pethani:

So WMS, it’ll take so much time. I need EDIs ready, I need translations ready, XML based. So, many other layers that go into for tier one WMS versus someone who is very niche in multi-tenant warehousing space.

Mark Taylor:

But the other piece of that though is, I mean, the people using the tier one systems have sometimes a million plus square feet designated to one single customer.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yes. And so my experience with tier one WMS has been with Manhattan Associates and from my limited experience with them, most of the clients that we were engaged with, it was pretty much retailers. So, if you’re a retailer, your warehouse is dedicated to yourself, right?

Mark Taylor:

Correct.

Parth Pethani:

So it makes sense to invest in technology to make sure you are getting the best use of your capital.

Mark Taylor:

Yes.

Parth Pethani:

Because at the end it helps with profitability. Profitability, right? So, agree to your point that mostly clients are single tenant warehouses for tier one.

Mark Taylor:

Yes. So back to that segue. So moving forward, let’s say an operator is making good use of… They’re in that nice sweet spot where they’re utilizing their WMS. Maybe they’re not using all the functionality, but they’re using all the functionality that’s necessary for their operation. And they’re saying, “Okay, we want to start looking at some places to invest.” And I think this is an interesting conversation now because two or three years ago, capital was flowing everywhere and then now it’s a very, very capital constrained environment. So I think operators, we all were probably very, very focused on what to deploy and when to deploy it. But now you have no choice. And so if you’re going to use those precious dollars to reinvest in your operation, how do we move forward? What do you do? And especially, I’m thinking, let’s say, I don’t know if you can really think of it this way, but let’s say you’ve got… Let’s try to parse it into a 100,000 to 300,000, 300,000 to 750 and then 750 to a couple million.

Parth Pethani:

Okay. So that’s actually very challenging question. Let me think that… So-

Mark Taylor:

Well look, you understand that-

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. I get it. And I think, so the way I would go with this first making some assumptions, the first assumption I’ll make is it is a brownfield implementation, right? Because you’re an operator, you already have a warehouse, you already are fine-tuning a WMS. So I would imagine that to be a brownfield implementation. So when you have a brownfield implementation, when it comes to automation space, there are solutions out there who can pretty much come into any warehouse and help you set up. But we to think about the invasive score. That’s something I always think about. How invasive is that technology to my operations because it’s a greenfield… Sorry, brownfield operations. If it was a greenfield operation, I can put anything and I know if it’s the right technology, it’ll work.
But if it’s a brownfield operations, I have to balance shipping my orders versus making sure the technology I’m investing, be WMS, be robotics is actually not invasive to the level that I stop shipping my orders. So for example, if you’re talking about this is within the operator space, a brownfield implementation, I would prefer to have a technology, a robotics technology, which is less invasive to my operations. That way the simple solutions that come to my mind are pick assist AMRs, right? Autonomous mobile robots which are pick assist, they basically… They follow the human being in their pick path and reduce walking little bit.

Mark Taylor:

That would be something like a six river system?

Parth Pethani:

Locus, [inaudible 00:20:00]. Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Locus.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yeah. And any pick assist AMR, I think the help with them is they’re easy to install compared to easy to install. They do not really… Are invasive to your facility. Of course for any implementation, there are changes needs to be done, but they’re not to the level where you will hurt your shipping orders, right? Because at the end, as an operator, you make money when the ship order is out of your warehouse.

Mark Taylor:

Of course.

Parth Pethani:

So that’s the first approach I will take of thinking about assuming my… It’s a brownfield implementation, assuming this is fine to WMS, next step I would do is that I’ll start looking at pick assist AMRs to reduce my picking. So the reason we always focus on picking is, and you know it very well is picking is the most cost… I would say cost invasive operation in your warehouse.
It takes you to 55 to 65% of your cost is going from picking. So that’s why everyone is so focused on solving the picking problem. Amazon had a competition called the picking problem, picking challenge. So that’s very important. So that’s why pick assist AMR can really help you with your picking side of the world because that’s where you start really and start working on it. Now, going to the next step is if you have a good project team who can really plan out the execution of let’s say, goods to person solution, be it geek plus or AutoStore, or I would say AutoStore is a cubed AS/RS, right? That’s what they call it too.

Mark Taylor:

It’s a-

Parth Pethani:

Cube AS/RS or Automated Storage/Retrieval System.

Mark Taylor:

Okay.

Parth Pethani:

But that’s how I call it, I’m not sure AutoStore [inaudible 00:21:47] to it, but it’s a cube one. So, it’s like a cube, right? So it goes vertical-

Mark Taylor:

Sounds like a fancy marketing term for a goods to person picking.

Parth Pethani:

So that’s a cube AS/RS. And then you have a typical good superset solution like geek plus or gray engines of the world where Kiva systems, basically you bring a shelf to a picker and the picker just picks it and puts in a eight… I think eight totes that they have basically eight to 12 totes. So yeah, if you have a good execution plan, good team who can really plan out that execution without being invasive to your operations, that would be the next step to look at it. That, hey, does it make sense? In all this, you have to understand your SKUs cannot be like a home improvement solution. You cannot have… Your SKUs have to really fit into it. So that’s an assumption we should have. I should have clarified in the beginning, SKUs fit into your robots that you’re designing. WMS is fine-tuned and also it’s a Brownfield implementation.

Mark Taylor:

Just for clarification, because it wasn’t that long ago that I didn’t understand what Brownfield versus Greenfield or anything like that. Brownfield is an existing operation that you were trying to expand within the operation.

Parth Pethani:

Yes. Change something into the operation.

Mark Taylor:

Okay.

Parth Pethani:

Basically it’s a working site.

Mark Taylor:

Yes.

Parth Pethani:

Change something at the operation. Basically, it’s a working site.

Mark Taylor:

Yes. Yeah. And then for clarification, in the brownfield operation, you are making the assumption that it has, to your point, you said the invasive score.

Parth Pethani:

Yep.

Mark Taylor:

So it’s assuming that the operation, you don’t have 20,000 square feet off in the distance in the side of the warehouse completely unoccupied.

Parth Pethani:

Usually, you wouldn’t have it. If you’re a small operator, you want to just occupy all those spaces.

Mark Taylor:

Everything. So you’re using all your square footage, and so the autonomous-

Parth Pethani:

The AMR system.

Mark Taylor:

The pick assisting, autonomous mobile robots, AMRs, those are easy. I mean, they kind of look like Segways, some of them look like Segways, but they run around your warehouse. They’ve got a track, you lay a track over on the concrete, whatever it may be.

Parth Pethani:

They have a QR code on each aisle that they read. And just basically, during the installation phase, they come out and map the whole navigation, and then they put a QR code on each aisle.

Mark Taylor:

Right, yeah. And so that’s not very invasive because really, at the end of the day, it’s like once you go through the process of getting QR codes put up and getting your WMS fine-tuned, which can all be done without doing anything on the floor, except for the actual QR codes, these things just start walking. I mean, they start moving around, and then it’s like another person’s just walking.

Parth Pethani:

Yep, yep.

Mark Taylor:

So that’s the least invasive, typically.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

And then because it’s like the other thing, as you think about it, and it doesn’t even have to be an automated warehouse, but let’s, for instance, say that you were just doing normal forklift aisles and you wanted to get more utilization out of your existing floor plan, and so you decide that you can go from 12 foot aisles to 10 and a half foot aisles, which-

Parth Pethani:

VNA, six feet.

Mark Taylor:

VNA or whatever it may be.

Parth Pethani:

Yep.

