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The New Warehouse podcast hosted by Kevin Lawton is your source for insights and ideas from the distribution, transportation, and logistics industry. A new episode every Monday morning brings you the latest from industry experts and thought leaders. And now, here's Kevin.

Hey, it's Kevin Lawton with the New Warehouse Podcast, bringing you a new episode today. And on today's episode, I am going to be joined by Ryan Kerkleski, who is the Director of Software Product Management at Domatic. And we're going to talk a little bit about Domatic and their software division specifically. And I think, you know, most people, when they think of Domatic, maybe they don't think of software right away, traditionally. So we're going to talk a little bit about Domatic.

that shift and what they're kind of working on. And we're also going to talk about the landscape of the industry as well when it comes to solution providers and how they're starting to try and diversify their offerings and what's really causing that and what does that mean for you, the customer, as well. So Ryan, welcome to the show. How are you? Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Appreciate you having me.

Definitely happy to get you on, happy to talk to you about this. I think it's a very interesting topic that we're going to dive into here and definitely interested to learn more about what Domatic's doing on the software side as well. So for people that are not familiar, why don't you kind of start us off here? Give us a brief overview of Domatic itself and what Domatic's involved in. And then also tell us a little bit about kind of your side of the business to the software division.

Yeah, sure. So D-MATIC, really probably pretty fairly well known within the industry. We are a provider of warehouse automation and optimization solutions. Most people probably run into us when it comes to things like ASRS solutions, D-MATIC multi shuttles, conveyors, sorters. Certainly what we're probably best known for here at D-MATIC. We have a global footprint with employees and customers all over the globe.

And we work with everything from really highly automated complex facilities and operations to customers that are still on an automation journey and kind of grown along that automation maturity journey, if you will.

I work on the software side at Domatic. My background is in supply chain software and even kind of being in this industry prior to joining Domatic wasn't as familiar myself with the software side of Domatic's business. So it's been great to be here. I've been here about two and a half years to be able to kind of learn this side of Domatic's business and then kind of bring my perspective into it. So I work within software product management here at Domatic. My focus is on

You can call it kind of the warehouse execution software, but not just WES, but WMS, WCS, both then kind of managing the applications we have today and setting the strategy for where we're going from a software standpoint, making sure that aligns to our company leadership's goals and objectives and that we're continuing to position to Matic as...

you know, a leader in this market going forward, a thought leader and, you know, how do we even, you know, not just like to revolutionize, you know, our business, but the industry here with the solutions we're putting forward. So my job is really to bring that software perspective, bring software to the front of the types of solutions that Domatic offers and really to rethink, you know, how software is used both, you know, within Domatic solutions and just in the industry as a whole.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's really interesting to see that too. And I've, you know, worked in a operation before where we had a dramatic multi-shuttle system. Right. And so, you know, very interesting to hear kind of the diversity of those offerings. And we're going to talk a little bit more about some of that software too, and what you're working on there a little, a little later in the conversation here, but kind

I kind of want to dive into and get your kind of, I guess, temperature and a sense on the solution provider world right now in the industry because you guys are a solution provider, right? You do many different types of things, as you just mentioned, from the physical aspect and then also from a software aspect too as well. But I'm curious, I mean, how do you see...

the industry evolving as it pertains to solution providers and kind of what they're now bringing to the market? What do you think is kind of going on right now? Sure. I've often kind of seen the industry, solution providers in the industry in kind of three

three categories right there's the material handling providers Domatic certainly fits into that category there's the kind of pure play software providers like your traditional WMS providers Blue Yonder Manhattan companies like that and then you've got kind of these next-gen tech providers that it's a little bit more of a of a broader bucket right you've got everything from robotics companies to companies that do just software but maybe just real neat niche software you know maybe

purely just optimization or control tower type software. And that's where all the innovation tends to happen is kind of in that next gen category. And so everyone's kind of got their place in this market. But I think what you've seen over the last,

