Ep. 106 - Leading AutoStore Integration with Krish Nathan

Speaker A: Welcome to the Supply Chainy Podcast, where

Speaker B: supply chain leaders share their experience and expertise, as well as discuss the ideas

Speaker A: that are driving today and the innovations

Speaker B: that are shaping tomorrow.

Speaker A: Let's dive in.

Speaker B: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Supply Chainy Podcast. I'm your host, Nathan Chaney, and we are on this podcast, like to talk about the human element, you know, the stories of the people that are behind supply chains. Uh, the supply chains, of course, make everything in the world work. And we want to talk about the people that are making supply chains work. And today we're going to get a perspective from someone who is on the integrator side of the house. And I've actually, after over a hundred podcast episodes, I've not had a lot of voices on that have been able to represent that part of the industry. So really excited today to be joined by Krishna Nathan, the CEO of ElementLogic Americas, and Unpack, if you will, pun intended, a little bit about what's going on in that part of the industry and a little bit about just his personal story. So with that, welcome, Chris, to the show. And could you take a couple minutes to just give people a quick overview of yourself?

Speaker A: Okay. Uh, Nathan, thank you. Thank you for inviting me m onto your podcast. Um, you'll be surprised to know it's my, uh, first podcast that I have ever done. So, um, happy to be here and, uh, looking forward to doing many more. Um, so, yeah, my name is Krish Nathan. I'm the CEO of ElementLogic, uh, Americas. And, um, um, you might guess from the accent, I'm English. Um, I, uh, was brought up in Nottingham in England. Um, uh, um, actually half Indian, half English. Um, um, my, uh, father moved from India to England, uh, to do his education. Ended up, uh, staying there. And, uh, I have a similar journey. So, uh, when in the 2000s, uh, early, um, 2000, I made a decision to come and spend one year in the US and here I am 26 years later. So, yeah, quite, quite a journey.

Speaker B: I like it. Quick, um, question. Obviously your last name is my first name, so we're basically brothers somewhere down the line, I guess. Um, I've never seen anyone with the last name Nathan. Can you tell us more about that? Is that popular name?

Speaker A: Have you run into other people? So it's actually, it's the, the second half of an Indian name. And the, uh, the full name is Ja. Uh, was Jamba Nathan. Um, and. And, uh, when I was 16, I, I decided, and my parents supported me and said, no, we can ever spell your last name. So we're just going to change it to something that people can spell. And so that became the Nathan Dynasty.

Speaker B: Okay. All right.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker B: I like it.

Speaker A: And then as you said, it's not. I certainly come across it as a first name, but, um, from time to time. But, uh, as a last name, don't think I've come across it.

Speaker B: Oh, you might be the one of one then. Okay. All right. That's fun. Um, you know, I kind of think of you now as like a celebrity, like, like Jay Z or whatnot, that you just straight up make your own name. That's. I don't know many people like that. Some people would say that I made my name Nathan Cheney so I could call myself Supply Chainy, but that. That is not true. It is. My last name truly is Cheney. Um, so let's talk a bit about your. Your. Your origin story a little bit. So you kind of indicated that you grew up in Nottingham, as we. I would say, but Nottingham, I guess as you might say it. Um, you know, what was that like? Um, and, and what did you kind of. What kind of kid were you? How'd you keep yourself busy?

Speaker A: Um, yeah, sort of middle class English. Um, background. Um, uh. Uh, regular, uh, local comprehensive government school. Um, uh, spent all my time as a. As a kid playing as much, um, football or soccer as Americans like to call it, uh, as possible. That was my. That was my passion. Um, I would come home from school, drop my school bag off and run down to the local park and play football. Uh, probably six days, seven days a week. Every. Every opportunity I got. Um, I was. I, um, wasn't a great student by any means. Um, barely scraped through, um, uh, out of. Um. So in England you can leave school at 16. Um, so it's not, it's not that unusual. Um, and. But I ended up, um, staying on and doing what we call A levels, um, which is 16 to 18. And then, uh, going to university and doing an engineering degree. Um, but across the board, was definitely not a great scholar by any means. And, uh, just put all my time and energy into sport.