Mark Taylor:

That’s going to require you unloading complete rows of racking, putting them really tightly and down on each other and everything like that. Very, very invasive to the operation, and it’s not something you typically in a warehouse are going to be able to do over a weekend.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Mark Taylor:

Or shut it down for a while. And then the other thing, you can’t shut down your orders-

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

… for your customers.

Parth Pethani:

And that’s the biggest challenge, right? Because you do not wait for right robot solution before you start shipping orders.

Mark Taylor:

Right.Parth Pethani:

I need to ship orders, I need to make a revenue before even I can think about anything else.

Mark Taylor:

And then there are even, I believe, aren’t there are even intermittent things. So it’s like if you go all the way back to utilizing the WMS to its maximum and doing the batch picking or the wave picking, whatever it may be, then you can also start to … Maybe that’s you’re picking everything to a shelf, or maybe what you’re doing is you’ve got a pick wall where it’s like you put your SKUs in there, and all of a sudden the lights start popping up and things like that. So that’s something where you just have to make the space, and you put it on the wall.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Plug it in.

Parth Pethani:

Exactly. Yep. So that’s batch plus sought, that’s what I used to call it, batch plus sought. That’s easy comparatively. If it doesn’t work, you can still always go back to your cluster picking, put the orders on the cart and just work the floor. Even with Pick Assist AMRs, if my AMR doesn’t work, that’s great. I can still have my carts and still walk the floor and finish my order. At the end of the day, my FedEx, my UPS, USPS trucks will have orders that they will take.

Mark Taylor:

Correct. And I think it’s important to identify all these things because I don’t know how many operators out there think that it’s just moving to, looks like a Tesla factory immediately where it’s got mobile robot arms and doing this sort of thing. But there are lots of intermittent steps and stone-

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, 100%. So I’ll give you an example. The very first project that we took was a multi-tenant warehouse. It was the operators … To their benefit, this was the new business. They’re just trying to help different e-commerce brands start with shipping because they had challenges as well, and they didn’t realize the concept of slotting where, let’s say for example, if it’s a multi-tenant warehouse, it’s good to give prime real estate, which is close to your packing stations to, let’s say, your prime customers. You have 10 customers in your warehouse. I’m pretty sure there are out of 10. You have two which are very good to you in terms of revenue. You want to give them a prime real estate.

Mark Taylor:

Great. Pareto principle 80/20.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. So you want to give them the primary estate, whereas you want to keep them all together at the same time so you don’t have to waste too much time to fulfill their orders. I’ve been to a warehouse where clients were just scattered around everywhere, let’s say, for example, client A will have aisle one, but at the same time client A will have aisle 10 as well. So if I’m picking something from aisle one, I have to walk all the way to aisle 10 to complete that order. So as an IE, the very first step I’ll do is I’ll slot the whole warehouse. I’ll tell you how many aisles, how many bays, how many bins, how many locations goes to this client, this client, and this client. So that way your pick path improves really well. You’re still pushing the order, but still improves a lot.

Mark Taylor:

And this is primarily going to work in a warehouse that is almost exclusively designated for direct-to-consumer shipping because when you start adding in the complexity of pallet in, pallet out, and then you just need to put pallets where there are pallet spaces, you’re not going to want to have two or three aisles that have got 30 spaces for a few days empty. You’re just going to put them up where you can put them up.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yeah. So I should have clarified. The use case that I was explaining was pretty much for e-commerce brand. So they were e-commerce brand, and they were shipping order to customers directly. Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Okay. Just a subtle point. And because a lot of the warehouses, I think a lot of the more successful warehouses that are on the small/medium-sized, we were trying to go after a blended. We don’t want to be 100% direct to consumer, and we don’t want to be 100% pallet in, pallet out. That’s just me, and I’m not saying that … There are some very, very successful operators out there that are just doing trans loading or cross docking.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yep.

Mark Taylor:

Just doing pallet in, pallet out. So that’s not to say that those people don’t exist, but a lot of the operators I speak with are trying to do a blended strategy.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

So-

Parth Pethani:

It’s good to fit in both the sides. Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

A little bit of diversity.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah, exactly. Diversification, I should say. So if you jump ahead or jump back to where we were, so you’ve showed these people how to slot, let’s start assigning some … What are the percentage? How do we evaluate the returns in all of these things? So let’s just start from a very basic just operation, just somebody’s flying by the seat of their pants, and then let’s say you do bay, excuse me, batching or wave picking or whatever it may be, and then what are the returns like in that from an efficiency perspective?

Parth Pethani:

So I’ll give you an example, and I might be everywhere, but I want to give you some examples to answer that question. And again, I’m starting with robotics, but I’ll go into smaller details as well. So for a typical cluster picking, you have a UPH for a decent site warehouse, not a small one, but a decent site warehouse. You have a UPH, unit per hour for picking, usually around 60 units per hour.
As a picker, you are picking something one unit per day, one unit per hour, one unit per minute as you’re walking the floor, right? 60 UPH is, what, 60, 65 UPH. On a good day you can hit 70, 75 if your orders are very much condensed in a small area. But people start with 60 UPH as a baseline. And then if you look at EPIC Assist AMRs to start doing that, doing the similar job, you can easily double that or triple that. One of the implementations that I did, on a peak day, we hit 180 UPH, which is three times our baseline, which was 60 UPH. But on an average, we were hitting 120, 130 UPH.

Mark Taylor:

And this is the basic, not very invasive …

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, Locus or 60 systems or something like that, right?

Mark Taylor:

So two to three times productivity?

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yeah, two to three times. And you you’ll see case studies out there. For example, DHL is very vocal about Locus. You have lot of case studies outside. They pretty much show that two to three X improvement on their pick rates, which is great. So that’s one of the examples to use. But at the same time, warehousing is all about, I would say time, time. Time game. It’s a time game, right? And that’s in industry, too. Everything is about time.
So at the end, what happens is if you do anything that helps you save time, you can pretty much improve any KPI. So for example, let’s say you are using [inaudible 00:32:14] on your packing stations, [inaudible 00:32:16] methodology on your packing station to make sure everything is labeled, everything is in the right place. You can reduce your packing time by almost 20%, 30%, right? That’s right. Their savings, which because it improves your packing UPH, which means you have more orders that they can push out. So in the end, it’s all about time.

Mark Taylor:

So now it’s like you go from 60 units per hour to, let’s say, 66 or even 72 units per hour?

Parth Pethani:

Correct, yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Picked.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, picked and packed. Right? So I don’t have a good answer, if you will, for how each step improves because there are variations about how big is your warehouse, what are the SKUs you’re doing-

Mark Taylor:

Of course.

Parth Pethani:

… what kind of orders you’re doing. Is it single line, single unit orders, or is it multi-unit orders? There are different variations. Is it a peak season? It’s not a peak season. Is it something like Justin Bieber crocks, or it is not something like that because-

Mark Taylor:

What’s your replenishment strategy? Everything.

Parth Pethani:

Correct, yes.

Mark Taylor:

How many people do you have?

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. So as I say, warehousing is always heuristics, right? It’s all about iteration, what works best for you. But at the same time, it’s good to have those baselines that really helps you decide, “Okay, am I in the right direction? Am I in the wrong direction?”

Mark Taylor:

That’s excellent. So once we go past the automated mobile robot, the AMRs, your next thing, what would you say the next level of robotics is?