several years really, is these companies starting to figure out how do they grow their share of the pie. And by doing so, they've all started to kind of encroach on each other's spaces. So you see material handling vendors investing in software. You see software providers starting to figure out how do they get, they're not going to produce material handling, but how do they creep into that automation space or how do they look to innovate in things like AI or optimization? And then you see these companies that are doing robotics or

you know, AMR providers, for example, or just other companies that started with real niche kind of software point solutions, how do they expand their footprint? Everyone wants to grow their business. So you do that by moving into the other areas, right? And so it's,

it started to kind of jumble up, I feel like the solution provider space here. And I think it's led to a lot of great innovation within this space. You see a lot of investment right now coming into the supply chain solution market. You walk, obviously, you know, the floor at Modax or ProMet or any of that right here, you're just bombarded with solutions, right? And, you know, to the point that it can be overwhelming, which is kind of the, you know,

The flip side of that equation is there's so many things out there and it can be hard as a company looking at solution providers to really understand what's real. You walk these show floors and you hear a lot of buzzwords, AI, ML, big data, whatever. Pick a buzzword and you'll hear it. It's how you drive people into your booths at these shows. Yeah.

But it can be really hard to then understand how do you use these technologies? What technologies are real? At the end of the day, our customers are trying to optimize their picking, packing and shipping. How do they optimize their distribution? How do they turn a cost center into at least if not a profit center, not a loss leader and a differentiator and a value driver for their business? So you're certainly starting to see some convergence in this space.

and I think what you're also starting to see is a focus really on software, right? Whether obviously if you're a software company like a Manhattan, right, that's always been your core business. But when you're talking to material handling providers or AMR providers or really almost any solution provider these days in this space,

it's all about software and they're talking about how they can drive value through the software. At some level, the hardware becomes commoditized. I mean, how many AMR vendors are in this space right now? And they're constantly changing, it feels like.

And when someone creates something brand new, like in any industry, right, there's copycats. And then everyone tries to kind of take that just out, you know, they try to outdo each other, but you got to also do it in a cost effective way. And so everyone's looking for how did they really differentiate and drive value now if the hardware and even at some level parts of the software become commoditized.

And they do that through software, right? How do I drive value through things like AI-driven optimization, better insight into my operation for better decision support or eventually autonomous decision-making by my system? How do I avoid exceptions in my operation versus having to deal with them to begin with? And I think that's where you're starting to see a lot of providers start to focus on is how software drives that value. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I've heard that a few times, you know, about the, I mean, essentially this, whether it's automation, whether it's robotics, whether it's, you know, as simple as a RF scanner, right? I mean, it's the, it's hardware in a sense. And, you know, what really drives it? Yes, there's some design nuances and things like that, but the software really is what's, you know, powering it and making it smarter, making it more capable to do certain things. And, you know, I think it's very interesting to see that where, you

I think, you know, a while ago, you wouldn't necessarily see all that kind of convergence as, as you mentioned there. And, you know, I think it's interesting too, to see, you know, people that, cause like one company I spoke with over the last year and,

you know, they're traditionally like started in racking, right? And then from racking, they're like, oh, let's do some automation from automation. Well, how do we do software too and offer software and, you know, become this full on integrator and even to the extent to at some point saying like,

well, we need to start offering forklifts too, because forklift companies are now offering racking, right? It's like, you know, so there's this mix, right, in this kind of broad spectrum of offerings that people are trying to get out there. So I guess from a customer perspective, you know, what does that mean for the customer? Because is there, I think you can look at it in

Two ways, essentially, right? I mean, you have the opportunity now where a customer maybe can...

not necessarily one-stop shop, maybe in some cases, right. But they, you know, can get that, but then also, you know, maybe there's some risk there where, you know, solution providers are just trying to, trying to jump on something quickly and, you know, don't necessarily have the best offering there could be, but what's your view? I mean, how does that start to impact the customer? I mean, both, you know, on the positive and negative side there.

