John Wharff [00:00:00]:

EasyPost. In general, our entire goal is to help bring people into the future of shipping regardless of whether they're worried about rate shopping or label generation, cartonization and load planning which we're going to get into today. The post purchase experience. We have something along all of those lines that can help people get better, get faster and save money.

Narrator [00:00:20]:

Welcome to Supply Chain Now the number one voice of Supply Chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights and real supply chain leadership from across the globe. One conversation at a time.

Scott Luton [00:00:33]:

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be. Scott Luton and the one and only Tandreia Bellamy here with you on Supply Chain Now. Hey Tandreia, how you doing today?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:00:44]:

I'm great, Scott. Great to see you again.

Scott Luton [00:00:47]:

You as well, you as well and great. We got a great show. It's great to see you. And we have beautiful great weather outside early or late March. Is there ever a better time in Georgia? It's beautiful, huh?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:00:59]:

It is absolutely gorgeous.

Scott Luton [00:01:02]:

We are duking it out with a pollen. That's okay. That is okay.

Tandreia Bellamy [00:01:05]:

So more of that to come.

Scott Luton [00:01:07]:

That's right, a whole bunch more to that come. Speaking of good things to come, we have an outstanding show here today. We have a container load of actionable advice and takeaways to deliver on time and in full. Now you don't need me to tell you the e commerce is booming and setting records everywhere. That and many other factors are placing a lot of pressure on warehouse performance and efficiency. Now today we're going to be offering expert insights on how to optimize your shipping operations. In particular, we're going to be really dialing it in on taking your load planning to the next level, world class levels. Now Tandreia, play along at home if you would raise your hand if you're experiencing growing parcel volume, rising workforce costs or increasing shipping complexity.

Scott Luton [00:01:53]:

Some may raise their hands in all three, huh? Okay, so folks, if that applies to you, you're in the right place today. Now Tandreia, you've been in a in a few million warehouse give or take a few few mill million warehousing and fulfillment operations in your hall of fame career. Really looking forward to your observations throughout our discussion. Should be a great show, huh?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:02:15]:

Looking forward to it.

Scott Luton [00:02:16]:

I am too. I am too. Folks, stay tuned for a great conversation filled with actionable takeaways. The best of all kinds. All right Tandreia, you ready to get down to business?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:02:27]:

Right after a quick question. Was ProMat as well attended as anticipated?

Scott Luton [00:02:33]:

Oh, that is the $50 million question. They were, they were, Andrea. They. According to data, I saw over 50,000 people up in Chicago at ProMat. How about that?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:02:44]:

Wow. Lot of interest in automation.

Scott Luton [00:02:48]:

There is a ton. And how to best optimize it. And you know what? To that end, our friends here at Easy Post were up there shaking hands, helping light bulbs go off above heads everywhere amongst those 50,000 people. So big kudos to our friends MHI that put on a great show. Okay, well, Tandreia, speaking of the great show, I'm really excited to bring back this guest back by popular demand. I want to welcome in John Wharff, senior manager, sales engineering, with our friends at EasyPost. Hey. Hey, John.

Scott Luton [00:03:23]:

How you doing?

John Wharff [00:03:24]:

Hey, I'm great. How are you guys?

Scott Luton [00:03:26]:

Outstanding, Outstanding back. I tell you, we got the numbers in from our friends at Nielsen, John and Tandreia, and John was like signing Elvis or Taylor Swift or something. So back with us, Tandreia, you know where we like to start with our guests. I love fun, warm up questions that kind of get to see the human side of them before we start talking supply chain and industry and stuff. And John, got a special two part question for you here today. I would love to understand since you joined us last time, what's been one of your favorite personal moments from your recent journey. And of course, tell us more about your favorite professional moment as well.

John Wharff [00:04:11]:

Yeah, absolutely. On the personal moment side, it's actually still tied into work, but I've got a really good buddy here and he's going to be super mad that I'm bringing this up at all. But last year he had a pretty serious battle with cancer. And he's good, he has a clean bill of health, he went through it, he's doing well, he's back at work, he's here with me every single day. And it was scary, it was touch and go there for a long time. As anybody who's ever had, you know, a loved one or a relative struggle with cancer, they know how tiring and time consuming and, you know, stressful it can be. And we're just really, really happy that he's back. He's here and it's fantastic.

Scott Luton [00:04:50]:

Oh, okay, John, that makes our day. And I want to give a big digital hug to Jeff. I'm not gonna mention any of the names, but we're with you. We're, we're, we celebrate with you. And John, I love how that is your personal high. So.

John Wharff [00:05:06]:

Oh, yeah.

Scott Luton [00:05:07]:

On a much less important note, much, much less professionally, uh, what's been really cool because EasyPost have been on the move, huh?

John Wharff [00:05:15]:

Yeah, absolutely. Really my favorite thing ever is all over the world there's disparate technologies, right? And here at EasyPost, we try to help everything from the beginning to the end of shipping and really kind of tie all of those individual dots together. We've come out with a bunch of new products and that's all what they're geared towards is taking some of the behind the scenes data, some of the really intelligent systems that we have, some of the AI and algorithms, and use it to better serve our customers. Our Luma product, our Forge product are all gears towards taking what we already have and enhancing it and just making the experience even better.

