LOGISTICS AUTOMATION: CHALLENGE OR CHOICE?

Automation has gone from being a "want to have" to a "need to have". Our country has become a green focus for attracting Foreign Direct Investment, so we must have cutting-edge logistics that meet and exceed the expectations of foreign companies; however, technologies must be adjusted to the operating environment of the country and the requirements of the company.

A challenge or a choice?

‍
It all starts when you see the need to automate logistics processes and obtain results such as: reduction in time and costs, reduction of human error, higher productivity; and the decision is made to adopt new technologies and methods to automate processes. It becomes a challenge at the time of deepening costs and personnel training.

Costs: The initial investment can be one of the highest costs, which prevents many companies, especially SMEs, from starting their automation; however, the costs do not end there. Often certain adjustments to the current systems managed by the company are necessary so that they can adapt to the new processes, which companies consider as "unforeseen events".

Staff training: In addition to being highly costly to train the work team to learn how to use these new processes, many times the staff is reluctant to change the way they have been performing their activities before.

How difficult is it for Mexico to adopt automation?

‍
Despite the progress and great effort made by different actors in the logistics chain to invest their efforts in the automation of logistics processes, it is still very scarce in Mexico and Latin America.

This not so accelerated progress compared to the rest of the world may be due to the cost of labor. In world powers the cost of labor is very high, so they accelerate their automation process that will allow them to reduce labor costs. However, in Mexico labor is still too affordable to have as a priority to absorb high costs in the adoption of new technologies and automated processes for companies.

Therefore, the priority in terms of digitization and automation in Mexico comes specifically from those processes where companies identify bottlenecks that do not allow them to meet their KPIs, and not in all their logistics; since it can be cheaper to labor than to automate the entire logistics chain.

Together, working for Mexico, we can achieve an avant-garde country with a more efficient and resilient future, focused on the changing needs of the global market, and thus have an impact on the automation of logistics.

‍