0:05

Welcome to the Productivity Podcast . This

0:08

is the first in a mini

0:10

series with our friends at Strongpoint , and

0:12

on both episodes , I'm delighted

0:14

to say he's an old friend of mine , tim Wheeler . How are you

0:16

doing , tim ?

0:17

I'm very well . Thanks , simon , great to talk to you again .

0:19

And so you are now the sales director

0:22

for the UK for Strongpoint

0:24

Correct .

0:26

Yes , I am .

0:27

And I think , as we touched on on a previous episode

0:30

, you'd been on for another organisation . It's

0:32

not a UK accent is it

0:34

?

0:35

It is not . I am originally Australian

0:38

, so let's not talk about rugby

0:40

today . But

0:42

yeah look , I spent the early

0:44

part of my career in Australia in automation

0:47

and technology . I

0:50

moved over to Europe it's literally 19

0:53

and three-quarter years ago , so coming up to my

0:55

20th UK

0:57

birthday , so

0:59

the accent hasn't really come across

1:01

yet , as you can tell , but I have

1:03

been in Europe and looking

1:06

at global supply chains

1:08

and technology for many

1:10

years now .

1:12

Excellent . So it kind of feels like you might have found

1:14

your way home with Strongpoint , because

1:16

you're going to tell us a bit about what they do in

1:18

a second , but today we're going to talk about automation

1:21

, robotics , e-fulfillment

1:24

and the kind of potential issues that they've got

1:26

around labour shortages there

1:28

. So , yeah , tell us a bit more about Strongpoint

1:30

.

1:31

Yeah , I think you're right , Sometimes the best

1:33

plans are the ones that you didn't actually plan

1:35

. And I think , having been involved

1:37

in the supply chain , in store operations

1:40

, in labour management , as

1:42

you know automation technology

1:45

it is you know it's a great pleasure

1:47

to be in a company that brings all of that together

1:49

for a very important purpose

1:51

. And you know Strongpoint . One

1:54

of the areas that we look at

1:56

is e-commerce fulfilment . So

2:00

we don't do websites and marketing

2:02

and collect the orders , but once an

2:05

order exists that a retailer

2:07

wants to get to their customer , then

2:09

we can take , you know , the whole rest of that fulfilment

2:12

chain or , because our products

2:14

are platformed and modularised

2:16

, we can do parts of

2:18

that chain along the way , depending

2:20

on what a customer needs . So you

2:23

know kind of a name that actually

2:25

I hadn't heard of when I joined almost

2:28

two years ago , but very big in

2:30

the Nordic region in particular , have

2:32

been successful for many years and they've been growing

2:34

internationally of

2:36

late , because the

2:38

success that they've delivered in the Nordics actually

2:40

applies very well around

2:43

the world and it was a pleasure to join

2:45

, to bring their story to

2:47

the UK and really that story

2:49

is you don't have to be unprofitable

2:53

in e-commerce and

2:56

that really is . The big issue is , a

2:58

lot of retailers have seen the e-commerce

3:01

piece , the online piece , as

3:03

being something that clearly you have to do and you

3:05

have to grow , but you know it's not going

3:07

to be profitable . Now we can confirm

3:10

that it can be profitable as well

3:12

as very attractive to

3:15

the customers , and it's great to bring that message

3:17

and those solutions to the UK market

3:20

.

3:21

Excellent . So if we focus

3:24

on kind of the automation part

3:26

from e-fulfillment

3:29

and maybe give your definition

3:31

of what that means for people that might not be familiar

3:33

, where does strong point in automation

3:36

start to fit in ?

