2021 Warehouse/DC Equipment Survey: Preparing for POST-PANDEMIC VOLUMES

摘要

Our "2021 Warehouse and Distribution Center (DC) Equipment Survey" reflects the challenging times that many DC operations face in early 2021: They know they need to invest in more equipment and technology to fulfill more orders efficiently without adding hard-to-find labor, but many are coming off a highly disruptive year of dealing with Covid-19 challenges. For the short term at least, there's more hesitancy on moving forward with investments than this time last year. This year's survey, conducted in January 2021, is the first annual equipment outlook survey that we've conducted since the pandemic spread globally-a reality that affected many industries negatively, but lead to demand spikes in others. Perhaps, not surprisingly, one of the results of this timing is that the percentage of respondents saying they're currently "holding off" on DC equipment and systems investments given the state of the economy grew from only 8% in early 2020 to 19% this year. The percentage of those saying they're proceeding with investments also took a hit-dropping by 10%.