Yeah, I mean, it's great for the customer from the standpoint that there's more available to them in terms of solutions, right? The innovation that you're seeing in this space, I think is great, you know, short term and especially long term, because you'll see that innovation continue to mature and grow. And so from a customer standpoint, if you're in the supply chain space right now, there's, you know, just a ton of different solutions available to you, which is also can be a negative too, right? When you've got so many solutions available.

that are available to you and then you've got to try to kind of piece all together, right? What solutions do I really need? What solutions do I need from different vendors potentially and how do you make them work together? If I'm working with three different vendors on three different solutions that together make up, you know, what's supporting my operation, how do I do integration? Does the integration work? What about a data strategy? If I want to ever use AI, I need to have really, really good solid data and I need to have a good data strategy. And if I'm using different systems,

Do I have a unified set of data that I can use for training AI models and things like that? So there's certainly challenges there. I think you kind of alluded to it as well. There's companies that have traditionally done a certain thing and then start to move into another area. How good are they going to be at that area? I mean, not everyone, not every company is the best at everything. Certainly companies can be good at multiple things.

And certain companies are really good at kind of bringing other solutions to bear as a systems integrator and integrating them into a kind of a common solution set for a customer. So if you're a customer in this market, not only do you have to think about what types of solutions do I need, you then got to think about

What type of vendors do I want to work with? And a lot of this comes down to trust, obviously. Being in the space and working in professional services prior to joining Dramatic, it's all about building trust. And if you can trust that the vendor you're working with both has the expertise to do what they're going to say they can do,

You know, has that knowledge, but you know also has a track record of delivering solutions over an extended period of time. And understands your business or at the end of the day it's about having that knowledge to be able to provide a solution that's going to support a customer's business every customer.

Certainly that we have and every customer that any provider has is unique in some regard. Yes, they're all in supply chain and distribution, but every company has a nuance to it. That's how we create competitive advantage. This is not a cookie cutter industry company to company. And so you got to be able to bring together that knowledge, that experience, that understanding of these solutions and how they work together.

you know really to provide an effective solution you know for your customers so i think you know for customers it's it's great right obviously you've got all this available to you all this technology and innovation and you'll continue to have more of it going forward because i don't see this you know tech innovation revolution within supply chain slowing down anytime soon

But it can be difficult to figure out how to use it. It feels overwhelming. And like I said, having a company that you can work with that understands all these technologies can bring it all together, I think is essential to success. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a great point there too, because it is...

you know, you mentioned earlier, you go to like Modax or ProMed and you're, you're surrounded by solutions everywhere you look. Right. And that's, and it's can certainly be overwhelming. I mean, the, the innovation is, is great. Right. But all that innovation and whether it's people that have been in the industry for a long time, like yourself, Dramatic, or it's startups, right. That are trying to bring innovation into, it's great for the industry overall, but for someone that's trying to decide and determine what,

which is the right one for them. It's, it's certainly, uh,

it's a little decision fatigue, I guess, right. In a sense where it's just like overwhelming and very, very saturated, I guess, in that sense. But so very interesting perspectives there and really interesting to hear about how that kind of shift is, is happening. And I think it's interesting to see too, how, how that'll continue to evolve and how customers will utilize that and leverage that to their advantage in, in some sense. So it's,

So I'm curious, I mean, from a Dematic's perspective, you're on the software side, right? And as we kind of said in the beginning, when people think of Dematic, they don't necessarily first thing think of software, right? So tell us, I guess, on the software side of Dematic, what are you developing and what are you guys working on and what's the concentration on software? How is that kind of coming to the market?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, Domatic is kind of right there in the middle of all this with, you know, trying to kind of rethink, you know, from a software standpoint, how we bring solutions to market. We have internally a wide portfolio of, you know, WMS, WES, WCS solutions, as well as, you know, asset management and analytics tools as well. Tools that you would use when you're running a lot of automation in a facility.