Speaker B: Hey, kids out there. No, you need to focus on school. Do not listen too much to this. Um, um, so lots of football then there. Um, and what did you kind of think you wanted to be. Be when you grow up? Like what. You know, based on what your parents did, did you have like, kind of some paths set for you or some expectations? Like, what was that like?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, so, uh, my parents were both in education, so they were, you know, very disappointed with this very poor student. Um, mother's a teacher, father's, uh, a um, university professor. Um, and um. Um, for me, um, you know, just got into that. That world of um, trying to, yes, become a, um. A person. That, that, that. That taught people and, and um. Moved. Moved towards I guess just imparting knowledge. But um, for me it was um. Um. You know, their, Their stories were very, Were. Were. Were very different from mine. So I'm the. The first person in our family and probably in. In um. Even if I look across the um. You know, the cousins and nephews that really went into um, business, it was, it was a very, um. Um. Um. Sort of education oriented to teachers. Um, uh. Of course, if you come from an Indian background, you're supposed to be a doctor. That's the other story. Everybody half the family was either, you know, what would you want to be, you must be a doctor. Um, and then slowly, you know, became a sort of, okay, you could be an engineer. You can't quite make a. Being a doctor, then you just be an engineer. So, um, so I, you know, that was, that was my, My journey with them as. Them as parents. But, but yeah, great, great time and um, look, uh, back on it very fondly.

Speaker B: I feel like most folks that go down an engineering path, particularly mechanical or industrial whatnot, were, you know, like to play with Legos, like to take things apart, like to understand how things worked. Uh, you know. Was that, Was that characteristic of you as well, or.

Speaker A: I wish I could.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: I wish I could tell you that that was, uh. That, you know, that was my, that was my passion as a kid. Uh, not, not really. Again, for me it was, um. I just loved winning. I um, love competing. Um, I played, um.

Speaker B: Um.

Speaker A: You know, I played football very competitively, um, for the. For the school, for the local city, for the county, um, all of those. And um, then as I got a little bit older at sort of 16, um, I guess 14 to 20, um, became quite proficient at playing a sport called squash, uh, which is a, um. It's not huge in America, um, but it's a big sport in England. It's the first time it's going to be in the Olympics this year. Uh, well, not this year, but the next Olympics that's coming up here in Los Angeles. Squashes, uh, has finally got its, Its spot in the Olympic Games. Um, so I, I kind of just love the. I love, you know, play tournaments, um, um, um, teams, team sports, uh, individual. Um, so just for me it was, you know, what I loved my passion was competing, um, winning, losing, um, and, and being part of a competitive landscape. And I think that's what's translated for me into my business career.

Speaker B: It makes a lot of sense there, there's definitely a uh. Well you know you need to have a bit of a competitive spirit I guess to survive in business world. Um, so talk, talk a bit about that, that education path then and kind of, you know, what happened after kind of school days.