3:38

Well , it really can fit in anywhere

3:41

on the network and I say network because

3:43

e-commerce fulfillment

3:45

is not a

3:47

simple thing . There are different elements . There are

3:49

upstream of the store elements . So many

3:52

companies fulfill from

3:54

a warehouse , probably from an existing

3:56

fulfillment structure , and they'll

3:58

add their online orders to

4:01

that upstream of the store or

4:03

part of the network . Many companies fulfill

4:06

from stores , so

4:08

they'll do picking in stores and

4:11

ship from the store to the customer , or the customer

4:13

will come and pick it up in a store

4:15

. And then there are many sort of in between

4:18

elements , like dark

4:20

stores , micro fulfillment centers

4:22

. You can think of them as either

4:24

many warehouses that are in urban

4:26

centers or you can

4:28

think of them as stores that are repurposed for

4:31

other purposes . And now there are hybrids

4:34

as well , where we're seeing companies take

4:36

a store and hive off some

4:39

of what was customer space

4:41

and say we'll have a partial dark

4:43

store within a store for e-commerce

4:46

, for online fulfillment . So for

4:49

any given company , the

4:52

fulfillment of e-commerce

4:54

can exist , as I say

4:56

, upstream of the store . It can be various

4:58

flavors of stores

5:00

and store like real

5:02

estate being used for that fulfillment . And

5:05

then , of course , you have the last mile where , if

5:07

you're lucky , the customer will come

5:09

into your store and pick up their order

5:11

. A lot of the times you have to put

5:13

in a delivery van and get it to people's

5:16

houses . And again , there

5:18

are hybrid models coming where , amazon

5:21

style , you can have lockers either

5:24

associated with stores , in the back of

5:26

a car park , let's say , or maybe out

5:28

in the world at convenient

5:30

locations so someone can

5:32

pick up some product on the way home

5:35

or on the way from the school run , or

5:37

something like this . So e-commerce fulfillment is

5:39

genuinely it's a network these days and it

5:42

can be quite a complex network and what we

5:44

try to do is to make that simple

5:47

so that you have the right technology

5:49

in the right part of that network

5:51

, so you have that efficiency , no

5:54

matter what the structure of your e-commerce

5:56

fulfillment chain . So

5:58

to the question of where does automation fit ? It can fit

6:00

anywhere , but I think in

6:02

particular , yes , the

6:05

warehouse side of things . So upstream , where you

6:07

have online commerce , that's

6:09

ripe for automation

6:11

, gaining efficiencies and possibilities

6:14

there and in the store itself and

6:17

in , as I say , the store like entities , dark

6:19

stores , micro fulfillment centers then

6:22

they're also ripe for automation

6:24

and it's probably worthwhile . We're talking about

6:27

automation a little bit , defining it

6:29

because a lot of people

6:31

think automation , think about where

6:33

I started my career and these big structural

6:36

, big metal boxes with robots

6:39

flying around , very

6:41

fixed , very expensive , traditional

6:44

automation and

6:46

that's what automation was 20

6:49

, 30 years ago . But now actually

6:51

there's a much broader span . First of all , those

6:53

types of solutions have

6:55

become much smaller

6:58

, much more flexible , much cheaper

7:00

actually to implement . So those

7:02

structural automation solutions

7:04

still exist and are still an important

7:06

part of things . But

7:08

actually there's non structural automation

7:10

that's becoming important now . You know , robots

7:14

is obviously the buzzword of the moment

7:16

, but there are many types of specialized

7:19

and increasingly general robots

7:22

that are coming in . There's certainly automation

7:24

, but there's certainly not the big fixed

7:26

, structural type things that

7:28

people used to think of as

7:30

automation . And then actually some

7:32

people think of technologically

7:35

enabling people as

7:38

a part of that automation spectrum

7:40

. So when we equip a technology

7:42

onto an

7:44

existing part of the labor force and

7:46

make them more effective , more efficient , make

7:49

their job easier , in a way , that's automation

7:51

as well . So it's quite the spectrum when

7:54

people talk about automation and the trick

7:56

really is knowing where on that spectrum

7:59

you should follow , which

8:01

mixture from that spectrum you

8:03

should be looking at .

8:05

Interesting . Yeah , it's a good summary

8:07

and interesting in terms of the automation

8:10

. Your mind jumps to the , I suppose , the

8:12

futuristic end that's been portrayed of

8:14

robots and everybody

8:16

being kind of made redundant

8:18

, so that whole terminator

8:21

world , if you like , and maybe not to that extreme , but let's

8:24

hope not . Yeah , yeah , but

8:27

in that context , in that kind of vibe

8:29

. So if we think about

8:31

e-commerce , we know that there's certainly

8:33

lots of labor challenges , cost

8:36

of people , then

8:38

cost to pick that item , cost

8:40

to deliver that item , and

8:43

that's kind of spectrum of automation that

8:45

you've talked about . Where

8:47

does it start to address some of those current challenges

8:49

?