to make sure that both they're integrated and running, but that they're running well and that you can keep them up and running. From a software standpoint, what our focus really is on now is how we move our software portfolio into the next generation. Really what that means is you talk about WMS, WES, WCS, and these names we give these different sets of capabilities.

you know my my perspective is that removing those you know kind of those names those artificial names that we kind of give these things and bringing together these combinations of capabilities that traditionally would be known as wcs wes and wms is essential because companies as i mentioned before every every company is a little different in what they need right where they are in their automation journey where they are in their maturity journey what type of solution they need today is not necessarily the solution they're going to need

three years, five years, 10 years from now. And the challenge traditionally with software has been it's not as adaptable in this space, not as adaptable as it needs to be to keep up with the really ever-changing needs of our customers and companies in this space. And so what we're working on now is a new platform, new software platform that isn't about it's a WMS, it's a WES, it's a WCS, but brings together all those capabilities in a way that allows us to deploy

the solution that each of our customers needs kind of uniquely to them. So if a customer needs a full blown traditional WMS solution,

those capabilities are there. If what they really need is kind of a WES type solution that integrates to another WMS and runs automation and integrates through WCS, it can provide that. But provide the capabilities just, you know, that the customer needs, a footprint reflective of the customer's needs so you don't have to install a behemoth system that you only use a certain percentage of. And at some level, those capabilities are somewhat commoditized, right? WES, MS, and CS type capabilities have been around forever.

So it used to be, there was almost an arms race, if you will, of features for these companies of who can put out the next new set of great WMS features. Well, at this point, they all kind of do the same, right? They do them maybe in various ways and different levels of configuration available to them and whatnot. But you have to have those capabilities. You have to be able to kind of provide those traditional W star S capabilities, if you will, to be a player in the space where the differentiation occurs between

is in how we enable those capabilities for our customers, both in terms of adaptability of solution and intelligence of the solution. So from an adaptability standpoint, you're talking about things like configurability of workflows. You're talking about simplifying the integration of

software to software systems and software to hardware systems, that integration is often a long pole in the tent when it comes to project work and is often very custom, fraught with risk and hard to support long term. And so you see companies like, say, SVT trying to solve just that problem.

And there's a reason why that problem needs to be solved is because integration is a tricky thing. So configuration, integration, and then you hear a lot about another buzzword being composability, composable architecture. And really what that comes down to is how do you go from the traditional way of having to install a monolithic solution that a customer may only use 20% of

And then you're paying for that whole footprint versus just deploying the parts of a solution that a customer needs and then being able to deploy other parts as the needs change.

So that customers, especially as you move into like a cloud type environment where you're paying for cloud footprint, just pay for the size solution you need. So that's part of it. How do you enable a customer to quickly deploy, quickly configure and integrate and quickly get up and running a system so that you're cutting down on your time to value, your implementation timelines, your implementation costs.

And then the other part of that is the intelligence, right? How do you leverage data, whether that be through artificial intelligence, machine learning, or just advanced data analytics and algorithms?

to be able to actually now drive some real operational value throughout a customer's distribution site and distribution network. So we're talking about things, like I said before, proactive decision support to be able to get ahead of exception scenarios before they occur. And if exception scenarios do occur, how do we

help our customers quickly identify and get to a resolution of how to solve for those types of exception scenarios that happen and beyond that how do we get the system itself to become more intelligent over time so that as exception scenarios occur or decisions have to be made in an operation

the system is able to use data and use different inputs to make decisions that don't always need a user input. So when you've got scenarios like stock outs, or you've got an unexpected change in your available labor, or a piece of your machinery goes down, or there's a sudden spike in demand of an item that you just weren't prepared for. And these things happen all the time in operations. And it today requires some

somebody to constantly be or some people to constantly be making decisions about what needs to be done and that's been the traditional way and if the system can become more intelligent and learn over time what to do in these situations you know what happens when you know i have an amr that you know that that goes down suddenly or one of my conveyors stops working or suddenly i have you know a bunch of inventory i thought i had but i don't and now i have demand for it what do i do