Parth Pethani:

So we are talking mostly about, right now, mobile robots, right? So they are robots which can move in specific direction, but then also there are robotic arms as well. So there are robotic arms that can help you as well. So the next evaluation, again, depends, but the next evaluation in terms of technology, let’s not say from the use case perspective, but from a technology perspective is your Codes two-person solution like Kiva, Geek+, GreyOrange, where you basically fence that. You have all the picking, the robot brings the whole shelf to you and pick from it, right? Basically, you don’t walk at all.
The next evolution, I would say, is with Pick Assist AMR, you walk. With G-Codes two-person solution, you don’t walk at all, in picking. Right? That’s the next evolution. And now within that no-walk zone, you have a couple of different technologies. You have Geek+, as I mentioned, you have AutoStore’s, you have Exotec’s, you have a lot of variety of options. You also have typical traditional multi-shuttle systems where you have a shuttle that brings a tote to you. So there are many solutions in there. It’s really how to design which solutions really makes sense based on a SKU profile, your client profile, your order profile, and stuff like that.

Mark Taylor:

So what is the invasiveness? So let’s go to step two, past the AMRs where it’s the good … So I understand now why they say automated AS/RS, whatever it is-

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, the retrieval system.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah, auto retrieval system.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah, okay. The Automated Storage-

Parth Pethani:

Storage Retrieval System.

Mark Taylor:

Okay. I understand why they say that now, and it’s not goods to person. If you’re considering a goods to person, like the Locus, where it’s like they bring it to you.

Parth Pethani:

Yep.

Mark Taylor:

What are the contemplations for … How does the invasiveness of that … So in the one, it’s minimally invasive.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

The second one, I assume what you have to do is you have to get new equipment, you have to get new racks that can actually be moved?

Parth Pethani:

Correct. I think the second step is start from the concrete. Your concrete has to be straight, like level-headed.

Mark Taylor:

Really straight.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. Really flat, really flat. So that’s the first step for the next phase. Your concrete is not level, it’s going to be investment that you need to start doing.

Mark Taylor:

Okay.

Parth Pethani:

So that’s where it starts. And the next one is like, okay, the shelves, the fans around it, and stuff like that.

Mark Taylor:

Okay. So this is dumb question. When I walk around our warehouse, it looks really level, but you’re saying it’s not like level?

Parth Pethani:

It’s not like that. So there is a company specific who specializes in this. They only do warehouse. The warehouse, the robotics company actually hired them to go and check out the concrete flatness even before thinking about anything because that’s an additional cost and an operating you need to think about.

Mark Taylor:

Of course.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. So when you’re seeing different, let’s say, proposals, you’re trying to explore some stuff, you need to have that in your mind that, “Hey, can we just make sure my concrete is level or straight enough for your system to work on it?”

Mark Taylor:

Okay. Because this isn’t an office chair where you can unscrew the little peg at the bottom and level out the machine. And this is really into the weeds, but do you have any idea on a per square footage basis, let’s say I owned my own building and I said, “All right, we’re going to designate 10,000 square feet, and it’s not level enough,” on a per square foot basis, do you have any idea how much it costs, typically, to level?

Parth Pethani:

No, actually, unfortunately I don’t. That’s a number I’m also looking for, but I don’t have that number.

Mark Taylor:

Okay, good number. Maybe we’ll try to have a concrete specialist on here soon. One of these leveling specialists.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Okay, so it starts from the ground.

Parth Pethani:

Yep.

Mark Taylor:

That’s your first invasive thing, which if you have to do anything into the warehouse, it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it’s-

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. You will have concrete holes. For example, you will always have concrete holes somewhere, cracks because if it’s a warehouse that was created few years ago and you’re leasing it, and usually, at least I have not worked with individuals who have operators who actually own the space. They pretty much lease the space from big players, of course. But at the same time, it’s really hard to get that. So pretty much straight, flat, I would say flat or concrete. And that’s where I was saying about the green fill implementation, right?
So if you’re creating your own new warehouse, if you’re going out and saying, “Let’s go to some suburb of cancers,” and you’re creating a whole new warehouse, you can basically make sure that because, “Hey, I’m going to put a good two percent solution. My concrete has to be the flattest it can be,” right? So that’s the investment you already do when you’re starting a greenfield implementation. So that’s why greenfield implementation is a little different, because you get some play area, whereas brownfield is invasive score is very important when you think about brownfield.

Mark Taylor:

So how many greenfield operations have you seen where it started off the level was great, and then all of a sudden, five years into it, the settling has happened and now it’s not level anymore?

Parth Pethani:

Actually, that’s a solid question. I think the thing is the five-year mark will be heating for a few warehouses in next couple of years. So that’s when we’ll learn. Yeah. Honestly, I think in next couple of years there are a few companies that I know had a greenfield implementation, but they didn’t start in, let’s say, 2023. So they didn’t start in 2018. Yeah, 2018. They started in 2020, 2021. So in 2024, ’25, we will see what’s the answer to that?

Mark Taylor:

I mean, because you can imagine showing up on a Monday, and let’s say you don’t run a three shift, seven-day operation. Let’s say somebody shows up one day, and all of a sudden that robot won’t move the way it’s supposed to move because the floor is not [inaudible 00:39:35]. Anyway, interesting. Okay, so let’s assume you’ve got the concrete. The concrete is level. What’s the next aspect of the invasiveness that’s going to go into getting one of these type of systems implemented?

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, so the next would be QR codes on the floor for someone like Geek+ system, GreyOrange system, usually they have a QR code that the robot reads, and that robot basically reads that QR code. So you need to implement those QR codes across your square footage, whatever that square footage assigned to that system. Then you have to think about fence, right? That’s a cost. I’m not a fire safety expert, but you have to also think about fire safety as well, because these are all robots with lithium-ion batteries. So the fire safety also adds up.
I’m changing a little bit gears here, for a Q base RS solution implementation, I have seen that they had to actually create a new ceiling, whole new ceiling. Basically, it’s just because the fire system or the fire sprinklers were way on top. So the QBSRS system need to have … The fire department had some strict regulations around that, and they basically asked to create a new ceiling, which had the fire system in it.

Mark Taylor:

Interesting.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, so-

Mark Taylor:

Was is this in California?

Parth Pethani:

No, actually, this was not. This was Tennessee.

Mark Taylor:

Oh, wow.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. So that’s another invasive aspect, that facility changes are really … You need to plan for, for any kind of technologies, and especially when you are thinking about just removing complete walking for picking solution, for picking side of the warehouse. You have to think about facilities. Changes a lot. And that’s why I think the adoption of Pick Assist AMR has increased in the last few years, because they’re not that invasive. If I’m brownfield implementation, I can easily do a Pick Assist AMR, like THL for example, with Locus, right? They’re pretty much going to all brownfield implementation, and Locus helping with 61 systems, has a lot of other clients who are actually doing the same thing, brownfield implementations.

Mark Taylor:

Wow. That makes sense.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

So after you’ve got the … Let’s say you get all that sort of stuff-

Parth Pethani:

Concrete, fire, then lighting. Light fixtures should be decent. It should be there anyways. But then also the network, the internet, the networking, because if it’s a concrete, and if you do not have the right internet, if the robot loses connectivity, what happens next? It doesn’t do anything, right? It just stays there. So network connectivity is very important, and then the final thing is just the fence. Just the fence, right? Because if I’m walking into it, I want to make sure it doesn’t go around it. So that’s additional cost, and we all know cost of steel is so high, right?

Mark Taylor:

Right. So as we’re talking, it starts to make a lot more sense why people, because you clearly look at something like, I’m a huge fan of AutoStore, as you know, and you start to look at the investment required, you’ve got to make sure … With them, I’m not sure if it’s the same degree as the goods-to-person robots that’s bringing the entire shelf, but that entire system has to at least be level enough so that that grid is not-

Parth Pethani:

Correct, correct.

