Seegrid Finds Ways Around the Warehouse Tech Labor Crunch

PITTSBURGH - April 14, 2017 - PRLog -- DC VELOCITY recently reported that Seegrid offers a two-day training program certifying manufacturing employees to operate, repair, and manage fleets of its next-generation autonomous vision-guided vehicles (VGVs). The program trains customers' employees to handle routine tasks without the aid of a Seegrid technician, enabling them to develop skills as "robot fleet managers," according to Jeff Christensen, vice president of products at Pittsburgh-based Seegrid.

"This shift in responsibility is empowering manufacturing employees to have an ownership stake in the adoption of this new technology and will only continue to create more opportunities within the workforce," Christensen said in an e-mail.

According to a 2017 survey by MHI, 63 percent of respondents said that "hiring and retaining a skilled workforce" remains their top challenge. A 2015 forecast by EMSI, a unit of CareerBuilder.com, predicted the number of new supply chain technician positions would grow by 11 percent through 2025 to more than 2.6 million from less than 2.4 million. On top of the expected growth in new positions, about 22 percent of the 2015 tech labor pool will turn over by 2025 due to retirements and departures, according to the EMSI forecast. As a result, 770,000 tech-level job openings (new and replacement) will be created by mid-decade, the firm said. Universities and technical schools are not turning out enough skilled techs to meet the projected demand, according to a study by the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.


DC VELOCITY is a business information vehicle in the market speaking to the specific informational needs of distribution center managers and executives. Coverage is transportation and warehousing-focused and captures business professionals with editorial content specifically-tailored to their needs.

About Seegrid

Seegrid (www.seegrid.com) is the leading provider of connected self-driving vehicles for materials handling with hundreds of thousands of miles driven. The Seegrid Smart Platform combines flexible and reliable infrastructure-free vision guided vehicles with fleet management and enterprise intelligence data for a complete connected solution. Seegrid accelerates Industry 4.0 and lean initiatives with incremental automation, helping companies achieve a truly connected enterprise and transform into smart factories of the future. Follow Seegrid on Twitter at @Seegrid.