And so it's really about the intelligence helping our customers make better decisions. Right. We don't want them to get stuck in the minutia of, well, what orders do I need to allocate and which wave and release at what time? And like that, that just needs to happen. Right. And that just needs to be done. You know, we want to use the human capital that we have in the warehouses to, you know,

solve the decisions that humans need to solve and not get hung up on managing, having to micromanage the operation. That's why you have a system, right? And I've seen in years past where people pay to put in systems and they end up having to hire more people just to run the system. So you now increase your labor just to run a system that was supposed to make your operation more efficient and easier to operate. So adaptability and intelligence, I think, are where you drive value.

These days, again, you've got to have the features, you've got to have the capabilities, you've got to be able to receive, put away, pick, pack, ship, and everything in between. That's just the price of admission at this point. But if you really want to drive value for customers, you need to

You need to make their life easier, right? And you need to make the operation more efficient in a way that doesn't bog them down with having to make a million decisions every day. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's such an interesting point there because I've heard similar situations too where, you know, companies, whether it's some type of solution system or otherwise, you know, it's supposed to,

supposed to make things easier, right? More efficient, you know, supposed to save costs at the end of the day. And then, like you said, you end up adding additional people just to, to make it, make it run and, and make it happen. And I think, you know, it's such a, the backwards way I think of, of going about it, right. In a, in a sense. And that's obviously not the expected outcome when you do something like that. So I think, you know, seeing that technology that you're talking about, being able to start to make decisions on its own, uh,

I think, you know, frees up an operation to focus on executing, right? And, you know, not worrying about that. And oftentimes, too, when you see, you know, if there needs to be some manual intervention or some decision-making happen, sometimes it's, you know, by the time you either recognize that or, you know, are able to get the data and make an informed decision, you know, depending on your decision-making process, sometimes it's like,

I can't make the decision. So now I got to wait for this other person to make the decision. And then we got to wait for the other person to make the decision. And then it's got to come all the way back down. By the time you do that, like you, you've missed the opportunity to avoid a real disruption. Right. And, and when you talk about disruption in, um,

especially in a warehouse fulfillment environment, high volume, you know, you're, you're setting yourself behind pretty, pretty quickly there, depending on how many units you're moving through. Um, you know, just a couple of hours can, uh, be a pretty big impact. So, you know, I think it's very interesting that you point that out. So, so now tell us a little bit about, um, this, this software that you're putting together and, and you mentioned, so it's a, it's a combination of bringing the WMS, WES, WCS together, right? Uh,

So, you know, we love our acronyms, right, and our system names. So, I mean, do you guys have a name for this or what do you call it? Yeah, internally, we kind of refer the acronym. I mentioned it before, right, this WSTARS, right? So, to remove the middle letter, I guess, right? Because, and I...

you know, I'm stealing this from somebody else that I read at one point, but they said that those terms, you know, WMS, ES and CS, they're just marketing terms. And I read that and I just was like, you know, it's hit me like a ton of bricks, right? I mean, I, you know, I came up with this industry through the WMS world, right? And I remember seeing WES for the first time or what a customer called WES and they were showing me their, you know, what it's doing, rocking the site. I'm thinking to myself,

the WMS already does all this, right? Like, so it's, you know, what's the difference? And when I had read that statement that these are just marketing terms, it was a little bit of a light bulb moment for me that, you know, we put these barriers up for ourselves somewhat artificially,

to say, "Oh, you need the WMS solution. You need the WES solution." I look at it as you need the solution. You need the solution that's going to run your operation, whatever you want to call it. And your operation may be a very manual one that has some people walking around with pallet jacks and RF guns, or you may have a really highly automated facility with AMRs and multi-shuttles and conveyors and sorters and some manual things going on and a lot to coordinate or anywhere in between where most of these companies reside.

