BUILDING THE CONNECTED WAREHOUSE Materials handling innovations help warehouses
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and distribution centers steadily move past fully manual operations, boosting speed and efficiency in the process. Next, the focus shifts to integrating these disparate technologies into a single, cohesive ecosystem.
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W alk into many warehouses or distribution centers today, and you’re likely to see a scene that hasn’t changed much in 20 years: workers manually picking, packing, and sorting orders. Despite all the talk of a robotic revolution, only 6% of warehouses are highly automated, while more than 60% are still fully manual, according to a December 2025 Kardex survey. The remainder use a mix of automation and manual labor. That’s steadily changing, however. About 80% of warehouses and distribution centers plan to deploy some form of warehouse automation equipment by 2028, Gartner reports.
136 Inbound Logistics • July 2026
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