Speaker A: Yeah, so. So um, for me I was um, graduated in engineering with um which, which was a struggle but I did get out of engineering school. Um, um. But then I had a really um, fortunate turn of events. Um and that was um, my first job out of university, um was with a startup. What I would call a startup now right as I look back on it, which is startup ah called Robotech. And this would, you know, this would have been in 86, maybe 87. Um and Robotech was a company that had um, a founder that had a massive passion for robotics. Um, and he had um, um got some funding to start this business and he had a small group of people that um, were going out and offering robotic solutions to industrial companies in the late 80s. And um, uh they were advertising for a junior engineering position. Um and they happened to be walking distance from my house. We lived close enough to their industrial estate. So I applied for the job and um, I was fortunate enough to get the. You know, they gave me an opportunity to go work for them and that really sparked my passion in sort of industrial automation. Um and we had really interesting projects. If I look back on it, we would go to see a customer and um, and we would say we will, we will automate or robot. We'll put a robot in to do stuff that you can't. That isn't. You don't believe can be done with automation. So we would invent all kind of crazy machines um, that would do this stuff. And um, if I look back on it now, was so far ahead of his time. Um and um, you know, aspired into different orgs and transformed or whatever. And honestly um, I don't even know where they are today. But um, I mean that organization was so far ahead of its time. Um, and I'm going to get one little story for you. Um, um. We built many crazy machines, um from um, breaking Toffee into different shapes. Um, but the one that became the most commercialized I would think would be we were the company that put the widget in the bottom of a can of Guinness the very first time. So today if you buy A can of beer, um, Guinness or Boddington's. I mean these are mostly um, European brands but it's an international thing. Now there's a little capsule in the bottom of those cans. When you open the can the pressure changes and it creates the head of um beer. So the head of a Guinness, you know the white part on top of the black. Right. Um that's created by a um, um a steady tiny piece of gas that's in the bottom of this can. So when that product was invented for the very first time um, they needed to figure out how do we get these widgets in the bottom of these cans at very ah, high speeds at hundreds of cans a minute. Um and so somehow they found our company and we created a set of machinery that would do this for them. And it's fully, it's commercialized now and I'm sure it's uh, made by many different people. But it was a super um, uh exciting journey and we did so many different little um clever things um back then and that gave me my passion for industrial automation and robotics.

Speaker B: That's an amazing story. To your point, that is pretty much what we all talk about all day these days. And for you to have been ah, gotten experience and exposure to that so early on in your career. Yeah it must be, must have been a treat. Um what happened next after that stop at that kind of startup robotics company.

Speaker A: So um, they managed uh, they had all kind of different grants and one of the grants they got was training grant and um uh uh they gave me the opportunity to do some um, formalized sales training. Um and that was the um, Dale Carnegie sales training program. And so um uh they sponsored me if you like or they paid for it. Um, um and they said you know, if you're prepared to do this after work in your time we'll pay for it. And so um, I decided that that was something I wanted to do and a couple of times a week between about five and eight o' clock every um in the evening I would uh, drive out to this uh remember uh it vividly this hotel uh was about 45 minute drive away and we'd do this course and it became like a um such a passion for me. I really, that really I really enjoyed and still um, um to this day um give away copies of um uh Dale Carnegie's how to Win Friends and Influence People um uh that I have on my bookshelf. And um, uh that really changed my um feeling about how people interact with each other and was a really exciting um Opportunity for me to get into the world of sales. Um, and then that, of course, then I moved a couple of times in England and then in late 90s, uh, 2000, long story, but I ended up bumping into um, um, the SDI organization and they offered me a job in England, which I turned down. So the CEO at the time there said, you don't. If you don't want to come and work for us in England, how about I get you a job in America, Uh, come and work for us in Los Angeles. And I thought, that sounds interesting. I'll go do that for a year. And um, yeah, flew over in um, February of 2000. And um, yeah, as I said, I'm still here.

Speaker B: Well, and the Y2K didn't take down the entire Internet or anything to allow you to be able to book a ticket and get here in February of 2000.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: You know, I've, I've had a handful of sales engineers on the podcast that have, you know, talked about that. You know, they've, they've all got engineering degrees and they've kind of moved over into that kind of sales and customer facing side of things. And hearing your story, it sounds like, you know, at that point in their career, you know, sales I think is like the, the closest thing you can do to teaching. Uh, you know, it's, it's a teacher and a business sort of thing. I think because you're educating a customer, you're walking them through. Um, tell me a little bit more about, I guess, you know, any suggestions or folks for the folks that are currently, you know, sales, sales engineers out in, in the industry. You know, kind of given the path that you've been on and what you've learned since those days, I mean I,