Scott Luton [00:05:51]:

Love that, John. You all have been on the move. All right, so Tandreia, those are quite two peaks from a journey standpoint. Personal, you know, is so important. Life happens, not just work and just, you know, all the pressures that come with it. And to celebrate those really big achievements, like John was sharing with our friend Jeff, that makes my day. How about you, Tandreia?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:06:16]:

I have a very similar account to John. One of my best friends in the world was my freshman roommate. So we've known each other for a number of years and I shared her journey, cancer journey with her and triumphantly, I've come out on the other side and it is, it's just exhilarating every time you think about where we are now compared to. To where we were.

Scott Luton [00:06:44]:

That's right. Well said, well said. Thank you both for sharing that. And again, on a much, much lesser important note, congrats to the EasyPost team. It's been great to collaborate with you all and kind of see the growth right in front of our eyes. All right, so John, we got a lot to get into.

Scott Luton [00:07:21]:

John and Tandreia. And so we're about to dive more into optimizing shipping and load planning and and really warehouse performance in the day we're housing in fulfilling fulfill fulfillment operations. But John, to level set a bit for folks that missed your first appearance with us, tell us briefly about yourself and EasyPost.

John Wharff [00:07:42]:

Yeah, absolutely. So I have worked here at EasyPost just over six years, always in Technical roles right now, working with the sales engineering team to help all new incoming prospects know a little bit more about the technical side of what we do, how we can drive our roi, how we can make everything that they do more efficient and save them money in the long run. EasyPost in general, our entire goal is to help bring people into the future of shipping, regardless of whether they're worried about rate shopping or label generation. Cartonization and load planning, which we're going to get into today. The post purchase experience. We have something along all of those lines that can help people get better, get faster and save money.

Scott Luton [00:08:21]:

I love that. Tandreia. The future of shipping more organized, more organizations need to find their path to get there in a hurry, would you say?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:08:30]:

Absolutely, absolutely. And as an industrial engineer, better, faster, more efficient. You are singing my tune.

Scott Luton [00:08:40]:

Oh, stay tuned. A lot more there. And by the way, one more personal note about John. Folks that you that know him will know that he's a big hockey fan and a big baseball fan. So if you see John out and about at events or you name it on the Internet and want to talk something other than supply chain tech stuff, connect with him on hockey and baseball, you'll be impressed. Okay, John, we want to continue level setting a bit before we get into kind of the main course here today. Now, when folks hear the phrase load planning, you know we've got the smartest audience in all of global supply chain. So most of most of our folks out there will know exactly what we're talking about.

Scott Luton [00:09:19]:

But for folks that may be new and haven't participated in first person, define what we're talking about when we talk about load planning. John.

John Wharff [00:09:27]:

Yeah, I always think of load planning as where the digital becomes the physical. Right. We have a whole bunch of different shippers in every different industry, and regardless of what operation they're doing, at some point something like an order becomes an actual physical thing that needs to be handled. We're now putting things in boxes, we're building pallets with those boxes, and then we have to get those boxes into some type of container to get it delivered to the end goal. Load planning kind of is an umbrella term that covers all of that. How do we most efficiently pack boxes, pallets, trucks, planes, train cars, whatever they may be, so that we're sure we're getting the best value we possibly can and we're being as efficient as humanly possible. We all know that warehouses are inherently complex places and a lot of people on the tech side kind of forget that there are real physical Considerations that have to be taken into account anytime you're shipping anything, right. We got to get real stuff to real people.

John Wharff [00:10:30]:

And it can be, you know, as silly as maybe a gag gift all the way up to really, really high value, extremely important medication. And it becomes very important to realize the reality, the tangible side of what load planning really means for these businesses.

Scott Luton [00:10:46]:

John, well said. As you touched on there, Tandreia, we're talking about all kinds of factors that go into successful load planning, weight distribution, specific handling or storage requirements. Kind of like those medications that you called out there, John. Utilization of space, of course, regulatory and legal concerns. And that's just all. That's the tip of the iceberg, ain't it? Right, Tandreia?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:11:07]:

Absolutely. And you know, as John spoke to efficiency, sometimes people don't think that being inefficient comes in many forms. It's not just moving fast. So if you have cartons, containers, whether they're trucks or air containers that are moving half full, that's very inefficient.

Scott Luton [00:11:29]:

That's right. Well said. And even worse, those empty miles that we're all trying to get rid of left and right. Good stuff, Tandreia. So one of the things that Tandreia touched on there was cartonization. So, John, want to get into the low hanging fruit first and we'll talk about what everyone loves. It's music to my ears. These easy wins, right? So so often they sit right up under our nose.

Scott Luton [00:11:56]:

So I want to ask you, what are the quickest, easiest, easiest ways to improve load planning efficiency?

John Wharff [00:12:04]:

Yeah. When I think about the easiest things that people are usually missing out on, they come down to kind of two factors that are very and that's cost per parcel and that's fill rate. And those are two data points that if you're in a warehouse and you're not looking at those, you need to start, right, you need to understand how much is it costing me to get every single box out and what can I do to drive those costs down and then how efficiently am I actually using the space that is allowed to me? For those who have toured lots of warehouses, there's two very old school ways of handling this. There's we have, you know, 87 different box sizes and on the fly at the time of an order, we're trying to figure out which one to use, right? And then the other side, which is we have two box sizes and we just make it work. And either one of those leaves you open for a lot of inefficiency and a lot of problems not only right then when we're starting this journey, but all the way through to the end.

