Last week I got the chance to attend the ShipHero Insider Summit for the second year. This is a great gathering of 3PLs of all sizes for some really insightful conversations on their current challenges, how they are navigating them and also what is on their radar.

What makes this such a great event is the wide spectrum of 3PLs in attendance. From those with just 1,500 square feet that started a few months ago to those with multiple buildings and tons of square footage. It fills the conversations with many different perspectives.

This year, one conversation that kept coming up was how AI is being leveraged within their businesses. Sure, no surprise there as it is on everyone's mind but these conversations felt like they were much further along than last year's conversations. They aren't just figuring out how to do document look ups or research in LLMs but utilizing AI to create real systems and solve real problems within their operations.

After these conversations and some other recent ones I have had it is starting to look like we are heading more towards headless WMS's. What is headless? If you haven't heard this term before, we're not talking about the horseman, we're talking about a detachment of the system from the user interface. This allows you to essentially create your own user interface or access the WMS for multiple different avenues.

With Claude and other AI interfaces being able to connect to so many different systems now, this unlocks completely different ways to interact with your WMS. The WMS in itself essentially just becomes the system of record and in some cases you don't even need to go into the WMS interface itself to utilize it how you need.

At the event, the ShipHero team showed how to utilize this with their WMS and the information and analysis you could extract by leveraging Claude connected to ShipHero was quite impressive. One of the use cases was evaluating employees and Claude even called out a temp worker that should be considered for a full time hire based on their performance. This is happening in seconds and minutes, not hours or days of analysis.

So why is this exciting? To me, I think this is exciting because it gives ops leaders so much more power to get answers they need in the moment versus waiting for an analyst to give it to them or spend the time to do it themselves.

SaaS in general will have a very interesting future because of the ability of so many to now be able to build without knowing code but the SaaS that allows itself to serve as the important system of records and open up that access will last a lot longer in my opinion.

What are your thoughts? Are you going beyond just asking questions to your favorite LLM? Have you connected it to any of your systems yet?

Monday's Episode - Cold Storage Warehouse Automation: Insights from TGW

This episode of The New Warehouse Podcast takes a trip down the freezer aisle. Kevin chats with Collin Russell of TGW Logistics Group to explore how frozen and refrigerated operations are approaching automation differently from traditional warehouses.

Russell shares insights into labor and facility upgrades related to cold storage warehouse automation. The discussion also highlights how automation decisions increasingly center on throughput, uptime, and operational resilience rather than simply reducing labor.

Tuesday's Episode - Are These Hidden Productivity Killers in Your Distribution Center?

In this episode of DC 101, we sit down with Chris Hamley, Managing Partner at The Brecham Group, to discuss the simple, everyday issues that secretly drain productivity in warehouse operations.

It’s easy to get caught up in complex process improvements, but how much time are you losing to basic housekeeping? Chris explains how seemingly minor inconveniences—like a damaged rack label, a missing location in the system, or a burnt-out dock light—can add up to hours of lost time and create unnecessary employee headaches. Learn his actionable strategies for engaging your team to identify and solve these "fix-it" elements.

Wednesday's Episode - Warehouse Automation Installation: Precision and Cost

In this episode of The New Warehouse Podcast, Kevin chats with Will Blount about the growing complexity of warehouse automation installation and why precision execution has become critical for modern facilities.

Wize Solutions has spent nearly two decades supporting warehouse operations. More recently, the company has expanded into automation-focused mechanical installations for ASRS systems, dense storage solutions, and brownfield retrofits. The conversation explores how integrators, OEMs, and operators are approaching automation projects differently as facilities look to maximize existing space and minimize downtime.

Thursday's Episode - Hai Robotics HaiPick Climb at MODEX 2026: Simple, Flexible ASRS With Fast Random Access

At MODEX 2026, Kevin from The New Warehouse Podcast talks with Hunter and Colin from HAI ROBOTICS about their mobile ASRS portfolio and the HaiPick Climb system, including a double-deep variant debuting at the show.

They explain how ASRS evolved from pallet cranes to mini-loads and shuttles, and why some operations need more modularity, flexibility, and a different price point.

HaiPick Climb emphasizes simplicity: a climbing robot retrieves a tote from standard tote racking fitted with climbing channels, without lifts, elevators, or forced conveyor infeed/outfeed points, using only two contact channels.

Friday's Episode - Dexory Upgrades the Tallest Robot in Warehousing

How do you top the tallest robot in the industry? Chris Coote, Director of Product at Dexory, caught up with The New Warehouse live from MODEX 2026 to explain how the company is doing just that with its new Dexory View Adapt platform.

The conversation also explores how AI-driven insights can reduce firefighting, improve visibility, and help warehouse teams shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive operational management.

That's it from last week! Hope you are having/had a good memorial day weekend. Quite rainy here in NJ this weekend!

If you want to hang out this week, we are back with the virtual edition of Warehousing After Dark on Wednesday night (5/27) at 8pm EST. Register to attend here!​

Thank you,

Kevin

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