Speaker A: I would just go straight to the, you know, the formal track. You know, the, the Dale Carnegie School for me is um, is, is second to none. We've, we've also um, know I'll give a plug out to the Sandler, um, sales training program. Uh, we've. More recently I've been exposed to some of that and we, we um, we put many of our salespeople through the Sandler, uh, training program. And I think that's a, um, it's a great journey. But um, there's a quote from Dale Carnegan because I hope I get it right, which is something along the lines of, um, people don't know how much you care. Don't care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. There you Go, that's it. I got it right eventually. I use that all the time. And I think it's so appropriate for especially sales engineers because engineers know so much that they forget to listen before they impart their vast worldly knowledge onto, onto a, you know, onto a prospect or, um, you know, a potential client. And I think that's, that can very easily turn uh, off the, the person that's listening because they, again, they don't really care because at the moment they, they want you to care about what they're, you know, what, what's in it, you know, about there. They want to know about that you, they want you to know about their story. And so I think that's the, my favorite quote that I obviously I butchered it a little bit, but I get it, I get it, I get it.

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Speaker A: I don't think there's any substitute for um, boots on the ground, um, real world, uh, learnings and real world experience. And um, I think you don't, you don't have it doesn't mean you don't get it. If you do a marketing degree in a cell and you come out of formal training. Um, but I think you do need to get it and I think sometimes people get catapulted into higher positions, uh, without that boots on the ground experience. You know, I, I, in my earlier um, career I did telesales, um, you know, I sat with the, back then we had a phone, you know, a phone book and got a few pages of the phone book given to me and that was my quota for the evening. Um, and um, dial and um, talk to people and I also did door to door sales over a, ah, summer vacation, um, over several summers and There's. To me, there is no substitute for getting the reps, in getting that, and, um, just that experience dealing with, um, all manner of different people. So I think the. I think you have to, um. My CEO calls it Gemba, right. You've got to go to where the place of work is done. It's a Japanese term for where work is done. Um, um. And, um, I didn't know what it was until he joined us a year and a half ago. But, uh, as I told him, I feel like I've lived most of my career in Gemba, where work gets done. And I think that's important for any salespeople and for any, um, people coming out of, you know, far more formal education, marketing degrees, MBAs and so forth. I think they need to really, um, spend, um, a lot of time in the field.

Speaker B: I like it. I like it. Good, sound advice there. Um, and also kudos to the Gimba, um, you know, influence there now. Yeah. So you. So you moved over to sunny, um, Los Angeles, um, out of England. So that must have been a bit of a change. And, you know, kind of walk us through kind of those early years in your story, you know, with sdi.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, it's. Yeah, it was complete culture shock. Um, I think for the people that, you know, the people in the existing. You know, the company that I joined, half. Half the people didn't understand anything I was saying because my accent is, uh, toned down a lot in my 26 years here. So I certainly remember showing up here and talking to people, and I'm going to what sounds like English. Um. But, yeah, it was a big cultural. Cultural, um, difference in terms of, um, just everything. But. But from a business perspective, my, um. When I landed in the. In the US Was, um. Um. I came here as a salesperson. So the, um. You know, I got all this formal sales training now. I'd gone to, uh, Gemba and all that. All that stuff. Right. Um, so I, um. The SDI CEO, uh, said, I will hire you, put you on in a sales capacity. And when I got here in 2000, and in 2000, January, February 2000, uh, when I set foot in the door, he said to me, I know you've got sales back, and we don't need sales anymore. We've just sold the largest contract that we've ever sold in our history. So you're now a project manager. I said, okay, right. Glad about that. And so that was, um. And that was. It was actually with JCPenney, the organization, who are still a customer today. Um, 26 years later are still a customer that I deal with. Uh, not on an account level. So we have an account manager. But, um, there are many occasions that I talk to the leadership at JCPenney, um, about what they're doing and their journey. Um, I'm still very active in there when we're working with them, and they're still a big customer of ours. Um, so very dear to my heart, my very first customer. And, um, still strong and with us and doing a lot of work together. Um, but so of course that business transition was okay. Now you've got to figure out how these systems are actually built. So rather than being, um, the person that signs, gets the things over the line and then throws it over the fence to project management, which in my English days and in my organizations I'd work for in England, there was a really strict line between salesperson gets it to this point and then they hand it over. And really that was the end of the road. And the salesperson then went off and found another opportunity. Um, so of course, complete opposite end of the spectrum here. I now got handed this thing to, to be the project to project manage. And we, we, we built 13 buildings for JCPenney in um, over the course of about two and a half to three years. Um, and, and so we, and that those buildings consisted of conveyors, item sorters, garment on, hangar racking, mezzanines. So kind of the full service into a, uh, wcs. Um, we didn't do the wms, but we integrated into wms. So that journey as a project implementation specialist and not specialist because I was learning as we were going. But project implementation, becoming a specialist really helped me, um, um, in my journey here and really set me up, I think, for success in, in my latter career.