Scott Luton [00:13:02]:

Yes, yes, yes. I'm. You know, waste, waste. Tandreia. We are on. Hopefully most organizations are on the relentless pursuit of the elimination of waste in all of its forms. Whether it's packaging that John's kind of alluding to or anything else, and cost per parcel and those fill rates. Those are two important North Star metrics to constantly keep your finger on the pulse of what comes to your mind.

Scott Luton [00:13:28]:

Tandreia, when you hear about these. Some of these easy wins are sitting right up under our nose that easy.

Tandreia Bellamy [00:13:33]:

Wins aren't always easy, especially if you aren't using some type of system to help optimize. When John was talking about 87 different box sizes or the two box sizes, it reminds me of my son who, you know well, Scott, and he sent me a picture from a retail establishment that he was working at, one of the many that's going bankrupt now. And it was piles and piles and piles of cardboard and plastic. And his. His caption was, there's gotta be a better way.

Scott Luton [00:14:10]:

So true. All right, so, John, cartonization, palletization. Most folks out there know exactly what we're talking about. Where do you see in your journey? Where do you see where a lot of companies waste a ton of money and resources in these areas?

John Wharff [00:14:27]:

Yeah, I think kind of like was similarly said before, empty space. Right. Anytime you're using way too large of a box to ship what you're shipping, it's not just the issue of the wasted space. There's dim factors. There's different things. You can get hit with surcharges you weren't expecting because it's a really lightweight box, but it's also really big and takes up a bunch of space that can kind of bite you in the bottom. On the palletization side, I mean, it's as simple as the exact same concept, which is, are you efficiently using space? But then, Scott, something you mentioned earlier, something like weight distribution, is it going to tip over? Is there going to be breakage? Is there going to be damage in transit? And how do we make sure that we're not stacking heavy things on top and it's crushing everything below it? All of those things are important to consider. And you have to know that not only you're doing it right for the warehouse, but for the entire journey, getting A to B.

John Wharff [00:15:19]:

Yeah.

Scott Luton [00:15:20]:

So true. And, you know, you make a great point, because the safety of our team members amongst all these many considerations, that's Got to be up at the top of the list Tandreia because what I've noticed with Amazon and other retailers too but Amazon is just kind of top of mind. They've made some big time progress in terms of their cartonization where they're using less corrugated and making a better match between the item shipped and what it shipped in. From what I've seen they've put some information out publicly in terms of the dollar savings but I've seen just from experience, experience getting what we get, they've done a much better job there. But Tandreia, when it comes to cartonization and palletization, your thoughts based on what John has shared?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:16:06]:

John did a great job explaining that and you know I'm going to pivot to what you talked about with Amazon. Having the ability and one of I think it was Bud touched on it as well having the ability to say yes, I want my three different orders that I ordered on three different days to arrive at the same time helps reduce the dunnage waste, helps to reduce the amount of trucks that's in my neighborhood reduces gasoline. So having that capability is something that I'm really surprised has not caught on more. I've ordered from other E commerce platforms that don't give the consumer the concate that flexibility to say I really don't need this the next day. Give it to me all at once.

Scott Luton [00:17:02]:

Yeah Tanger, I'm with you. That's also speaking of the big A, I love that change they've made because as a conscious consignee I feel so high flute when I say that or a consumer I like. I'll take every opportunity to bundle my shipments because I'm placing them typically in advance and have that truck come, you know, make less trips to our neighborhood. I love that they have not just enabled that option but incentivize in some cases. Yes John, you're nodding your head but I got one other comment about palletization but I'll save it. John, you're seeing you admire what Amazon's doing there as well.

John Wharff [00:17:39]:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think back about it was probably about 15 years ago now I ordered an SD card for my digital camera and it literally came in a 2 by 2 by 5 foot box 1 SD card. And I mean we, we laugh about it and you know it's. As a consumer it's something that's kind of humorous when it happens but when you're on this side of it and you're actually trying to help people cut down those inefficiency it's just a knife to the heart, man, when you see stuff like that, because it's once again, it's an easy thing to fix. You just have to be willing to look at what you're doing and be willing to take the leap and make the change.

Scott Luton [00:18:18]:

Yes. Mass of opportunities. As, as I think Tanger said earlier, opportunities abound. And there's. With the golden state of supply chain tech that we're in, we're it, we're in position to make it easy for our team members much easier to make much better decisions utilizing other resources and, and driving a whole bunch of savings. One more point, Tandreia. John, probably back in 2019, 2020, manually palletized a bunch of AV equipment to send it out to Vegas for a show. We did right.

Scott Luton [00:18:50]:

And I am so thankful there is no smartphone footage of me almost having a heart attack on this dock because I was worried to death my, you know, equipment was going to be lost on the transit. But hopefully no one has that anywhere. All right, so let's talk about Magic Logic. So, John, this is a relatively new, new aspect of the growing easy post ecosystem. Tell us, if you would, John, how Magic Logic helps businesses optimize their space, which you were talking about earlier, and of course reduce cost too.

John Wharff [00:19:22]:

Yeah. So Magic Logic is insanely powerful. And anytime we're talking about something that is so rich and so deep, it's really easy to give a surface level and not get into the weeds. The idea is Magic Logic can step by step look at actual consumer user data and they can do everything from suggest the best box sizes to give actual written instructions for how the boxes should be packed. It can then move on to pallets. It can take into consideration the orientation that boxes need to be placed in. Things that have to be on the bottom have to be on the top, can only be on the outside. Things that need additional empty space for things like ice packs or dry ice for things that need to be temperature controlled.