8:50

Well , there's a couple of different challenges

8:53

that drive the need for

8:55

automation . The first is actually labor

8:58

, but it's not , as you say , the old

9:00

school can we get rid of labor type question

9:02

. It's actually the labor shortage problem , and

9:06

over the last actually half

9:08

a decade really , this isn't a new issue

9:10

. It's not a post pandemic issue . Labor

9:13

shortages have been a factor around Europe

9:15

for a long time . And

9:18

what do you do

9:20

if you can't actually get the

9:22

labor ? And that's gonna become increasingly

9:24

a problem ? We simply can't get the people . So

9:26

at the moment you're seeing labor

9:29

shortages in a big battle amongst companies

9:31

to attract and

9:33

keep Even

9:36

the unskilled labor force . You just need

9:38

those people to be doing those

9:40

tasks . But that

9:42

battle is gonna become increasingly difficult , to the

9:44

point where if a company wants to

9:46

grow , they can't rely on labor

9:49

force to facilitate that growth , or

9:51

if they wanna stay where they are , they can't rely on

9:53

the labor force that they used to be

9:56

able to rely on . So

9:58

just the labor shortage

10:00

is driving . And that's not even to mention

10:02

cost of labor , which is an effect of

10:05

that which obviously in an

10:07

inflationary environment is

10:09

a problem , and that's a more problematic

10:12

piece of the inflation puzzle

10:14

. So labor's an issue

10:16

for sure . Actually , space

10:18

can be an important driver . As

10:21

I mentioned earlier , fulfillment's a network , and

10:23

if you want your fulfillment

10:25

network to get closer and closer to

10:28

the customer , we

10:30

want to start using store space as

10:33

a part of our e-commerce fulfillment . You

10:36

can't put a massive warehouse in

10:39

a dense city , or if you did , it would cost an awful

10:41

lot of money . So if there's

10:43

a solution that allows you to make increasing

10:45

utilization of your space , then

10:48

that's something that becomes very important

10:51

as well . And then , of course , you have the traditional

10:53

measure just looking at what

10:55

will my business be over the next three

10:58

years , five years , whatever the planning horizon

11:00

is , and if I don't automate

11:02

, what is the cost profile of

11:05

that plan ? And

11:08

if I do automate , what is the cost profile of

11:10

that plan ? And , of course , there

11:12

are usually considerable savings

11:14

in the cost profile of an automated , let's

11:18

say , future as opposed to an unautomated

11:20

future . And that's true whether your business

11:22

is very mature

11:25

and growing slowly , or if you're one of these

11:28

exciting E-com startups that's planning

11:30

to go through the roof . The problem is it's

11:33

the same in its nature , different in its quantity

11:36

, let's say .

11:38

And do people have different entry

11:40

points ? So do some people do it

11:42

step by step ? Do some people go

11:45

full automation ? How does their

11:47

cycle work ?