Mark Taylor:

But it does seem like because you’re actually not moving the bends, you might have a little bit more leeway, but I’m not certain.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. And again, I don’t work for them. We don’t work for them. So of course, they have right people looking at it. But as an operator, as a buyer, that’s something we need to be aware of, right?

Mark Taylor:

Of course.

Parth Pethani:

The facility changes.

Mark Taylor:

Yes.

Parth Pethani:

That’s something that, right now, and I’ll be honest, many people are excited to see the shiny objects like robots, robots, robots. But at the same time, as an operator, as a buyer, we need to be very careful when we actually are considering some technology because that can mean we do a good job and really excel at it, or we did a very poor job and we need to close our stores.

Mark Taylor:

And this is an excellent segue to the question that I really want to ask. I mean, I want to ask all these questions, but a warehouse goes into the automated mobile robots, the AMRs, Six River Systems. As I understand it, the base implementation is still going to be north of that one to $300,000. I mean, you’re probably talking about, I think a minimum viable system is probably, if I had to guess, somewhere probably a half million dollars before it makes sense. And maybe even more at this point. And I think it’s like you might want to have to do it. I mean, you don’t just deploy one robot, you don’t deploy two, you have to do probably six, eight, 10.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

So there’s a number there where the juice isn’t worth the squeeze unless you at least commit to that.

Parth Pethani:

Correct, yes.

Mark Taylor:

And so that’s a big consideration. And so let’s say you invest in a fleet of these AMRs, and then you just keep on seeing … So in a crazy inflation, well, the inflationary environment, yes. But in a place like Southern California where the real estate just went …

Parth Pethani:

Oh, yeah.

Mark Taylor:

And went crazy up, all of a sudden, let’s say you’re a couple years into your project and you’ve spent a million, two million dollars, and then all of a sudden you realize you need to get a lot more out of the building you have or you’re never going to be able to make the jump to … You’re never going to be able to jump from one to 250 or 150 to 300, whatever it may be. So there’s this weird, and it’s a really bad moving target, it’s a hard moving target where, where’s the investment and what’s that threshold before you really just need to go through all the pain and invasiveness to get a higher level of robotics?

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Okay, these are the challenges that operators face every day, right? So I feel like this is solid, and I think every robotics company should hear this. So from, as you said, a moving target, and you want to make-

Parth Pethani:

… from, as you said, a moving target. And you want to make the capacity as much as you can, right? And typically the best way to do that is to go vertical. Simple as that. You have to go vertical to make sure you’re using your warehouse cube to the best level, right?

Mark Taylor:

Maximize the cube.

Parth Pethani:

Maximize the cube, right? Ideally, in previous worlds when it was more about just racking, you will usually go VNA, right? It goes all the way up to 30 feet, 32 feet, 26 feet, whatever the height of the warehouses is. You go VNA, making sure that you have as much as you want. But at the same time, now we have solutions for picking side of the world where they are also going vertical as well. At that point, it’s that decision that you can only make when you are at that point because now you know how much revenue will be affected if you take on this endeavor versus how much benefit you will get by taking this endeavor. That cost-benefit analysis can only be done, I feel like, when you are at that junction, because at that point you have so much knowledge or so much idea about what’s happening.
But, unfortunately, you have to make a decision at that point, right? Or else you have to find a new facility. And if you are in California, you know that getting a new facility versus investing in automation is a decision you need to make at that point. “Hey, should I go home, get a new facility, in,” let’s say, again, “Kansas, where my hourly rate might be a little less than California. But I need to hire a site director. I need to have lot of people there. I need to make sure I’m paying rent there. Versus running, just removing, taking a hit for a few months and getting something automated solution which will help me with the same capacity,” if you will, right? Does it make sense?

Mark Taylor:

It does make sense. And I’ll maybe add to it, which I think, it may just be saying exactly what you are. But you get to a point where it’s like that also is part of why the AMRs make such sense is because you can just pick them up and move them. You can go to a new thing.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

Whereas if you look at something like AutoStore, which once again, big fan, I love that there aren’t aisles. I love that you don’t get more density than that. You just don’t. And there’s no walking.

Parth Pethani:

That’s right.

Mark Taylor:

It’s a great thing. But the other piece of it is if your return is three years, and your typical lease is three to five years, so you’re going to break even at year three. And then you’re either committed to that building, and you need to do it for another four or five years to make sense, or you need to be ready to eat the 30%, 40%, whatever it costs, to move that thing, break it down, set it up, put it back together.

Parth Pethani:

And that’s the biggest, I would say, decision point that most of the 3pls have to make that, “Hey, my lease is three to five years. Even though I will get a new customer who will fit the same profile, hopefully, that where an AutoStore solution or a QB AS/RS solution makes sense. But I wouldn’t sure that if I have the lease or not. And unfortunately that’s the decision the 3pls have to make. And that’s why, as you mentioned, AMRs, because sistema does make sense. And the adoption, if DHR is investing so much in pCO sistema is because those are the decision points they already thought about and it really makes sense to them. Whereas if you think about the adoption of different AS/RS system is mostly with the retailers, right? Retailers make sense to them, “Hey, I want go high, I want get condensed because I know I will get my benefit out of it and I’m going to run this warehouse until anything out of blue happens where I have to close the warehouse.
There will be people who will debate with me on this one. Like Amazon is a 3pl, too, they will debate [inaudible 00:50:07]. Amazon has variety of SKU that they will handle. They will take care. They do not know what with the next seller will be on Amazon, will be using Fulfilled by Amazon, and they do not know. But with Amazon is that even though they have only one system, robotic system we’re picking, which is Kiva right now where they have a Kiva systems on a shelf, shelf comes to them, you pick it up, but Amazon has the power to dictate thumbs that a lot of operators don’t have, right? Amazon can say that, “Hey, if it’s less than,” I think there’s a dimension, “10 by 12 by 16 or something like that. If it’s less than that, beyond that is non-conveyable, you go to a different warehouse.”
That power to tell where does the SKU go? Where will it SKU? How would we fulfill? Amazon has it. That’s why they can design a warehouse which only play with a specific type of SKU and they don’t have to worry about the automation because I know as an automation… And this is what I always say, automation likes constant, right? Robotics likes constant. Now because as an Amazon I’m dictating the terms that whatever goes into this warehouse where my Kiva robots are, this is type of SKU I can handle. That’s the only type of SKU. That’s why I’m going to own the warehouse. I’m going to own my robotics, I’m going to dictate what SKUs come in and that’s why I’m going to do great with it. And that as a 3pl, if you think about, Amazon kind is a type of 3pl who can dictate those term. But if a small 3pl, an operator, you cannot dictate those term at that point.

Mark Taylor:

Well, Amazon definitely has. They are absolutely a 3pl. I mean they just rolled out their Amazon warehousing and distribution, which competes directly with 3pls.

Parth Pethani:

I didn’t know that. Awesome. I mean, not awesome.

Mark Taylor:

No, it’s fine. I don’t know if you ever went over this when you’re college or anything, but there’s a famous note, it’s called Porter’s Five Forces. And it’s a industry competitive thing where you look at the suppliers, your competitors, everything. You want to figure out who is in the five, where do people fall? And the answer for some people is like, they’re your competitor, they’re your customer, they’re your vendor, they’re everything. And Amazon’s kind of one of those that hits all five of the forces.
But anyway, you bring up a good point. And the other thing, I have an east coast warehouse and a west coast warehouse. Amazon has got I think 12 million square feet. Or at one point it was only 12, 15, maybe now it’s up to 20 million square feet within 12 miles, 15 miles of maybe it was a 20-mile radius in the inland Empire.

Parth Pethani:

Wow.

