The top five questions we’re bringing to Atlanta.
MODEX brings together the people who are running warehouse operations, not just talking about them. And every year, the conversations that go somewhere start with a question that makes someone stop and say, “Yeah, that’s exactly what’s happening to us.”
These are the five questions we’re going to ask every warehouse leader we sit down with. If you read through them and one of these describes your operation, let’s schedule a time to meet at the show.
- What’s your Warehouse AI strategy, and what does that really mean for your operations?
This is the question nobody wants to answer out loud. The mandate is coming from the top. Leadership wants to know what you’re doing with AI. And most operations teams are sitting with a perfectly reasonable response they can’t quite say in a board meeting: we’re not sure where to start. We hear that a lot.
AI that moves the needle in a warehouse does more than watch and report. It makes informed decisions based on your business logic and current warehouse conditions and priorities and acts. Think real-time task assignments, automatic rebalancing of labor and workflow, and constraint-based optimization that adjusts the moment conditions change. That’s what AI looks like when it’s working. Not a dashboard. A decision.
We have been doing this inside some of the largest and most complex operations in the world for years. Our approach is proven and easy to implement. Let’s talk about what that roadmap looks like for you.
- How much of your labor budget are you actually getting back in productivity?
Most warehouse operations are not losing money on labor because they have the wrong people. They are losing it because the system is constantly setting those people up to be less productive than they could be.
A worker finishes a task and stands there waiting. Someone walks halfway across the facility to a location that was already picked clean. A zone backs up for an hour before anyone realizes capacity was sitting idle fifty feet away. None of that shows up as a line item but it is happening on every shift and it adds up fast.
When your system is making real-time decisions about what every person should be doing right now, based on what is actually happening on the floor at this moment, that waste disappears. Not some of it. Most of it.
That is the labor conversation we want to have at MODEX. Not headcount. Not hiring. What are you already paying for that you are not fully getting?
- What happens to your operation when the plan falls apart at 10 a.m.?
You start the shift with a plan. Waves are set, labor is assigned, priorities are clear. Then a truck arrives two hours late. Three people call out. A customer escalates an order that wasn’t supposed to ship until tomorrow.
By mid-morning, your supervisors aren’t running the operation. They’re saving it.
This happens because most warehouse systems were built to execute a plan, not to respond when the plan stops working. Fixed wave releases and static rules don’t have any way to account for what’s happening on the floor right now. So, the system keeps running the original plan while someone with a radio tries to hold everything together manually.
What we ask is simple: when conditions change, does your system adapt automatically, or does a person have to figure it out first? There’s a significant difference in what those two answers cost you by end of shift.
- Who is actually coordinating between your systems right now?
Most warehouses are running a WMS, an ERP, some form of automation control, and a handful of other platforms that each do their job reasonably well. The problem is that they don’t naturally agree on priorities, timing, or pace. They each follow their own logic.
When a decision needs to get made that spans more than one system, someone fills the gap. Usually a supervisor. Usually manually. Usually while five other things are also on fire.
This is what we call the orchestration gap, and it shows up everywhere. Conflicting task lists. Automation running at full speed while the downstream process can’t keep up. Inventory that the WMS says is available but isn’t where the picker needs it to be. None of these are technology failures on their own. They’re coordination failures, and they’re costing you more than you can probably see on any single report.
We want to know how many times a day someone on your team is acting as the integration layer between systems that should already be talking to each other.
- You invested in automation. Where’s the ROI?
This is the question a lot of operations leaders are quietly sitting with. The robots are running. The conveyors are moving. The capital investment was significant, and the implementation was painful and the system is technically working. But the numbers aren’t where they were supposed to be.
This is almost never a problem with the automation itself. The automation does what it was designed to do. The problem is that it’s doing it in isolation. When your automation follows its own logic, your labor follows a different set of priorities, and your order flow is being released on a fixed schedule that doesn’t account for what either of them are doing, you end up with automation islands instead of an automated operation.
The missing piece is a coordination layer that keeps people, automation, and order flow synchronized in real time. When that layer exists, the automation ROI shows up. When it doesn’t, your expensive robots are running efficiently inside a process that isn’t.
We want to understand where the gaps are between what you expected from your automation investment and what you’re seeing.
Does any of this sound like your operation?
These are the conversations we’re having at MODEX 2026 in Atlanta, April 13 through 16. Our CEO Seth Patin is also presenting at Theater E on Tuesday, April 14 from 1:30 to 2:15 PM on what a modern Warehouse Execution System needs to do and where current platforms are falling short.
But the most valuable thing you can do before you get to Atlanta is to get time with our team on the calendar now. Let’s schedule a real conversation about what’s happening in your operation and how what we do fits your current initiative.
Book a meeting with us at MODEX before April 13!
