When companies invest in automation, the hard work doesn’t stop after the sale. According to Dematic’s Warren Arnold and Joe Shaw, long-term success depends on planning ahead, preparing your people, and executing with flexibility. In this Q&A, they break down what goes wrong, how to avoid it, and what every company should budget for in 2025.

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Supply Chain 24/7: What’s the biggest reason automation projects fall short after the sale, and how can companies avoid it?   

Joe Shaw: All automation projects are designed based on a set of projected order profiles and product mix. Many automation projects go through the design phase several years prior to the completion of installation. This can lead to throughput targets that are no longer realistic given the changes that have happened within the customer’s key market. For example, trying to execute a design that was created for e-commerce fulfillment but is now servicing retail stores means that the assumptions need to be re-baselined for the new reality. 

Warren Arnold: Lack of or poor maintenance causes many automation projects to fall short, even early on, because the equipment can be unreliable and is not available for operations when needed. To avoid this, companies should develop a strong maintenance team that has the skillset, tools, and resources to perform maintenance safely and effectively on the equipment starting on day one.  

SC247: What’s the biggest misconception companies have about the execution phase of an automation project? 

WA: During the commissioning stage of execution, companies often overlook the importance of having maintenance personnel onsite. Commissioning requires a lot of system runtime to work out bugs and allow for customer acceptance testing, so maintenance is critical to ensure the process goes smoothly.  

SC247: What role does training and ongoing education play in long-term customer success? 

JS: Much of the preparation for a project is focused on the “Go Live.”  However, the real challenge is building a training plan and methodology that will sustain the life of the system. The ownership of that process needs to be a part of the customer’s normal standard operating procedures. This includes maintaining up-to-date materials, involving good trainers, and practicing coaching on a daily basis. 

WA: Training the maintenance team is the most important aspect of preparing for long-term success. This requires careful coordination of hiring maintenance personnel with the correct skillsets, who can then receive initial training on all maintenance activities. Ongoing training of the latest best practices and safety procedures also ensures safe and effective performance of maintenance tasks, which will lead to more reliable equipment in the long run.  

SC247: Can you describe how your team collaborates with other departments, like engineering or project execution, to solve customer issues quickly?  

JS: As the Customer Operational Readiness (COR) team, we start looking at the project through the customer’s eyes during the engineering phase. This allows us to use our vast experience with different systems and operations to identify potential gaps that a customer may not realize at this point in the project. We highlight these gaps to our project teams to help them deliver a better solution. When we get closer to the execution phase of the system and turnover to the customer, we work hand-in-hand with the customer’s operations team to prepare them for owning the system. This also includes acting as the bridge between internal project teams and the final operations team. 

SC247: What are the key metrics or indicators you track to ensure customers are getting value post-implementation? 

JS: We will always compare the expected throughput rates to the post-implementation actual rates. Since changes to order profiles can impact the overall rates, this needs to be taken as a more holistic review of the system performance. 

WA: From a maintenance perspective, “system availability” is the key metric to track. It lets you know how much of the system is available to be used by operations when they need it for production. Combining this metric with performance and quality of operations will provide you with Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).  

SC247: With 2025 planning underway, what’s one thing companies should budget for that often gets overlooked? 

JS: I often see companies relax on the push to improve the systems they just implemented. The optimization process is an ongoing review of the current and forecasted business model, which may lead to adaptations in the design. To continue improving efficiency and avoid large investments over time, we recommend conducting an annual review of the system and planning for new improvements.

WA: Cybersecurity for system automation is often overlooked. Many IT teams have full plates with other tasks and do not take the time to understand the full scope of the automation solution. This lack of bandwidth leads to critical tasks not being performed, which opens them up to vulnerabilities.

SC247: How do you both define long-term success, and what does it take to get there? 

JS: Long-term success is built on a partnership between the customer and the supplier. Automation systems don’t run themselves. By creating a consistent process for communication, the systems can evolve to the continually changing environment that customers often face. 

WA: Long-term success means the system delivers the intended benefits as originally planned when it was purchased. This can only be realized with a collaborative work environment between maintenance and operations teams. The maintenance team needs to prove their effectiveness in keeping the equipment running reliably so the operations team views them as the solution to, not the source of, problems.  

SC247: Can you share a quick story or example of how planning, preparation, and execution really came together and what others can learn from it?

JS: Preparing for a new automation system can be a daunting task. We have had great success by using an operational ownership guide. The customers that we work with range from very experienced automation owners to those just moving away from paper picking. One such customer was looking to consolidate three distribution centers into one new automated building. We were able to create a plan that moved inventory from each of the three buildings in such a way that didn’t impact the service level. This required a careful analysis of the on-hand inventory as well as the inbound purchase orders. From this starting point, we developed a ramp-up plan to control volume and changes to staffing. This allowed the customer to take a very controlled process in transitioning to the new automation system while keeping their customers happy. 

Warren Arnold is Enterprise Lifecycle Services Manager, and Joe Shaw is Manager, Customer Operational Readiness at Dematic.