Mark Taylor:

They also have the luxury of being able to say, “This is all going to be small electronics.”

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

“This warehouse is going to be large. This is going to be furniture. This is going to be a bulk warehouse.” And so if you don’t have that and you’re taking on, and once again as a small medium-sized business, you want to take everybody you can. There’s some things out there, it takes a special very earnest operator to take tire companies.

Parth Pethani:

I’ll tell you about it.

Mark Taylor:

Or dog food or things like that, which I mean bag dog food. Even small, medium businesses a lot of us have our limits, but by and large you want to take everything.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

And so it’s hard to… In doing that, I think the really interesting point to take from this is if you’re going to deploy a robotic system, you have to be thinking of it from a perspective, “Okay, are you going to adjust your customer set to really fit within the automation that you’re deploying? Or is your automation only going to serve 70% of your customers?”

Parth Pethani:

Correct. And I think that’s the challenge that has, I would not say reduced, but I would say has made the adoption of robotics a little slow compared to what people thought in 2020. As someone who comes from the industry, and my thought was it is not going to be never be an exponential growth because for robotics in warehouses. Because warehouse is a dynamic, robotics like constant. So someone has to give something to match. Compared to what market analysis or market researchers did in 2020, 2021 where they’re like, “Okay, robotics is going to be exponential. It’s going to, by 2025, everything will be great. And no more pair walking during picking.” I don’t think so, that’s going to happen. Because, a, for the same reason that we just talked about that as an operator, as a 3pl business, I need to be very cost conscious at the same time. I need to be very focused on what my client profile is, right? I can say that you will make a lot of money as a fulfillment player… Sorry, let me rephrase. You will have a lot of revenue coming as a fulfillment player.

Mark Taylor:

That’s a very… Oh, I was about to get you on that one because it’s a lot of revenue doesn’t mean you’re making a lot of money.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Because it’s a lot of people as well. It’s a lot of expenses, a lot of things. So they’re always look at the large revenue that has a 3pl making, let’s say 30 million a year, but what’s your expense? Is it 25, 27, 28, 29? Or is it 31? That has, when the market researchers were looking at it, I felt like they didn’t really feel that adoption is great. We need adoption, but it’s not going to be an exponential because robots, there are few robots that are good for dynamic environment. There are few robots or there are majority of robots who always like constant.

Mark Taylor:

Now I remember before we took a brief break, I remember exactly what we were talking about. And it was the idea that a lot of these more sophisticated systems, it kind of goes back to the Tier 1 WMSs. These very, very sophisticated systems are in that constant retailer scenario where there’s a very defined set of SKUs and you don’t have customers introducing new SKUs often, or you know-

Parth Pethani:

And even if you have SKUs, it’s going to be same SKU profile, right? I know if I’m a cosmetic, I have a lipstick, I’ll have another lipstick, but a different color.

Mark Taylor:

Right. And so, you know, you look at the huge, the really sophisticated systems like the Mecalux systems and things like that. And it’s like, “Yeah, that’s a $30 million, $40 million system that Nordstrom’s is going to deploy in their store or in their warehouse,” but that SKU portfolio is very constant.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yes.
Great point. I’ll tell you, when I was designing robotic solutions, the key data points we used to ask for our clients was like, “Give me your SKU profile, DMS, right? I need your DMS. I need your order profile. Those are the two main things that I need before even starting the conversation of can the robot fit or not? Can the robot do it or not, right? Because there are so many… And having said that, there is a little bit more flexibility with mobile robots versus a robotic arm because we have been talking most about mobile robots, but there is a robotic arm aspect as well where you have a robotic arm, let’s say, palletizing or depalletizing. You have a robotic arm, let’s say, for Boston Dynamics, they have Stretch robot, which goes truck unloading robot.

Mark Taylor:

Stretch is fantastic.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

But yes.

Parth Pethani:

There are robotic arms, which I also have a use case within the warehousing space. I used to sell robotic arms. So for me it was very much specific that, “Hey, your SKU dimensions, your order profile, I need to really look at it before we can start even talking about it.” And that’s where the challenge happens as well. As an operator, I’m pretty confident that 50 to 60% doesn’t have all the SKU dimensions because you do not know. Your customers cannot help provide you that, right? Again, that’s a challenge as well. For most, redesigning a robotic system for it, I do not really know what my SKU dimensions are. I know that they can fit you… And at that point you can do the reverse engineering, see which card outbound boxes they’re going and kind of figure out. But again, that’s a small challenge that I think market researcher back in 2020 didn’t realize that SKU dimensions are very important to [inaudible 00:58:47] robotics system. And most of the 3pls will not have SKU dimensions easily available.

Mark Taylor:

Correct. Because, from my perspective, let’s say I’ve got a warehouse that is 90% full and I’ve got the SKU mix and everybody’s right and everybody’s really good. But then that one customer comes in that’s got SKU dimensions that don’t work for my robot, but it’s a single SKU customer. They’re doing 10,000 items a month. It’s the perfect customer.

Parth Pethani:

Perfect. Yes. And we love that customers, right?

Mark Taylor:

But then you’ve got a warehouse setup that won’t accept it.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

And so it’s like…

Parth Pethani:

That’s the challenge we always, as 3pls specifically, the operators, will face it. Always the challenge. And that’s why, and again, I think there are many 3pls in the market and people forget that they are majority of the people who move products within United States or North America, I would say and… I just keep hitting 2020 point, like market researcher didn’t realize that 3pls have these challenges. They only looked at some retailers and they’re like, “Oh, retailers are adopting robots. Everyone will follow them and adopt the robots. Amazon [inaudible 01:00:03] robots, everyone will put robots.” No, but Amazon had different [inaudible 01:00:06] factors, different environment they were working on versus a typical 3pl that it’s working on.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah. And that’s one of the things, it’s not just for robotics either. I mean, if you think of, here’s a good example, solar power in Southern California. The stat, and I didn’t do this research myself, this is just the stat I heard from people who are much smarter than I am, is that there’s only about 30% of the buildings in the industrial or in the inland Empire that can even support that have the roof structures that can even support solar. And then there are a little bit harder to verify other whisperings out there that there have been multiple thermal events, is what they’re being referred to, in buildings that have solar on the roof, fires that started on the roof.

Parth Pethani:

That sucks. That sucks, yeah.

Mark Taylor:

And we don’t know, I don’t want to cast a shadow on that, but it’s like when you get to the practicality, when the rubber meets the road, you just don’t know. And I’ll give you another example. Amazon’s got all these robots. Amazon owns Whole Foods. If I go into a Whole Foods, I am absolutely creeped out when I see the Pay with Palm thing.

Parth Pethani:

I didn’t know that actually. Wow.

Mark Taylor:

They have here in DFW, at least, you can pay with biometrics.

Parth Pethani:

Oh, wow. That’s interesting.

Mark Taylor:

I don’t want to want them to have my palm.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, that’s interesting actually. Anyways, that’s a [inaudible 01:01:39], why would they have a palm? Where did they get it from?

Mark Taylor:

I mean, they want you to put it on there and they link your payment information, all that sort of stuff with your Amazon account. And it’s like, I don’t want them to have that data.

Parth Pethani:

Interesting.

Mark Taylor:

And I’m sure I’m old school in that thinking, but-

Parth Pethani:

No, [inaudible 01:01:58] fingerprints is a difference. Pictures I understand everywhere. We have pictures now, but fingerprints is like, “Okay, cool. Interesting. Very interesting.”