And what you need will vary based on that. But we also know that this industry is real dynamic. The needs of these companies to serve their customers change, especially if you're working with if you're an e-commerce or any kind of retail or retail adjacent environment that retail customers, which all of us are, have very high expectations these days. And those expectations are always

always changing and I would say always becoming more difficult for companies to meet. And so they're constantly looking at how do I improve my operation? What is available to me either from a technology standpoint or just a process standpoint to be able to meet that need? And so to me, it's about having capabilities that will support whatever is needed. Do you need AMRs?

Do you just need to change the way in which your manual pickers do their job so that they can be more efficient? Do you need intelligence to figure out, you know, on a more dynamic basis, what orders should release when? What inventory do you need in what facility? Do you need to move facility from an East Coast DC to more of a Midwest DC? Because you know you're going to have a demand in that region and you want to get it closer to your end customer. And so you need to be able to

solve these challenges, answer these questions that the people who run these facilities every day are trying to solve for. And they're, you know, sometimes they have the data to solve those or to make those decisions. And sometimes they don't know they're going off gut feel or they're reacting. And so

Yeah, so from a name standpoint, I guess right now we would refer to it as kind of W-star asset, you know, and it would work to have a better name long term and what that all means. But again, it's almost, you know,

not having a name is almost kind of part of the point in a sense, right? Where it's like, it doesn't matter what we want to call it, right? What I'd like for someone to be able to do is say when they think about, you know, the Maddox software solution or the Maddox software platform, they recognize it as whatever my operation is today. It supports that because it's got all those capabilities and it's got the ability to put together the right features that I need to support this operation today. And I know that

that when my operation will change, because it will, maybe we just don't know exactly when it will change, that that same software solution, that same software platform will have those capabilities I need when I need them. And we can turn those on and off.

we can integrate AMRs if we need to, we can run multi-site, we can run distributed order management type capabilities, whatever the need is, we have those capabilities. And so that's to me really what this is all about is having that confidence in a solution to solve the problem today, but then to be able to grow with the customer at the same time. So

That's really what it's about. How do we allow for adaptability and how do we allow for intelligence? Those are the two words I often go back to when I talk about kind of what our driving themes should be or the driving force should be behind this type of a solution.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that too. I mean, I think that it is like, you know, who cares what the name is, right? I mean, you know, as long as it solves the problem, I mean, maybe you could be so bold to call it just like your solution, basically, like straight up, like this is going to solve whatever you have going on. And I

And I think that makes total sense. Right. But, but names aside, right. I think, you know, we want to touch on too here that you guys were named to Gardner's Magic Quadrant for warehouse management systems for, for the first time ever. Right. So tell us a little bit about what does that mean and, you know, how does that kind of help you guys make a mark here on the software side? Yeah. So,

I guess it was this year's Gardner Magic Quadrant, Domatic was included for the first time. It was the first year that we had actually gone through the process of going through that review process with Gardner. So it was great. We were very excited to be included in that. And I think what that represents is a couple of things, right? A validation of the capabilities that we have today in our software and

the kind of just the validation of the solutions we provided to our customers the data right something the magic quadrant is looking at at what you have

to offer the customer today, right? And what you've delivered over the last, you know, however long they look back. And so it's certainly a validation that our capabilities internally are right up there, you know, with other industry leaders, right? And we mentioned earlier, Domatic often not known as being a software or a company with software, right? I mean, we, obviously we offer mechatronic solutions. That's a really important part of our business, but the software, I believe is what's really going to

propel us forward and allow us to continue to be you know a dominant leader in the space and so to me the magic quadrant was a way for us to kind of just put our mark out there and say like yeah no we're we're here to play in the in the software space and and we're not starting from scratch we have a long legacy and long history of delivering software solutions and so that's great that's that's somewhat validation of how we've got to here and it's certainly a a um