John Wharff [00:20:10]:

It can do everything, all the way from the very beginning of getting things into boxes, all the way through a step by step process until you're loading it onto the truck. It can take into consideration, are you doing hand loads with real people, are you loading by forklift, are you loading with robotic arms? Because all of those have their own considerations for what range of motion is available, how we can stack things, how we can be the most efficient, always with the end goal of driving down overall cost. How do we help you take what you have today and just utilize what you have more efficiently? And also suggest overall changes to processes that might make your life infinitely easier in the long run.

Scott Luton [00:20:56]:

And John, before I get to injury to comment, it sounds like that Magic Logic can grow and evolve with facilities whether they, you know, initially they're manual and they bring on more automation. It can scale with the organization. Is that right?

John Wharff [00:21:09]:

Absolutely. I mean, we have Magic Logic in everything from real small couple hundred square foot warehouses that are just run by individuals who are hand grabbing things off shelves and packing all the way up to fully automated robotics led gigantic distribution centers. And there are efficiencies that can be gained regardless of where you're at.

Scott Luton [00:21:30]:

Gotcha. Good stuff there. And folks out there, you always want to see elbows. If you got a army of, of, of humans reached and grabbing, seeing those elbows so they're not overreaching and hurting those backs, those are important. I learned that from a guru way back when, Tandreia. So what you heard there from Magic Logic and, and what it enables and the opportunities it affords organizations. Your thoughts?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:21:52]:

Magic Logic sounds magic and I, I really, really appreciate the fact that it's can be utilized in any size of warehouse because so many times, you know, you go and you work with a smaller client and their big thing is I don't have the money to invest in automation. So to have a software solution that can provide efficiency improvements and savings and improve the markers from a sustainability standpoint, I think is great.

Scott Luton [00:22:27]:

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. I was waiting for that magical analogy because you know, who would have thunk? Steve Miller was a supply chain practitioner. Abra. Abracadabra.

John Wharff [00:22:37]:

Who?

Scott Luton [00:22:37]:

The thug. Sign him up for a spokesperson for Magic Logic. But kidding aside, Tandreia, I know Tandreia loves numbers and I got two numbers. And John, check my math here, right? First off, carton selections in under a hundred milliseconds. Now I did my conversion. I think that's 10 seconds or less. Is that right, John? Right.

John Wharff [00:22:59]:

It is definitely less than 10 seconds. You're right there.

Scott Luton [00:23:02]:

All right, you got to check my math, as Tandreia well knows. And then secondly, fill rate increases, which is that big one of those two big metrics you shared earlier, John, Fill rate increases of 5 to as much as 60%, reducing those costs. And of course that environmental impact Tangeri that you'd called out earlier, Tanra. I think as they like to say here in Georgia, that dog will hunt your thoughts.

Tandreia Bellamy [00:23:26]:

That dog definitely hunts. And the fact that, you know, when, when John was going through and talking about Magic Logic, it's Including everything, you know, the product, what type of packaging, if it needs refrigeration, so that, you know your fill rate is really filled based on the product. And, and. And that's a great thing, because then you also know that your damages should be reduced because you're going to put the right products together with the right type of dutch to protect the product and make for a happier client.

Scott Luton [00:24:05]:

Oh, I love that Tandreia. You know, back when I was shipping stuff most often and I worked for a construction manufacturer in. In South Carolina, man, we get. We'd send stuff out to bus stop, construction, retail construction, and it would get all beat up. And the. The GM on the pro on the construction site, we'd get some of the worst calls until we tried, you know, until we figured out how to optimize shipping and stuff. But from then, 20 years ago to now, with all the E Commerce, John, we don't like getting damaged stuff. Is that right, John?

John Wharff [00:24:40]:

No, absolutely. I know one of the things that we talked about last time I was on with returns, right. And returns is something that was always a giant thorn in everybody's side. You don't like returns, it means that something went wrong. You're trying everything you can to maintain that relationship with that buyer. You know what's even worse than a return damage? Because at that point, it means somebody did something wrong and it's completely out of your hands. So the more you can do to insulate yourself away from any potential damage. And it goes into all of those things like weight distribution, tipping axle weight in trucks.

John Wharff [00:25:15]:

What happens when that truck has to slam on its brakes because they're cut off on the interstate? Right. You got to make sure you're thinking about the worst possible scenario and covering your bases.

Scott Luton [00:25:25]:

Oh, I'm with you, John. Good stuff. All right, John and Tanger, we got so much more to get to here. We're about halfway through. Gosh, you got a couple extra hours, John. Is that going to be okay?

John Wharff [00:25:35]:

I'll be here all day.

Scott Luton [00:25:38]:

Innovate, improvise, overcome stealing. That kind of. From our friends in the Army. Let's talk about some of the common challenges, some of the. Maybe the bigger common challenges out there and how we can overcome them. And I want to start with what are some of the other bigger pain points that warehouse teams face, especially related to load planning?