11:49

Very different entry points and

11:52

it's why I like to think of automation as a spectrum

11:54

, and it's a spectrum in two ways . It's a spectrum

11:57

of you know where do you join the

11:59

automation spectrum , usually at the more simple

12:01

end of things technology enabling

12:04

your staff first , and then maybe

12:06

some smaller parts of

12:08

the automation spectrum before you reach

12:10

a scale where you need to

12:12

go big . But it's also a spectrum

12:14

in time and the

12:16

spectrum on your physical network . So

12:18

you may have in your network

12:21

a warehouse and you may have some

12:23

dark stores and some fulfillment from

12:25

stores . So automation

12:27

isn't one silver

12:30

bullet . Actually , it's a number of different solutions

12:32

depending on where you are on the network and

12:34

where you are on your journey as a company

12:36

. So we

12:39

, what we see is what

12:43

companies need is a partner who

12:45

, instead of existing at only one

12:48

point on that spectrum and

12:50

saying here's what automation is , here's what you

12:52

need , they're

12:54

better to have a partner who sits on

12:56

all points of that spectrum and can say

12:58

right now , in this

13:01

part of your network , here's the automated

13:03

solution that you need . Right

13:05

now , in another part of your network , there's a different

13:07

part of the automation spectrum that you need

13:09

and , by the way , let's look forward

13:11

to three years time and make sure

13:13

that as your business changes

13:16

in time , your automation

13:18

solutions can change , whether

13:21

that's growing or moving up the

13:23

spectrum from semi-automated to fully automated

13:25

. But the automation

13:28

solution needs to change with

13:30

the company and I think that's

13:32

the big point for me . As I say , automation

13:35

many , many years ago was

13:37

a very fixed thing where customers

13:40

had this , in a way , a terrible dilemma . They'd

13:42

look at one of

13:44

these big structural pieces of automation

13:46

and they'd think it's going to deliver a

13:49

return on investment . I

13:51

can see that . But what if my business changes ? Is

13:55

this thing going to end up being a white

13:57

elephant with all her stories where that's exactly what

13:59

happened ? It's okay

14:01

to design automation at

14:04

a point in time , but what if the business

14:06

changes ? And what's good for

14:08

me , having grown with the automation industry , is

14:11

looking at how flexibility

14:14

, growth and

14:16

sometimes the opposite of growth sometimes you want to pare down a

14:19

piece of automation . It's great for me

14:21

to see how that's all built in to the

14:24

modern automation solution . So

14:27

, as an example , you know strong point , a

14:29

partner with AutoStore

14:31

, which is a little bit akin

14:34

to those structural solutions , but

14:37

it's much easier to grow it with

14:39

volume , for example , than

14:42

the old style more fixed automation solutions are . And

14:46

obviously , when you look at the non structural

14:48

things , like you know , we

14:50

do mobile robots

14:52

of various types humanoid , also , little

14:55

ones that pick up trolleys and drive

14:57

them around warehouses and stores these

15:00

robots are inherently flexible

15:02

because if you start with four

15:04

, then it's very easy to put in a fifth , or if you have 20

15:07

, it's very easy to put in a 21st . So

15:10

so flexibility is built

15:13

in and that's , I think , the most important

15:15

change that's happened in the automation

15:17

industry is understanding

15:20

that this , this is not a point in time

15:22

solution . You

15:24

start at a point in time , but

15:26

you need to be flexible with

15:28

the customer and they might have

15:31

a plan for what happens , but

15:33

they can't be certain that in three years time they'll be exactly

15:35

on that plan . They're going to be plus

15:37

or minus , maybe a long way , and we

15:39

need to be flexible so that when that happens

15:41

we're still delivering the best

15:43

cost profile and the most effective

15:46

distribution that we can .

15:49

Yeah , that makes sense and , like

15:51

any business , clearly there's diversification

15:53

, there's change . We wouldn't have predicted the pandemic . So

15:56

to have that flexibility and be able to move

15:59

around with it seems like the ideal

16:01

kind of framework and

16:03

lots of if we think of grocery

16:06

, maybe certainly fashion

16:08

as well lots of people again going

16:11

back through new concept stores , future

16:13

stores , lots of talk again

16:15

around kind of experiential service

16:18

being a breakthrough for people . How

16:20

does your kind of automation

16:23

spectrum help support

16:25

that ?

16:27

Well , one feature of

16:30

automation is that it's often very

16:32

space efficient . So the auto

16:34

store solution that I mentioned is an extremely

16:36

space efficient way to handle

16:38

products and orders . And

16:42

if you think about , you

16:44

know , the experiential store and the direction

16:46

of stores . It's exactly as you mentioned away

16:49

from you know , old school . Put

16:51

the product there . It's like a pretty

16:53

warehouse in a way , a store . Put

16:55

the product there . People will come , they'll look at it

16:57

and they'll pick it for you and

16:59

they'll walk it out the door for you . Now

17:01

progressing along that experiential

17:03

spectrum means the story is more

17:06

about having the right things for

17:08

people to see . Yes , they might want to sample parts

17:11

of your product range , whether it be , you know , try

17:13

on the dress , or try the new food

17:17

product or whatever it might be . There's an experiential

17:19

part of things , but that's

17:22

probably not best facilitated

17:24

by just stacking product

17:26

in front of them . So more and more

17:28

and for a higher and higher proportion

17:31

of the company's product range , they're

17:33

thinking how can we make this experiential

17:35

rather than just stacking inventory

17:37

? And the ultimate endpoint

17:39

to that trend would be that

17:41

the inventory is actually

17:43

stacked somewhere , but not necessarily

17:46

for the consumer's viewing In

17:48

an auto store might be a beautiful example where

17:51

you take an existing store , if you can

17:53

store the product much more efficiently in

17:55

a quarter of that store's real estate and

17:57

know that when the consumer's chosen what they want , you

17:59

can easily get exactly

18:01

what they want their exact order out of that

18:03

to them . But before they

18:06

do that they're browsing some other experiential

18:09

area

18:11

rather than just the stacked inventory

18:13

. And that's a direction

18:15

that even grocery supermarkets

18:18

at this moment are still very much aisles

18:21

full of inventory . But they will

18:23

move in time away

18:25

from that and knowing that you can store product

18:28

very densely and fulfill

18:30

very quickly and very easily

18:32

, I think that's the way

18:34

that stores will head and the experience

18:37

part will be a combination of

18:39

computerized

18:41

experience . Somehow whether that's looking at

18:44

the person's own device , maybe there's virtual

18:46

reality starts to come in for how you actually

18:49

experience product and make your choices

18:51

. But knowing that automation

18:53

can efficiently store product and

18:55

efficiently get someone's order to

18:58

them once they know what they want

19:00

, that's the direction stores are going

19:02

to move in .