It speaks to all the work that countless people within DEMATIC over a long time have worked on solutions. And so it's a great kudos to them and the work that they've done. Now our job is to say, we're here today.

how do we want to continue to position ourselves as a leader in the space going forward and kind of live up to that reputation, right? So certainly we share with analysts and that our vision for our software, where we're going in terms of this combined W*S solution platform and why we're doing it more importantly, the problems we're trying to solve for and how we're trying

to really push the industry forward for our customers, for the rest of the market. I think oftentimes a lot of customers may look at a D-Matic and say, well, if I don't need a gigantic automation solution,

may not be the company that I should be talking to. And I think that's, I think that's, couldn't be further from the truth. Right. I think from a thematic standpoint, yes, we do implement in very complex, highly automated sites, but that's not all the sites that we do. It's the ones that, you know, get the,

kind of get the eyeballs, if you will, and get the press. But our experience, our knowledge of how to optimize, how to solve these complex challenges in warehouses, which exists both in highly automated sites and in less automated sites. That experience that we have, that I think the magic quadrant kind of validates that we've been able to put into the software we've built, allows us to now propel that solution set forward

adding in things like adaptability, adding in AI-driven intelligence, and these things that will now kind of drive to the next generation of warehousing. And so for me, I look at the Magic Quadrant as great validation of what Domatic has done to date and almost motivation or a mandate now for us to say we want to continue to be a leader in this space.

We need to evolve our thinking and, you know, just like any space, but certainly any space like this that has a lot of innovation in it. If you're not pushing the ball forward within your own kind of within your own company, you will be left behind. And so this is our opportunity now to kind of reset the narrative around who is thematic and not change who we are. Right. We're not going to get rid of automation solutions in that. We're going to expand who we are. We're going to evolve who we are and we're going to be able to, I believe, better serve our customers in the market because of it.

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And congratulations to you and to you guys, of course, for that placement. And, you know, I love what you're saying there. I mean, I think it makes sense that, like you said there, you know, you got to keep pushing the ball forward. Right. I mean, even if you have the most innovative solution out there.

out there right now, that doesn't mean, you know, a year from now, you're going to be in the same spot, right? So you have to continue to, to develop and evolve and, you know, be able to, to meet those end user and customers needs who, who at the end of the day are trying to do the same thing. They're trying to serve their customer as well. So,

you know, I think it's a great thing that you're, the way you're, you're looking at it and the perspective you have on it. So very interesting to talk to you today here, Ryan, and, and learn about what Dramatic is doing on the software side and, and get your perspective on the, the solution provider market too, as well, and, and how that's evolving over time as well. So Dramatic,

If people are interested in learning more about Dramatic and maybe specifically finding out more about the software side of things, what you're working on, what's the best way to do that?

Yeah. So then you can go to our website, you know, Domatic.com has got a lot of great information, both about our automation mechanized solutions and as well as our software. People can feel free to reach out to me directly if they're interested in learning more or just connecting, you can find me on LinkedIn, but yeah, I, you know, this is a topic I could talk about a long time. So happy to talk with anyone who would like to kind of, you know, learn more about it or just, you know, kind of talk through kind of where this, this industry is going. It's,

It's a great time to be in this if you're a technologist and someone who likes to see how technology innovates. So I think it'll be really interesting to see where this industry goes, especially in the next 5, 10, 15 years. Yeah, absolutely. And five years from now, maybe we'll be checking in with you to see what the next five years will be looking like. We'll have a name for you, a new acronym that we can use at that point. Yeah, in five years, yeah, definitely. Yeah.

All right. Sounds good. So Ryan, appreciate you once again coming on the show today. And we will definitely put those links for everybody at thenewwarehouse.com as well as in the show notes here too. So thank you once again, Ryan, for your time today. You've been listening to The New Warehouse Podcast with Kevin Lahti. Subscribe and check us out online at thenewwarehouse.com.

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