John Wharff [00:25:57]:

Yeah, I think that one that we haven't really talked about yet, but is kind of the unwritten rule in every step of the logistics journey is human error. How do we get rid of human Error. Because you can have the best, you know, SOP in the world and you can try really hard to make sure you're maintaining efficiency. But at the end of the day, most warehouses have real people making real time decisions on the floor. Ask the people, ask the actual workers that are on the floor. What are they seeing? Are they, you know, getting orders with just the completely wrong box size attached to them? Make sure like, like I always say, you have to have good data to make good decisions. So where are you today? Are you doing things like leaving boxes half full? Are you leaving trucks half full? Are your pallets all wonky and crooked and not efficiently packed and everything like that? Every step of the journey all ties together and the more that you understand that it's like one continuous journey from order drop to out the door, you can really start to make intelligent decisions at every step along that route to make sure that you're best prepared for the future.

Scott Luton [00:27:03]:

Yeah, good stuff. John, on the front part of your response, you were talking about the, the repercussions of making lots of assumptions or even one assumption can bite you these days. I was sharing with my son, Ben Tandreia, the old saying, what, what we do when we assume. And he thought it was a big old dad dad joke. He's still, he still kind of soak in the truth of that. But that aside, Tandreia, what you hear there from John about some of the bigger pain, bigger pain points or two that warehouse teams face out there, you.

Tandreia Bellamy [00:27:37]:

Know, again, the possibilities are endless with what we have here because it is taking everything into account to sure to ensure that decision making is optimal. And by that you also have to make sure that your KPIs are properly set up. I very vividly remember a situation where the warehouse was so hyped to get the packages out as quickly as possible that they were completely ignoring due dates. And because they were shipping things faster than they actually needed to go, they were sub optimizing the low plan. It's a lot to try and keep track of manually, but being able to feed all of that information into systems like this, ensure that you really can optimize the load and still make all of your customer KPIs.

Scott Luton [00:28:38]:

Yes, well said. And on that decision making, when we can speed up decision making and enable our team to, to make those decisions more confidently, faster, smarter, you know, talk about deliver on performance and heightened performance expectations while saving money and saving our environment and so many other things. It's like a gift that keeps on giving and it's such A universal priority. Now, whether you're talking warehouses or manufacturing production sites, you name it. It's really one of the charges of 2025 here in supply chain, especially the aim of a lot of tech out there. Good stuff, Tandreia. And really quick, John, before I move on, because I want to talk about improving load configurations without those heavy, burdensome major process changes. All right, let's talk about businesses looking to act on.

Scott Luton [00:29:30]:

On some of these opportunities out there, John, improving their load configurations, but they don't want all the heavy major process changes that makes change management so much tougher. Your thoughts?

John Wharff [00:29:43]:

Yeah. So it's really funny because it immediately brings to mind two things. The first is one of the examples that I like to go to all of the time is that one of our warehouses, using Magic Logic, has a really cool process where all the way at the front of the chain, as soon as an order drops, they actually have a robotic box maker that at that exact moment at order ingestion, is building a cardboard box to the exact specifications of the products included in that order. Now, when people hear that, the very first thought they have is, wow, that's really, really cool. And then they go, my warehouse does not have a magic robot that can cut boxes down to size for me, so why does that do me any good? The real answer is there is never, in my estimation, there's never a worse partner than someone who comes in and says, we want to help you. And the way that we're going to help you is change everything you're doing because it's all bad. And instead, what we focus on with the initial implementations of Magic Logic is we look at what you have today. We're going to ingest your data.

John Wharff [00:30:45]:

What are your product sizes? What box sizes are you working with? Can we trim that down? Does it make sense to trim that down? But ultimately, we look, can your. Do your products compress? Do they nest? What do we need to know about the specific things that you're shipping so that we can enable you to make the best decisions for where you are today without throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Let's go down that road in a year, two years, three years, Right? There's a lot of these really important warehouse processes where changing them is expensive. And we get that. So let's get in, see what you have today. Prove the roi, and that frees you up to make some of those more expensive process changes down the road.

Scott Luton [00:31:28]:

Hmm. Tandreia, or just. I was just talking about this yesterday on our show, and so often as businesses are faced with more and more complexity, the answer all too often, in my opinion, is more complexity. That's kind of what I'm hearing from John. Right. And. And so many times or as often as. As it makes sense, how wonderful of a thing is it to meet complexity with simplicity, that that solves the challenge.

Scott Luton [00:31:56]:

And that's a little bit of what I heard in John's answer. Rather than transform everything and really it's like an over. It's maybe like the 9th waist or 12th waste, you know, over transformation, or if it isn't, we should add it. But Tanger, would you hear there in John and how we can. How we can take advantage of these opportunities, do so much better without massive over transformation.

Tandreia Bellamy [00:32:18]:

I love it because that means the operators are more likely to accept it. If I can start where you are and make micro adjustments, you don't feel the pain nearly as much. If I try and break an arm right from the beginning, from an adoption standpoint, I think that is absolutely, positively the best way to go.

Scott Luton [00:32:39]:

Tanger. I think adoption comes up every time you and I get together. And we know whether it's planning platforms or shipping platform, you name it. Really, you name it. And even far outside of supply chain, humans ability and willingness to adopt the technologies that leadership is bringing into the organization, that is a major, major wild card. John, you're nodding your heads because I bet y'all deal in that all the time. Is that right?

John Wharff [00:33:09]:

Oh, yeah. I mean, for anybody who's never been on a warehouse floor, you should treat yourself. It will completely change the way that you see the way that this entire industry works. Right? There's so much that we take for granted, and there's so much where, you know, it's really easy for us to say, oh, just make this change or that change, without understanding the physical constraints that these shippers are under. And I really think that, yeah, at the end of the day, it's all about, we all have the same goal and we're working towards the same things, whether it is driving down cost or increasing sustainability or efficiency and everything like that. And it's so important to make any new feature. I really like that, what Tandreia said about micro adjustments, right? Let's take the wins where we can today, and then we can use that to leverage it into bigger changes down the road. It's always the crawl, walk, run approach.