19:04

Interesting , and I assume there's

19:07

also that piece around freeing up

19:09

colleagues to do the value-adding work

19:11

, the experiential work , where all the other bits around

19:13

them are automated or flowing

19:15

through robots and alike

19:17

.

19:18

That is exactly right and actually

19:20

robots , automation

19:22

will help with that part

19:25

as well . But I think , looking

19:27

at the limited labor and thinking

19:30

what do we want this limited

19:32

labor doing ? What's the highest value

19:34

add for us ? Then you're right . Often stacking

19:36

shelves and picking product is

19:39

. If that can be done more efficiently

19:42

, then it can free resources up for

19:44

those customer interactions and stores for

19:46

a long time . They

19:48

want everyone in the store

19:50

to be available for customers if there are questions

19:53

or I'm looking for this product or

19:55

tell me about this thing , and

19:58

having more people , more

20:00

available for that because some of the more

20:03

menial tasks are done in another

20:05

way it can only be a good thing .

20:07

Yeah , and is it one of these industries

20:09

? It strikes me maybe is that the technology

20:12

is moving at a really rapid pace

20:14

.

20:15

It really is and I think , maybe even faster

20:18

than most people realize . And

20:20

I'll give an example . We Strongpoint

20:22

, has an investment in

20:24

a humanoid robot company

20:26

. So we see one of our core responsibilities

20:29

to really be on top of all the technologies

20:31

and bring the right technology with

20:33

the right maturity level at the

20:36

right time to the retail

20:38

market and

20:40

robots . At the moment people think of the

20:43

AMRs certainly

20:45

little robots that pick up a trolley

20:48

and move it around . They've

20:50

been around for a little while . They're

20:52

getting much better . What I find interesting is

20:54

warehouses have had these kind of technologies

20:57

, but not so much stores . There

21:01

exist AMRs . Now we

21:03

have a partner , cm Robotics , who are really at the

21:05

forefront here . They

21:08

can do what these AMRs do in

21:10

a warehouse , but actually

21:12

they can learn to navigate amongst people

21:14

and if you're going to operate as

21:16

a robot in a store , one parameter

21:18

is you have to navigate amongst people safely

21:21

and it's

21:23

quite striking that surprising

21:25

to many people that you can have one

21:27

of these AMRs pick up a trolley

21:30

, take it around a

21:32

busy store with people walking around

21:34

doing their shopping and be very

21:36

effective at what previously

21:38

was a . No , we'll do it in a warehouse where it's

21:40

a very controlled environment where you don't have

21:42

consumers , you don't have to worry about

21:45

that kind of stuff . So the technology is

21:47

advancing there to

21:49

bring technologies from warehouses into stores

21:51

, where otherwise that was a difficult challenge . But

21:54

I mentioned the humanoids specifically Because

21:57

that's the one that I think we

21:59

all need to watch very closely , and

22:02

our partner here , company called 1x

22:05

, is very

22:07

special and very much more advanced

22:09

. I think that people realize they

22:12

do a humanoid and

22:14

instead of coming at it from the point of view of industrial

22:17

automation you know , robot

22:19

behind a caged wall , where people

22:21

aren't there , does it's thing . You

22:24

know whether or not there's a person

22:26

in between it and the bolt that it needs to

22:28

put in the car . It's going to do the job . No , no , the

22:30

future of robotics is safe

22:33

amongst people , and

22:35

so we found a company that builds a humanoid

22:38

and it's designed to be light

22:40

enough that it's not going to cause

22:42

damage . Weak enough

22:44

I know this sounds paradoxical but weak

22:47

enough that it's safe amongst people

22:49

. You don't want the extremely powerful

22:51

robot that decides it's going to clasp

22:53

its hand and the power is

22:55

so great that if it's accidentally , you

22:57

know , around a human , the human gets

22:59

, gets crushed . Actually , you want robots

23:01

that are deliberately weak

23:03

and light in order

23:06

that they can be safe amongst

23:08

humans , consumers and

23:11

, as I say , we were very excited to find a company

23:14

that this is exactly what

23:16

they do . And so the physical aspects

23:18

of the robots are getting

23:21

, you know , just better and better , but safer