Speaker B: Uh, because you kind of got to see, you know, the hunt and you know, the gatherer out there and bringing it in and then having to execute, handle and see that transition and see it all the way through to execution and completion.

Speaker A: So. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So we went through that whole. The whole. The. There was a consulting firm building selection. They didn't have the buildings. We had to do site selection, building sizing, uh, the whole thing from ground to hand over the keys and post customer support. So yeah, got to see the full life cycle there, um, which was great. And then you end up with so many detailed discussions that as a salesperson you often don't get into, um, the really intricate things of. Well, okay, so when we open this car on app receiving, what happens with, you know, what do we scan? Do we. What do we scan it with? You know, um, uh, the sales proposal would say you open a carton and scan it. Right? But within that there's another 20 steps. Right? You open it, you scan it. Okay. What if the right thing's not in there? Now you've got to do an inspection, now you've got to do a change. All of these things often get glossed over in the proposal stage because you don't, uh, you just. The customer or the, or the integrator doesn't get into that level of detail, but the implementation team does. And so you learn a lot about what was maybe glossed over or forgotten or should have been thought about, both from a customer and an integrator side.

Speaker B: So let's fast forward a little bit. So you went from that in the early 2000s to kind of what is, where is SDI today? You know, now there's Element Logic in the picture. Kind of fast forward us through to kind of what the current state of the organization is and I guess just what y' all do.

Speaker A: Yeah, so, um, we, uh, we. So we joined the Element Logic global organization in 2022. Uh, so just about four. Yeah, almost exactly four years ago now actually if I look at the date, um, uh, I think it's fair to say that elementlogic, so elementlogic was um, the. And still is the uh, leading auto store integration partner. Um, and um, from. Oh fantastic, you got your prop there. Brilliant. Love it. Um, so they are the leader. I sell more of these autosource systems than um, anybody globally. Um, but they had not ever, um, entered into the US market. Um, and so their entree into the US market was acquire SDI. And so I was one of the, uh, five owners of SDI and we sold our business to ElementLogic. And um, we partnered with Element, um, because there was such a good cultural fit actually. Um, we really felt that they were kind of operated like a family business. We operated like a family business. And today we're I think roughly a thousand people. So it's much bigger than a globally. So much bigger than a family business. But still wanted, I felt was important, we all felt, was going to, to maintain the intimacy of how you do business and how you interact with people. Um, and so I think what, what we brought to the table was everything but auto store. So, so the elementlogic story was extremely strong in the Nordics, um, with Auto Store as the cornerstone or this really everything they did, um, and they were leaving a lot of other stuff on the table. In those, in those applications, the receiving conveyors and the put away and the robotics and all the other things that went around inside of the four walls of a D.C. um, they were really not um, pursuing um. And we were the opposite. We were doing everything but the auto store really. Um, and so when we brought these two organizations together it became a really um, um, a great marriage. And it's um. I would say in many ways it's changed the, it definitely changed the trajectory of our U.S. business. Um, and I would go as far as to say it's changed the um, trajectory of the uh, global business because the global business has now realized that they want to be a full service integrator with auto store still at the cornerstone of what we do. And it's the heart of everything, truly not everything. It's the heart of many things we do but uh, it's not everything we do. And um, we, we um, uh today in the Americas I think we, we've, we've, we've benefited from helping the global org understand some of these other things that you can do with um, with the trust and the relationships that we all have with our customer base. Right. Um, so that, that's, that's kind of how I perceive what we do is we're given trust by our customers and so that means that we can do many different things for them. We don't have to just be the auto store provider.