John Wharff [00:34:06]:

And there's a reason it exists, because it works. Prove the value, roll out from there.

Scott Luton [00:34:13]:

Yes, well said. Well said to you both. Simplify first, tackle Bigger issues at the right time. That's right. Everything. Determining the toughest decisions to make and when to make them, whether you're in supply chain or outside supply chain. It is takes a lot of jurisprudence. I say that word right? Jurisprudence.

Scott Luton [00:34:36]:

All right. Discernment. That's a better word probably. John, some research I think I learned by one of the resources we're going to share soon from the EasyPost team. Some research shows that by 2027, 26% of warehouses are projected to be fully automated. Fully automated. So with that as a backdrop, major trend. What role does AI or automation play in modern load planning?

John Wharff [00:35:01]:

Yeah, look, one of the things that I really, really love is that almost every single software that shippers are using these days usually has two different types of flavors and implementations. There's the, you know, UI based, you have an operator standing at a screen, they're processing orders, they're making decisions, they're effectuating every step of the process. But then almost all of these technical solutions also have a behind the scenes black box where it is just computers sharing data back and forth. And this is where you get into the really high speed, really impressive automated warehouse environments where all of your data is contained within your database. We know what products you have, we know what their sizes are, we know what their weights are, we know the most efficient ways to pack them. Orders drop, we immediately spit out to a robot arm or to a specific, you know, handling unit. This is what you need to do. These are the steps, this is how you get done what you need to do.

John Wharff [00:36:02]:

And it can be everything from, you know, the very, very visual like I talked about in the first place. Things like anybody who's been in a warehouse knows about kitt ing jobs and what a nightmare they are. And hey, I've got to get these things in the box. But they have to go in a special order. We can give you step by step instructions for how to get that done all the way to the no human interaction. Orders drop, computers talk, it gets out the door and you are confident that you are making every step you can towards efficiency and cost savings.

Scott Luton [00:36:28]:

You know, Tandreia over usually a lot of times on X, but other social places as well. I love diving into the video footage. We're seeing more and more of how automation and robotics are continue to permeate all sorts of sites. And then, you know me, I'm, I'm the biggest fan of the beautiful human factor, but I'm still mesmerized with, with where technology is and Tandreia. I love being able to Take in the right and targeted way. Full advantage of artificial intelligence and automation to make jobs easier out there in warehousing and fulfillment facilities. Your thoughts?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:37:07]:

Agree? Wholeheartedly. I want to pivot a little bit.

Scott Luton [00:37:12]:

Sure.

Tandreia Bellamy [00:37:13]:

And John, I'm intrigued. You're the manager of Sales Engineering. We're talking so much about technology and automation and being able to optimize. What do you see engineering departments needing to provide from an instructional standpoint to produce students that are going to be ready for all of this new technology?

John Wharff [00:37:40]:

Yeah, I mean, look, it's a change that's not new. It started quite a few years back. And what we're seeing is a larger and larger shift year after year towards things like AI and automation and everything like that. I think it's so important. Kind of what Scott said, we live in the world we do today. We have to have solutions that can solve for what we're doing today. But the second we take our eye off what tomorrow may look like, we're setting ourselves up for failure. Right.

John Wharff [00:38:10]:

And there was an old joke among engineers, you know, when cloud based software became available and it was the cloud is just someone else's computer. Well, I think a lot about that with AI. Right. AI is just enough data gathered and analyzed that we have a high level of confidence that we're making the right decisions. It's looking at trends, it's looking at what's happened in the past, but it's also looking forward into what we can anticipate in the future. And it's the best way to really bulletproof your operation.

Scott Luton [00:38:44]:

I appreciate your perspective, John. It's a great question. Tandreia, as an Engineering hall of Famer, I love how you focus on how we can create even better and better human engineers. And I would, I would, I would add to John's response, we gotta get John talking to these future engineers and people like him and we gotta bring these future engineers out into facilities so they, they can, you know, see systems and see, you know, the ecosystem and how are, how these technologies and humans and processes and all these nodes that make up, you know, modern day global supply chain, how this beautiful symphony has got to come together to be able to execute and delight customers. Right?

John Wharff [00:39:27]:

Yeah. I think anyone, anybody who's like a developer or engineer should be required to spend time in a warehouse, fill one box and all of a sudden a lot of this complexity and the issues that you're trying to solve become incredibly transparent. It's right in your face. This is what people are actually doing. And these are the Problems we need.

Scott Luton [00:39:48]:

To solve for excellent points. Okay. We got more to get to because we're going to move from the. Not that we've been in the minors, but I, I like this movement from the minors to the majors to the big leagues because baseball is right around the corner. And Tandreia or Atlanta Braves going to be fighting for the playoffs again this year. I'm excited. And John, good luck to your Rockies as well. Right.

John Wharff [00:40:10]:

We'll see you next year.

Scott Luton [00:40:12]:

So. But getting past some of the bit some of the stuff we've talked about and truly optimize for the future because much like whatever that Dan told us not to stop thinking about the future. We got to keep an eye on scalability, not what our needs are. Only today what our needs are going to be five years from now, two years from now, one month from now. So what trends, John, are shaping the future of warehouse load planning?