Mark Taylor:

We’re going off-topic, and that’s my fault. Another thing I think I want to mention earlier, excuse me, is I’m not sure that Nordstrom’s warehouse has the Mecalux system. I just know they have a highly sophisticated-

Parth Pethani:

They have Attabotics. They have Attabotics out of in California.

Mark Taylor:

I was merely taking the example of a retailer and a very sophisticated automation.

Parth Pethani:

They have Attabotics, I heard some news on it. I haven’t catch-up on what are the news on that. But they have Attabotics there in California at least.

Mark Taylor:

Glad we clarified because I didn’t want somebody thinking I was making assumptions. A lot of considerations go into this decision.

Parth Pethani:

A hundred percent. And I recently had a post on my LinkedIn as well. Actually, no, one of my good friend, Cody, he’s at Numina Group and he reached out to me and he had a very good post on LinkedIn about what’s the typical path forward for operators to buy robotics. Is it CapEx, RAS or it depends, right? And to that, I actually think it depends. For example, for sure it depends, but for me it’s pretty much the second step. The first step is finding the right robot solution fit, right? Irrespective of what financial model I go with, is it RAS, is it CapEx, is it some kind of lease, is it some kind of just working with your credit provider and just getting a credit line or there are financial leaders will find good ways to make it happen if you have a good robot solution fit for it.
That’s the point I hammered on that LinkedIn post as well. We need to first figure out the right robot solution fit before even thinking about what the ROI is, what the cost is. Because once you find the right robot solution fit, you think that you will be able to find somehow, somewhere, some opportunity to find an ROI.

Mark Taylor:

That makes sense. It’s also worth noting, and you mentioned Boston Dynamic Stretch, which of all the cool YouTube videos I’ve ever seen, Stretch was the very first application to the real world that wasn’t military related.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yes. Yes.

Mark Taylor:

Where I thought that makes a lot of sense. And you know, you make the comment that going back to that idea of removing the suck from a job, one of the worst jobs, well, I mean in my opinion, unless you’re just trying to lose a lot of weight and get really, really jacked, one of the worst jobs in a warehouse is unloading containers.

Parth Pethani:

A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Mark Taylor:

And so Stretch is something that you can deploy. And I almost look at Stretch as more of a… And I don’t know exactly how their implementation into your system goes, but I feel the way it seemed like it was presented, and this was at Modex in 2022, I believe it would’ve been.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. They had a DHL case storage like DHL..

Mark Taylor:

Yes. Yep, that’s exactly right. Yep. It looked like that thing could just drive in there and just as long as your cardboard was flat-

Parth Pethani:

Yes.

Mark Taylor:

… as long as the cardboard was strong enough to support the box-

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

… that suction thing could go on there and take up to 40 pounds and put it on the conveyor and then it would convey out.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

That is something that I feel like even if we couldn’t unload a hundred percent of our containers, that would move the needle like a couple, two or three of those things would move the needle enough that, you know, you’re now replacing…

Parth Pethani:

Exactly the point that I was talking today with one of my colleague. I was like, “Yeah, I think one of the most, I feel like, is the worst job is…” Well not worst job, let me rephrase. One of the most sweating job is unloading a truck, especially if you are in the Sunbelt area, right? So hot here, right? For them, yes it does, the robot truck unloading definitely can use some kind of robotic solution. Stretch is there for sure. There are other players now as well who are doing this. There is called Pickle Robot that is [inaudible 01:06:37], I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that name. They’re a Japanese company. They just launched their truck unloading robot in this ProMat this year. There are many players who are trying to solve that problem.
The only challenge, not challenge, but only consideration I would say is how much time does it take to unload, right? Because, for example, my understanding is, and again I do not have the right numbers, is there is some time constraint on how fast or how soon you need to unload a truck. Let’s say, if it’s FedEx or USPS or stuff like that, and how much time does it take? That’s something that needs to be in the consideration. But to your point, I completely agree that even if it solves for 50%, that’s still a win.

Mark Taylor:

Yes. And it may not be a great application for UPS or FedEx because it’s like they are turning those trucks so much faster.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

But when you’ve got an unloading, even if you’re doing a live unload. And let’s say, I think the numbers that were given to me on the floor, which I don’t know how many other pilots had gone. I actually know some people who are piloting them now that I could probably ask and they would tell me, but I wouldn’t be able to share. The numbers that were given to me was that Stretch could unload, I think it was, up to 800 cartons per hour. I think is what they said. And so that’s a healthy rate.

Parth Pethani:

That’s actually a solid rate.

Mark Taylor:

That’s a very healthy rate. And if that’s accurate, if that’s the way it’s been… But you see, even then, I did the mental math while they said, “Okay, we estimated payback time was two years at the time,” I think is what they said. And I said, “Okay, so you’re looking at, and you’re comparing this against the labor resource.” I said, “Okay.” And so I took our hourly rate, and I said, “Is this about the hourly rate you’re using? And then, you know, you fully burden it. Let’s say that rate’s somewhere around $20, $25 an hour. Well, they were calculating it on two shifts as well. So it’s two… So it’s basically-

Parth Pethani:

25 times two, [inaudible 01:08:52] $50 an hour, basically.

Mark Taylor:

Well, the way I was looking at it was they were calculating ROI based on running two shifts. And so that thing had the, I guess, it’s battery capacity-

Mark Taylor:

… new shifts, and so that thing had its battery capacity, and I mean, this was only a year and a half ago or whatever, so, I am rusty on this. Nobody hold my feet to the fire, but I interpreted it to be 16 hours of operational time, that did knotting, and then the rest, the other eight hours was plugged into the wall to recharge-

Parth Pethani:

To recharge it. Yep.Mark Taylor:

… which is fine, but you’re not going to get a constant 16 hours. You’re not going to get a constant-

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yes.

Mark Taylor:

You’ve got to move it to the next container, you’ve got to do this, you got to do that. A lot of operations aren’t unloading containers 16 hours.Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

I mean, the people who can afford this, I mean, a lot who can afford them, a lot of them, they would… I mean, basically I came around to a number where it was two to $250,000 per robot, and that was just based on the conversation we had there.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

I don’t know what the real world cost has come out to.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yep.

Mark Taylor:

But that’s a very, very big investment. Now you’re talking about, I mean, if you’re a single shift operation, your payback is four years, and that’s even if you can get somebody to finance it for you-

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

…on the terms that it’s going to make sense.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.
I think that’s the challenge. I feel like if, you’re going to talk about the mobile robot, which is more, if the cost makes sense, the most versatility is with truck unloading robots. If I’m a 3pl, if my niche is e-commerce, right, I know my next client, if I lose this client, my next client is going to be e-commerce because I have success with e-commerce, right? Now, basically D2C brands, so I know my next customer will be that. So, at that point, I know I’ll get flow loaded cartons, cases if you will, and that robot can be used again two years down the line, three years down there, four years down the line. So, that’s the most versatile use case, I feel like, that a truck unloading robot has.
But one thing that I definitely remind everyone, specifically medium to small size vendors or operators, is that, think about maintenance as well, because many times, this is not something like a forklift where you can go to a distributor and try to find someone who can solve it. Either you need to have a trained staff on your payroll or you need to always go back to, you need to have a service agreement with your service provider, like a warehouse robotics service provider. So, maintenance can definitely be Achilles heels if you don’t plan well.

Mark Taylor:

Right. Lot of considerations to doing this.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.
Yeah, it’s definitely a lot. That’s what I always felt like that, when I started on this journey about enabling robots in the warehouse, when the rubber meets the road, there are so many gaps that operators don’t realize, and because they go to Modex, go to Promad, and of course there is always robots. So, we just feel that everyone is talking about robots, but once you come back and start talking, you realize that there are 10,000 considerations before I can invest money, which anyways is scarce as an operator, before investing in it.