Speaker B: I like it. I like it. Tell me a little bit about. There's going to be a healthy number of folks listening to this because this is the full supply chain podcast that are not familiar with what the role of an integrator is for those of us in the industry, whatnot, we know talk about all day but you know, if you're explaining it to a third grader or something like that. How would you explain kind of the role of integrators in the industry?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I tell people for me, I tell people we're a little bit like if you imagine people most people can understand, maybe not third grader but many people understand m that you build, when you build a house, right? You build a house, you hire an architect. And I feel sort of to me that's the analogy of what an integrator is. Um, because the architect will get the right fridge for the right construction layout, the right um, maybe they'll deal with interior design. So they're the person that sort of puts this vision together. And I feel the integrator is in the warehouse is that person that becomes uh, the visionary for the end to end process of the building. I um, would say traditionally an integrator doesn't manufacture product. Um, there's so much crossover now in the space. There are uh, people that do manufacture, we do a little bit of manufacturing. Um, traditionally a integrator has a very strong software suite. We have a very strong software suite. And so the offering that we have to our customers is um, a end to end solution design. Um, in many cases with our software as the, as the glue that's holding these different pieces of automation together.

Speaker B: All right. Uh, it was really I think a great picture that you painted a while ago when you gave the example of JCPenney and standing up facilities and site selection and all the above. Um, I feel like the fact that for integrators you're like hey, we're going to go just resell all these things that are being made by other people and mix them up and create a solution. So I feel like it's easy to say you're an integrator, but I feel like, like it's hard to differentiate or, or, or kind of compare or like you know, win in the marketplace. Can you talk a bit to that point and, and kind of how element logic approaches that?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it is, I think um, I think it's. Everybody says they're an integrator. I think the um, the to me the differentiator is um, first of all you're bringing value and your value is, is the knowledge that you have about different technologies. So um, I think as an integrator that allows you to um, um, select the best in class types of automation for different pieces of the warehouse. And often as a um, end to end oem, you perhaps are less um, agnostic about that, um, about those, that journey. Right. Or about the selection. Because of course you know, if you've got all of these, you you know, use what's, if that's your tool bag, you use what's in your tool bag. I feel like as an integrator your tool bag is infinite and you can really adapt and you bring uh, to me the value is that you bring that adaptivity, that knowledge, that creativity to the customer. Right? So really you're passing, you're providing your knowledge input to the, to the customer. I think that's what differentiates is it's so difficult to put your finger on it. We all say, well our software is different. Uh, you know, yes, we like to think our software is different from everybody else. But I'm sure any, the next integrator you get on here is going to say their software is different as well. I think it is. I think um, we have some unique features in our software. Of course, I think other people have unique features in their software. But I think what you bring to the table, what we bring to, what I bring to the table of my team is you bring in the, the many years of experience and knowledge and different situations that you've come across and you were able to apply those um, to a particular environment and a case that you're dealing with.

Speaker B: You know, if I look at your kind of career going back to you know, 2020 or even a little bit before then, you've really been able to see um, it was called this distribution at scale in E commerce and the explosion of just logistics and supply chain on sort of the business front. You know, back then you know you had transportation managers that and you know you had no real presence of the supply. The chief supply chain officers, you know, really making decisions. And now it's like a supply chain world. I think, you know, I'm a little biased though. Um, can you, can you talk about like how you know from your seat, from your perspective how you've seen kind of this growth movement, you know, within the four walls and how E commerc and you know just the demand for fast delivery has changed. Kind of like how you build a warehouse and the tools you use inside.