John Wharff [00:40:38]:

Yeah, I think you already hit on the big one, which is a greater shift towards automation. Automated systems that are running conveyor belts that are doing picking, packing and actually loading things in the truck. That's going to be huge. Moving into the future, some of the other trends are this huge glorious push that I am so excited about towards sustainability. How can we be better partners with the globe? How can we make sure that we're making intelligent decisions, cutting down on waste, whether it's cardboard and plastic fuel, all of those things that Tandreia mentioned before. And then the other biggest trend is the same trend that has existed since the first box was shipped, which is how can I do this all and save money in the long run? That will always be one of the biggest considerations that every organization has to take into account. Those KPIs that Tandreia talked about before, you can't take your eye off the goal and that's to be profitable, to generate revenue, to make sure that you're making intelligent decisions that are keeping customers happy and keeping costs low because that's what ensures that your company will continue to operate well into the future.

Scott Luton [00:41:47]:

Yes, yes and yes. Tandreia, I'm come back, I'm going to get one more question in to John for I come back for your feedback here. Future proofing operations. We just touched on that. Let's, let's, let's spike the football on this one more time. What's a couple pieces of advice you would offer up companies that want to future proof their operations with overall smarter logistics strategies?

John Wharff [00:42:10]:

Yeah, the first step, as with almost everything that we're ever going to talk about, is get good Data. Right. You can't make good decisions if you don't know what you've got. So everybody hates audits, everybody hates going out with the scan gun, they hate measuring products. Do it. The sooner you do it, the better you're going to be set up for the future. And it's actually what empowers software like Magic Logic to make those intelligent decisions on your behalf or any partner that you go with. As far as cartonization, load planning, palletization, all of that.

John Wharff [00:42:41]:

Get good data, understand what your data is telling you, and then find someone who can help you make intelligent decisions. Yes, you can build it yourself. Yes, I could probably build a rounder wheel. Don't know if it's worth my time. Right. There are industry experts who are here and willing to help and to give you years and years and years of experience. People who have spent so many years in the warehouse and they know what the issues are. A lot of times when we hop on sales calls with people, we know what their complaints are going to be before they even bring them up.

John Wharff [00:43:13]:

Because as different and as special and as unique as everyone is, we're all playing the same game and a lot of the variables are identical.

Scott Luton [00:43:23]:

Good stuff, John Tandreia. Let's see if I was trying to keep up with John. I'm on my 17th page of notes here. I started with data, trying to better understand what the data is telling you, which is a boat a lot of folks miss. That's excellent piece of advice. And then of course, you may not always have the. The know how and the expertise with inside the proverbial four walls. So being able to find the right resource to help you understand, once you got it and you understand it, what it's telling you, how to leverage it, how to make the best decisions with it and optimize the ecosystem.

Scott Luton [00:43:55]:

Your thoughts there, Tyndra?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:43:57]:

I love the have good data because there's just that basic concept and it's not done properly and up front. What Absolutely wipe out the gains that systems should have given you. So if your base data isn't correct, you're not going to have optimized carton sizes, you're not going to have optimized pallet loads, you're not going to optimize the containers that you're sending out. And then all too often, when a system, a software or platform doesn't yield the expected results, we blame it on the system, the software, the platform. And don't go back and look at the data.

Scott Luton [00:44:45]:

Sounds like you've been there.

Tandreia Bellamy [00:44:47]:

Audit is Not a bad word. It really is not.

Scott Luton [00:44:51]:

Excellent point, excellent point. And how can we prevent those system failures, those process failures? How can we position our teams, our organizations, the system to continually build on foundational wins and in a repeatable manner? Again, it's about positioning people in position for success. I think I were to use the word position seven times in the last minute, but hey, that's, that's okay. All right, so John and Tandreia. But John, you mentioned one point during today's conversation. You mentioned about some advice about, hey, make sure you think of XYZ before you make a selection. That, and that's one of my favorite questions I want to ask you here because what should decision makers consider when they're evaluating load planning software? Million dollar advice coming up here.

John Wharff [00:45:45]:

Yeah, they have to be data forward. Right. Like we just talked about. And I don't want to beat the dead horse. They have to be interested in your data. Right. They have to have that concern because, you know, the old adage is crap data in, crap data out. They're going to want to push you to have good data so that they are, have a high level of confidence.

John Wharff [00:46:05]:

They can make good decisions. You want someone who understands you. Like I just mentioned, there are a lot of similar variables, but everybody in every operation ships a variety of different things. They need to ask good questions about what you're shipping, how you're shipping it, what the biggest concerns are within the warehouse. And then they need to be able to put their money where their mouth is and say, we can take in your data, we can do an analysis and we can tell you relatively easy. These are the easy wins, these are the maybe medium strength wins, and then these are the big multi year things that we really want to coach you through and help you about. A lot of this industry, a lot of, you know, every step that we take is all about finding good partners. And it's been my experience that the best partners I've ever worked with are the ones who really listen, really understand the problems that I'm having and then custom tailor what they're going to talk to me about to solve those problems.

John Wharff [00:47:02]:

We all have sat in the two hour demo that only spends, you know, five seconds on what my actual concern is. And it just leaves you feeling kind of hollow and bad. So data focused, ask good questions, know what you ship, and then show you what they can do.

