Automation Built Around People

Client

Peckham

Location

Lansing, Michigan

Engagement

Automation Opportunity Audit

Industry

Social Enterprise / Third-Party Logistics

The Challenge

For Peckham, automation has a different objective. As a social enterprise employing people with disabilities, technology investments are evaluated not by how many positions they can eliminate, but by how effectively they make work more accessible and less physically demanding.

Peckham had already introduced collaborative robotics into the e-commerce side of its Lansing operation, where it improved the associate experience. Leadership wanted to know where else in the building automation could do the same.

Warehouse work is inherently physical. Peckham wanted to identify where automation could meaningfully reduce that burden while supporting its broader workforce mission. Leadership needed an independent view of where automation genuinely fit the operation, without a technology or vendor agenda. Any recommendation had to work within Peckham's mission, its workforce, its operational requirements, and the capacity of its IT team.

From Dock to Dock

EMP Advisors aligned with Peckham leadership on business priorities, workforce objectives, operational constraints, and technology considerations, then conducted a full-day onsite assessment across the complete dock-to-dock material flow. Seven stages were evaluated, from inbound receiving through returns. Each opportunity was evaluated against strategic fit and implementation and integration complexity.

The Opportunity

Picking was the largest labor concentration in the government operation and its greatest source of physical strain. Associates moved packing materials and picked product through the aisles by hand, pushing a cart while pulling a pallet jack for a full shift.

The Quick Win

Collaborative follow-me pick carts scored high on fit and low on complexity. They carry the boxes, tape, and finished cartons alongside the picker, need no fixed infrastructure or WMS integration, and eliminate no associate roles.

Independent advice means knowing what not to automate.

Of the 13 ranked opportunities, EMP recommended deprioritizing three and set aside additional technologies where complexity, dependencies, or strategic fit did not justify the investment in this operation today.

From Recommendation to Pilot in Weeks

Within weeks of receiving the assessment, Peckham had moved the collaborative follow-me concept into a live pilot to validate the solution in its own aisles before committing to a broader fleet. The pilot is now underway.

The Engagement in Summary

One prioritized roadmap built around Peckham's operation, workforce, technology environment, and business priorities.

Independent advice. Automation when and where it makes sense.

Peckham left the engagement with a clear, prioritized view of where automation fit, where it didn't, and what to do first.