23:23

and safer , which is of paramount

23:26

importance at the same

23:28

time as the software and the AI

23:30

behind it is getting better and better

23:32

and more effective and more effective . So

23:34

I think , I think humanoids

23:37

are a direction that really

23:39

should be watched , because they're going to come in sooner

23:42

and faster than I think anyone

23:45

realizes .

23:47

And I suppose I didn't really thought about the

23:49

fact that once you put them in a custom face

23:51

environment , there's all those other considerations

23:54

as well , and for those that don't know what

23:56

an AMR is , just want to give people

23:58

an explanation .

23:59

Oh , autonomous mobile robot

24:02

. So it's a robot that can move around

24:04

by itself . They

24:07

often look like you know most

24:10

people have watched Star Wars there's a little Star

24:12

Wars robot that runs around on the

24:14

on the floor in the first

24:16

Star Wars episode I'm showing my age here , you

24:20

know a little tablet on the floor that can pick

24:23

things up and carry it around , and

24:26

where they're primarily used , as in warehouses , they

24:28

can pick up pallets and move them

24:30

around , as I say , in stores . Now they

24:32

can pick up trolleys , order

24:35

trolleys , which is really important because

24:37

if you're doing store

24:39

based fulfillment , then

24:41

you need people pushing trolleys around

24:43

picking orders for customers in

24:45

order to move them to a click and collect

24:48

desk or ship them to someone's house

24:50

. So those trolley movements

24:52

are really important and if you can get a robot

24:54

that can actually navigate

24:56

a trolley around a store , that's

24:59

really a big efficiency

25:02

because your pickers

25:04

no longer have to do that beginning

25:06

and end , pick path

25:08

travel or the travel before they get actually

25:11

to the picking shelves . So really big efficiencies

25:14

, but , as I say , a really clever

25:16

technology , because it's not just

25:18

enough to be able to pick a trolley up and move

25:20

it from point A to point B . You need

25:23

to be able to see people who

25:25

are not . You know they're , they're doing the shopping . They're

25:27

not there worrying about what robots

25:29

are doing . So these , these robots are becoming extremely

25:32

clever and extremely effective

25:35

in environments with

25:37

normal people doing the shopping .

25:41

Excellent , and is there

25:43

any specific user case ? That's kind

25:45

of fine tuned for supermarkets , grocery

25:47

retail .

25:49

Yeah , I think what's special about

25:51

grocery retail is temperature . So

25:55

you know , if I order something online

25:57

, then you know I'll order some ambient

26:00

products , but I'll probably

26:02

order some milk and some ice cream as well

26:04

, and that is an

26:07

additional challenge and luckily

26:09

that's a strong point that we have addressed

26:12

at times with our automation

26:14

partners as well . So

26:16

you know , being being specialized

26:18

in retail and in particular

26:21

, looking to the grocery market , we know

26:23

exactly what the needs are and we can co innovate

26:25

with our automation partners and say

26:27

you know , we need to move into these different

26:31

environments . Temperature is a big

26:33

one and I mentioned auto

26:36

store once again because actually

26:38

multi temperature is

26:41

particularly important one but if

26:43

you can get frozen and ambient

26:45

and chilled all

26:47

working together , you can actually gain efficiencies

26:50

that are good for the environment as well . So you

26:52

know , for example , if you have a frozen piece

26:55

of automation and surround

26:57

that by a chilled piece of automation

26:59

, then you know the cold

27:02

that bleeds out of the frozen , bleeds

27:04

into the chilled and actually helps to

27:06

maintain the temperature of the chilled area . And

27:09

this saves power , and obviously

27:11

power bills have been going up as well , as

27:14

well as space . So it's

27:16

great that these technologies

27:19

are now really understanding the challenges

27:21

of the store environment , of

27:23

the warehouse environment , the temperature requirements

27:26

, and coming up with innovative solutions

27:29

to address them .

27:30

Amazing . On that note , we

27:33

will pause there and

27:35

we will catch up very soon on

27:37

episode two . Thanks , tim . Thank you , I can

27:39

forward to it . Thanks , simon .