Scott Luton [00:47:17]:

And John, I would add one more, maybe it's part of one one buckets you, you kind of named there because we talked, talked about it. Earlier. But Tandreia, it's got to be able to scale with the organization, right? That way you're going to get a whole bunch more return out of that investment. You're going to be able to utilize it much longer and make life easier for much longer. But your thoughts there, Tandreia? Better yet, Tandreia, whether you want to comment there on that selection device or if you want to offer up your patented key takeaway on this container load of brilliance that John has backed up the truck and left for us on the dock, your thoughts and your options. Tandreia?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:47:59]:

You know, one of the things I don't want to lose sight of is the extreme importance of cross functional communication. You think about everything that we said of what wonderful tools we have here. Well, if product development isn't letting folks know what products are going to get phased out and they're going to get replaced by other products that are significantly different in size shapes, if procurement is set on buying 10 years worth of cartons at a time, it takes away from how much efficiency and how much cost savings we're going to gain. So these are unbelievable tools. Everybody needs to be in the boat with understanding that the entire team needs to know the game plan to ensure that we get the maximum return on investment.

Scott Luton [00:48:57]:

Well said Tandreia. That that and we talked about that symphony as an analogy of of supply chain earlier. Well, the best symphonies are the ones where you got the woodwinds and the percussion and the brass and the guitars or whatever else goes into a symphony, but they're all playing from the same sheet of music. They're the same stanza and they're on the same beat, same note. And that's kind of what I'm hearing between my ears as you're sharing that there. John, a lot of good stuff. I wish we could take you up on a couple more hours here, but better yet, you and the team, the EasyPost team, the Magic Logic team, have brought some resources and we want to share that with folks here today. We're going to start with Everybody loves a good ebook on how to future proof your warehouse in particular the demand for warehouse innovation.

Scott Luton [00:49:50]:

And it is a warehouse innovation imperative these days. So check that out. You'll enjoy not only the more about Magic Logic, but I enjoyed equally as much your observations, data driven observations on the warehousing industry, which I think is interesting. And then secondly, how about a two pager on how Magic Logic can simplify your load planning building on what John has shared here today. And look at those numbers. 200,000 plus decrease in packaging expenses in year one. That's just one of many. Sign me up, Tandreia.

Scott Luton [00:50:25]:

How about, how about that? How's that sound? Your end?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:50:28]:

Phenomenal.

Scott Luton [00:50:29]:

Phenomenal. Phenomenal. I'm with you. And folks, we'll make it really easy because that's our aim here. We've got the link to the ebook. You're one click away from checking that out as well as one click away from checking out that two pager from our friends at Magic Logic. Okay. John is the best place for folks that want to talk supply chain, shipping, load planning, Wayne Gretzky or hockey or you name it, LinkedIn.

Scott Luton [00:50:58]:

Is that where folks can find you most easily?

John Wharff [00:51:00]:

Yeah, absolutely. Find me on LinkedIn. I'm always on there, answering messages there or as simple as shoot an email to salesasypost.com and we're here. We're excited. We love talking about this. Even if we don't end up being the solution that you go with. We love talking supply chain. We love talking about smart solutions and just helping people get a little better every day.

Scott Luton [00:51:22]:

I love it. So you're going to talk to real people, folks. You're going to talk to real people. That's, that's, that's still valuable in my book. So, so Trisha is on the money as always. Big thanks to Trisha and Amanda behind the scenes helping to make it all happen. But we've got John's LinkedIn right there and he also dropped, he bravely dropped an email as well. Tandreia, you know, you got folks that are brave and bold and you got folks that don't want to release any information out there.

Scott Luton [00:51:51]:

But John, John strikes me as a former. How about you? Does he strike you as a brave and bold too?

Tandreia Bellamy [00:51:57]:

Brave, bold with great information that he is obviously excited to share.

Scott Luton [00:52:03]:

That's right. I'm with you. I am with you. So folks, connect with John via the email. Was it salesypost.com Was that right, John?

John Wharff [00:52:11]:

That is correct, sir.

Scott Luton [00:52:12]:

Also, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Big thanks to John Wharf with easy post. We promised you folks, hopefully we didn't let you down. I don't think we did. We told you John was gonna bring big things and he did. John, great to have you here.

John Wharff [00:52:25]:

Always good to be here. Thank you so much for having me back.

Scott Luton [00:52:28]:

You bet. And Tandreia Bellamy, really enjoyed your perspective. Been there, done that with John here today.

Tandreia Bellamy [00:52:36]:

Again, thank you so much, Doc. This was just great information. Looking forward to sharing it with others.

Scott Luton [00:52:42]:

I'm with you. I really appreciate that. As always. Appreciate our global audience tuning in. But folks, you got homework. You got homework. You got to take one thing, just one thing that John or Tandreia shared here today. There's lots of actionable takeaways, right? Whether you're doing business with Easy post or not, lots of actionable takeaways.

Scott Luton [00:53:01]:

Take one thing, share it with the team. Put it into practice. It's all about deeds, not words. And with all that said, on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton, challenge you, do good, give forward, be the change that's needed. And we'll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain Now. Thanks, everybody.

Narrator [00:53:17]:

Join the Supply Chain Now community. For more Supply chain perspectives, news and innovation, check out Supply Chain Now dot com, subscribe to Supply Chain Now on YouTube and follow and listen to Supply Chain Now. Wherever you get your podcasts.