Mark Taylor:

I remember that, when I was walking, I mean, AutoStore was one of the things I was introduced to there that blew me away, Stretch was the other thing.

Parth Pethani:

Nice.

Mark Taylor:

The third thing were these, and I have the name somewhere and I’m sure I’ll mention it on another podcast, but it’s literally, they would take your pallet positions, they would take, you would have your ground floor, so it’d be like one, two, three bays, however your racking configuration is, and they put what looked like hanging racks on rollers. So, there were these bins that were in a fabric, and it looked like closet organizers. But they would have, let’s say you could fit five or six wide, well, they would have four hanging there. So, then what you’d do is, you’d have three deep, and then you could move them side to side. So, you could actually dig into-

Parth Pethani:

Okay.

Mark Taylor:

You could get it. So, it’s like you had, now, this organizable, I think it was Uvex is one of them.

Parth Pethani:

Okay.

Mark Taylor:

Storeganizer.

Parth Pethani:

Oh, Storeganizer, okay.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah, and it was a very low tech thing, but they were incredible. I looked at it and, I mean, you look at the versatility from a picking operation, that’s where you primarily have pallet racking, and there’s so many very basic ideas out there that help improve it, and it doesn’t have to. I mean, let’s just say the entire industry overnight started utilizing their WMS to its maximum potential, you wouldn’t have a capacity issue for a while because everything, I mean, the gain in efficiency would be so great across the entire supply chain.

Parth Pethani:

A hundred percent, yeah. So, that being said, there is space, I would say there is a place for robotics, right? There is.

Mark Taylor:

Oh, of course, absolutely.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. There is space for robotics, and robotics not just within picking. I feel like there are companies who are making automated packaging machines, right? They create packaging right up to, either they create a packaging basically of size of your SKU, or they basically-

Mark Taylor:

Great example.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, and they basically create, you basically design your size of the cartons that you want and they just spit that out. So, there are automated packaging machines that are really doing great. There’s also a way to save money on shipping less air, right? That’s helps you.

Mark Taylor:

Exactly.
Yeah. Well, I mean it’s environmentally friendly. You’re going to get more, you’re minimizing your footprint, what you’re paying for on shipping. You’re absolutely correct, and I didn’t say what I just said. I didn’t mean to say that we should all just focus on the non-robotic things.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, of course.

Mark Taylor:

That’s not what I meant.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

I only said that because it is very easy as a smaller operator to go to a show, like MODEX or Promad, and almost feel down on yourself because it’s like, “How could I ever afford that? How could I, I am so far behind the thing.” It’s the equivalent of social media.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, that’s true. I think that’s why I use this. So, I follow GXO, invested in GXO as well. So, I follow their chief financial officer. He comes on Bloomberg many times. He says one thing that, only 18 to 20% of warehouses are automated right now. So, have some kind of automation, not even automated, have some kind of automation. So, the number I threw out there, because I wanted to make sure that all the operators who are listening, Promad is drinking from a fire hose. So, don’t worry about anything that you see there, it doesn’t mean that you need to implement. Yes, that’s good information to have once, but once you come back, you really need to start thinking about those things and see, what is the best step forward for you. It doesn’t mean that you should implement robots tomorrow kind of thing.

Mark Taylor:

Right. It’s a treasure map of sorts.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, correct. Yes. So many things there, so many things there.
Even if, one example that I think about that are really solid and an easy improvement, is your, I forgot this, an auto bagger solution. If you have higher single line, single unit orders, for example, let’s say you are shipping orders for shoes, most of the shoes ideally would, for expensive shoes, mostly would be one pair of shoes that you’ll be shipping, right? Jordans or something like that. At that time, you have so much single line, single unit orders that you can pretty much do a batch picking, go to that location, pick up a hundred orders, bring that card, or bring that tote, bring a card to auto baggers, and just start doing auto bagger with your food. So, your packing happens pretty quick, right?

Mark Taylor:

Yeah.Parth Pethani:

That’s a simple solution that we can think about as an operator.Mark Taylor:

Absolutely.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Going down, we can start wrapping up because you and I have dinner and I’m starting to get hungry and I become a very unpleasant person if I get hungry.
There have been some very, very sophisticated automation systems. I think one, and I was going to ask if you had any experience with is, I think it’s called the Joey’s, it’s the garment bag thing. So I mean, it looks like they basically turned the entire warehouse, it looks like, into this huge dry cleaning sort of thing, where it’s like these carousels that you, it’s excellent for garments and I think that’s really why they do it.

Parth Pethani:

Refurbishing, returns on garments, or brand new garments?
Mark Taylor:

Just garment fulfillment.

Parth Pethani:

Okay.

Mark Taylor:

So, they’ll put, and maybe it’s one unit per bag or a few units per bag, but they’ll put it in there and it goes up and it takes it real high. Then, it’s just all these bags are vertically sorted and, horizontally and vertically sorted, but there’s not a physical rack because everything’s hanging. So, when the order pops up, the bag just comes down the conveyor and they just start queuing up. It’s almost like going to six flags and you see everybody’s on the train.

Parth Pethani:

That’s interesting.
Yeah, no, I haven’t seen that. We were exploring something, not on the same level, but we were exploring for returns. So, when you have expensive brands who have returns, when it comes to returns, we were looking at a solution where we wanted to see if we can, pretty much, induct a return item, but on the other end, you get a fresh item, meaning that it is dry-cleaned, it’s folded up and stuff like that. But yeah, I haven’t seen that system that you’re mentioning.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah, there’s so much out there. I think it’s great because, we talk about automation, we talk about robots, I mean, your simpler robots, even a pallet wrapping machine, is a form of automation.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah. There are tons and tons of ways you can start to automate.

Parth Pethani:

It reminds me of two examples when you say about different kinds of robots. One robot that I recently came across was in Japan, and they basically were a garment industry example that they gave. So, they had a typical IKEA type, if you think of shelves, not a shelf, but IKEA type hanger, where you had to have one rod with a hanger and you put it in your garments so they hang, but they are on a square, basically, and that square is basically moving, it’s like Tetris. Basically, if you have an order, which is in the last square, by way of Tetris, it comes out of it. But the technology was based on maglev train. So, maglev. So, this was pretty solid. It’s a magnetic base, so it was, we know about maglev trains, now it was basically maglev robots.

Mark Taylor:

Oh, wow.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. So, it’s pretty interesting. So, that was one use case.

Mark Taylor:

So, turning your warehouse into a weaponized.

Parth Pethani:

I forgot about the second one. I had thought about the second one as well, but there are so many different technologies out there. The people are just experimenting constantly, which is good, which is good for-

Mark Taylor:

It is excellent.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, which is great. But at the same time, if I was an engineer, if I was designing system, one of the best of the best, I want my metal to be the best of best, I want to coat it really nice, but as an operator, I have to be cost conscious. I have to make sure that I’m putting the right step forward before going all out, all guns blazing, on a robotic solution.

Mark Taylor:

I think I have a perspective that you kind of have to earn it. You have to earn the right to the nicer systems, to the nicer things, and that sort of thing where it’s like, you could end up just throwing good money after bad ideas if it’s a flavor of the month type of thing. So, I really think that, as we start to think about wrapping this up, firstly, first and foremost, step one, make sure you’re maximizing your WMS. Then step two, at that point, have a very, very intentional plan that’s going to be multi steps, because you really need to understand where you want to go and what your situation is, what you want your SKUs to be like, your sizing.

Parth Pethani:

Yep.