Speaker A: I mean it's. Yeah, as you say, it's just, it's a, I mean it's a remarkable um, uh, journey that the, this industry has been on over. If I think of my 26 years, um, I uh, mean you would. As you say when you go and try and explain what you do to somebody. When I used to go, you know you go out and you go meet somebody in a borrower and try and explain what you do. They would just. Their eyes would just. Even just completely glaze over, right? It's just like what, what on earth is this person talking about? Even within our own industry? I would go to a conference, um, I don't know, apparel manufacturers conference or a um, whatever, some kind of industry contract and you'd say we, we work in a warehouse. What Automation, what. But you know now I think Amazon changed this, right? I mean the space is just um, so visible even. We even got commercials on the TV with inside of a wares. I mean it's almost, it's not that. Not even, not unusual. It's commonplace now to see the inside of a warehouse and picking environment and um, forklift trucks and Robots and all of this stuff has just become so, um, commonplace. Um, uh, that I think most people now, when you say to them this is what I do, I usually say something along the lines of, you know, when you order something that comes from a warehouse. Oh yeah, I always, yeah, order, you know, get deliveries every day. Okay, right. Um, so when those two items, when you open that package, getting those two items together in that package is quite difficult. And there's lots of automation and lots of technology that goes into making that happen. Um, without the advent of E Comm, Amazon and many other sort of players that are um, breaking those barriers, I still think we'd be talking into space with nobody to understand what we said. But it's night and day the difference in terms of what we do and how visible it is

Speaker B: as we kind of wrap up things here. I would love to try to tease one or two more nuggets of wisdom and insight from you. Um, either just kind of on the state of technology in warehouses front, um, or just being in business in the supply chain space these days.

Speaker A: I mean, I think the state of technology is uh, interesting in that it's evolving so rapidly. Um, I mean every week there's a new piece of technology that we see on LinkedIn or you see this sort of new mousetrap thing that's out there that somebody's invented and there's some really clever stuff out there. Um, I think for me the, the challenge for our customer and I think what we have to, where I think we fit is to deliver efficiency and deliver technology, but also deliver it with, with safety and, and security and, and um, reliability. Um, and so I think that's the journey we're on at the moment is. And, and I think uh, many of the, I mean the auto store product line specifically is so geared to that. That's why it's been so successful. There's so it's, you know, it's such a small, um, number of moving parts and any of those moving parts are 100% redundant. And so the reliability factor is um, extremely high. Um, so I think our job is to try and filter out and find what, what those technologies are that, that deliver efficiency, um, deliver a game changing environment to what you're doing with um, space usage or labor efficiency, but also do it reliably and deliver it really, really, um, quickly and again, um, um, safely. Right? So you deliver, you turn it on, it works, you hand the keys over. People that have been in this industry for 26 years know that, you know, in the late 2000s. It was not. It was. You know, we've come through an evolution to get to this point, so I think that that, for me is our job as integrators is to bring safety, security to our customer base. And, um, I think with that, you know, that goes back to my point on trust. Right? You do that, you get trusted. You do it again, you get trusted. The trust builds based on you performing.

Speaker B: All right. I like it. Well, we could have probably gone on for another, uh, another little while on this topic, but I appreciate you joining in and being. You're so honored to be the first podcast that you've been on, and hopefully it was a good experience and, uh, you know, didn't scare you away from the concept.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Nathan, thank you. Thank you for inviting me on. It's surprising how quickly, uh, the time has gone. So, yeah, I look forward to coming back on.

Speaker B: Excellent. Excellent.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: If you made it to the end of this podcast, I want to personally say thank you. Without listeners like you, this podcast would simply not exist. That said, if you know someone who could benefit from hearing this episode, we would love if you would share and if someone you know might be an interesting guest or maybe yourself, please reach out and let's get the conversation going. Thank you again. Catch you on the next one.