Mark Taylor:

What, go ahead.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, no, that’s solid. I’d also say there is a step zero before step WMS, is your typical simple slotting, making sure using simple industrial engineering concepts, about making sure you have a right slot, your SKUs are not scattered for a client, making sure your pick parts are really fine, you are not just walking back and forth, your pick sequence is right. All those are basic industrial engineering concepts. Simple, not typical hard concepts, but you also have your ABCs planned out. So, for example, because let’s say you have a client, you look at your sales volume and you can look at your SKUs and you put all your high moving SKUs closer to the pack stations. These are basically Excel based calculations that you can do, then the Bs and the Cs. You don’t need WMS in that, honestly, don’t need a WMS.
You pretty much just need your order volume, or order that you shipped out, and your SKUs that you have, marry them up in Excel, you will know which SKUs were shipped the most, and you just put those ships closer to the pack stations, right? So, that way you are able to, you’re not walking too much to fulfill your 90% or 80% of your sales volume. So, that’s the easiest step that you can start thinking about even before going into WMS. Then, going into the WMS, now if your WMS is driving your picking, you think about pick sequences, how best you can arrange your pick parts so that you’re reducing unnecessary walk.
For example, we had a pick part where we were trying to go from, it was like a 21 bay long aisle with a breezeway in between, we were walking the whole aisle and coming back, walking the whole aisle, 21 bays with a breezeway. So, we decided, of course, we had to do slotting before that where we thought the A movers will be close, B movers follow that, and C movers. Now, we designed a pick which cuts on the breezeway and comes back, right? That way you’re reducing your walking and you start from here, do the breezeway, I’m sorry, listeners cannot see it, but you come back, take a U-turn and come back, okay? At the end, you start where you end.

Mark Taylor:

Yes.

Parth Pethani:

Those are the simple steps you can do, and then WMS, of course.Mark Taylor:

What you’re talking about is, you’re talking about, basically, industrial design, industrial flow.

Parth Pethani:

Material flow.

Mark Taylor:

Material flow and that kind of stuff. Which once again, there are lots of people out there who can go engage with an industrial engineer design, workspace design engineer.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

Yeah. What would be the-

Parth Pethani:

Honestly, you can go to some, there are system integrators who have industrial engineers on their payroll. They can help you design the material flow, that how do you want to do it, but at the same time, I feel there are a few things that we can easily do. As I said, just look at your sales volume, just start with giving primary estate to your prime SKUs.

Mark Taylor:

Right.

Parth Pethani:

That’s how we can start with, that will reduce your picking, anyways.

Mark Taylor:

I do want to clarify, you’re not suggesting any warehouse should really run without a WMS, you’re just suggesting that before you go to the optimization and the WMS-

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.Mark Taylor:

…that they can just use some common sense-

Parth Pethani:

Correct, yes.

Mark Taylor:

… and say, “All right, customer A does 500 orders a day, customer B does 100 orders a day, or even 20 orders a day, and then this customer does one to two orders a day. So, put your 20 order, your high volume customer closest.”

Parth Pethani:

Correct, yes. Yes. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. So yeah, let me agree to it. WMS has its benefits, for sure.

Mark Taylor:

Well, yeah. I hear a lot of customer horror stories where they’d worked with an operator who was still using Google Sheets, or Excel, or something like that. I just find-

Parth Pethani:

No, I don’t think so, that’s all right, because you have to understand, as an operator, as a customer, you need to have a system of records.

Mark Taylor:

Yes.

Parth Pethani:

You need to trace everything. You need to understand where things happen, how things happen.

Mark Taylor:

Yes.

Parth Pethani:

So, that, WMS, at the end WMS is a system of records, plus additional capabilities, right?

Mark Taylor:

That’s not to say, that’s assuming, and this is all in the vein of direct to consumer fulfillment, there are modules out there. I know, for instance, returns operations, that are using a very specific piece of software for that return stuff.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

That’s not related to the WMS because it’s all about grading and then sorting, and then you just track where it’s-

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

The thing comes in, it either gets put back on a truck to go out or it doesn’t, and that’s its own specific thing.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

So, it’s like, I do know operators out there that don’t have a WMS that are doing exactly what there, you know?

Parth Pethani:

Correct, yeah. At the end, any business that you run, either returns business, cell phone grading and making it better, or forward fulfillment, which is a typical 3pl business, you need to have a system. System is no doubt, you need to have it. But again, the point I was trying to convey is, even before the system, there are small changes that you can do.

Mark Taylor:

Of course.

Parth Pethani:

Which can really help you improve your picking rates or improve your warehouse flow.

Mark Taylor:

Absolutely. Yeah, that makes total sense.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

Then, step zero is just common sense.

Parth Pethani:

Yes, that’s fair, but hey, common sense is not common.

Mark Taylor:

That’s fair. That is fair. Step two, really make, or step one, maximize what you already have.

Parth Pethani:

Correct.

Mark Taylor:

Then, step three, step two, excuse me, I keep on wanting to jump ahead. Step two in this case, after you’ve maximized, then the next thing to do is to start identifying minimally invasive-

Parth Pethani:

If it’s a [inaudible 01:27:27] fill, yes. Minimally invasive, for a robot as a constant, so monotonous jobs.

Mark Taylor:

Yes.

Parth Pethani:

Minimally invasive, monotonous jobs. If you’re a former fulfillment warehouse, typically you are looking at walking a lot, then if you are a pallet base, you are looking at cross talking a lot.

Mark Taylor:

Yes.

Parth Pethani:

Right? So, you pretty much, A to B, that’s what you’re doing, right? That pallet shows up here, take that pallet, move it to the outbound. Inbound, outbound, that’s crosstalk visually. So, that can be a monotonous job as well. Other solutions that we all, as we talk, talking about robotic arms, I was like, there is a robotic arm of just picking items and dropping, right? So, for example, unit sorter induction. So, when you have a unit sorter, if you have a simple type of SKU, let’s say a cosmetic item, you know that my SKU dimensions will go from three inches to, let’s say, seven inches max, I can just keep using a robotic arm to do that job.

Mark Taylor:

Right.

Parth Pethani:

So, yeah, look for monotonous, repetitive jobs, functions, and that will help you identify.

Mark Taylor:

Excellent. That’s excellent advice.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

I think with that, yeah, we can start to wrap up or we can just wrap it up. How do people find you, if people have questions, if they want to engage?

Parth Pethani:

Yeah, definitely. Thanks. So, I’m very active on LinkedIn. You can look for me, Parth Pethani, on LinkedIn. As well, I have a website called whserobotics.com. There you can find my contact info. I have a-

Mark Taylor:

WH-

Parth Pethani:

WHSE, warehouse, robotics.com.

Mark Taylor:

Okay.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah. So, that’s the short form for warehouse, whserobotics.com.

Mark Taylor:

Okay, cool.

Parth Pethani:

Yeah.

Mark Taylor:

It’s been a pleasure and I have learned a lot more than I thought. I really appreciate the perspective and I hope everybody else, I don’t hope, I think everyone else is going to find it very, very enjoyable as well.

Parth Pethani:

No, thank you for having me, Mark. It was a pleasure to chat on this. It’s just amazing to think about, what are the potential opportunities in front of us?

Mark Taylor:

Absolutely. We’re going to be, I mean, this is a multi-decade thing. We said it at the very, I said it at the very beginning, but it’s not that this is replacing people, this is what we need.

Parth Pethani:

To the next step. Yep.

Mark Taylor:

We can’t do it without augmentation.

Parth Pethani:

Correct. Yep.

Mark Taylor:

Yep. With that, thank you everybody for listening.

Parth Pethani:

Thank you.