Logistics Automation NZ opens today: questions for mid-sized firms

What's on at the Auckland Showgrounds

Logistics Automation New Zealand opens at the Auckland Showgrounds today, Tuesday 10 November, and runs until Wednesday afternoon. The event page says CeMAT powers the show, which XPO Exhibitions presents, and lists more than 100 exhibitors and more than 40 speakers. Entry is free for industry professionals. NZ Manufacturer calls the show New Zealand's first major trade event dedicated to logistics automation. Its exhibitor list includes Automate-X, Dexion, Jungheinrich, Toyota Automated Logistics and Mushiny, and Epicor is also on the floor running live ERP demonstrations aimed at distributors and wholesalers.

A trade show doesn't count as news the way a product launch does. We think this one is worth an operations leader's attention because of the Knowledge Theatre programme. It reads like a list of the questions NZ firms keep asking about warehouse automation, and much of it is aimed at businesses far smaller than a national retailer. Our Briscoe Group coverage looked at one large distribution centre. The programme this week leans toward operators with one or two sites and a tighter budget.

The programme is pitched at smaller operators

This morning Mushiny general manager Scott van Munster gives a keynote titled "Flexible Automation: Why small and mid-sized operations can finally compete". According to the seminar schedule, he'll argue that mobile, reconfigurable automation suits smaller sites, and he'll cover how to avoid overbuying. On Wednesday afternoon Automate-X's chief executive and chief commercial officer present "Automation Is Accessible for Everyone", which the schedule describes as a talk on starting with practical, scalable steps. In the NZ Manufacturer preview, Automate-X's Jordan McFall points to New Zealand's poor productivity record among OECD countries. Material Handling Solutions chief executive Nat Turner says warehouse space is tight, so operators have to get more out of the floor area they already have.

Suppliers have an obvious interest in telling small firms that automation is now within reach, so we'd treat the pitch as a reason to ask harder questions. The sessions with buyers on the panel are more useful than the vendor keynotes. One panel today asks whether AutoStore was worth it, and operations staff from Healthcare by Douglas and NZ Safety Blackwoods answer, with Manhattan Associates covering the warehouse management system. On Wednesday Briscoe Group's supply chain general manager takes audience questions about the Drury distribution centre.

A recent mid-sized example from Australia

Last week offered a useful benchmark from across the Tasman. On 4 November Amway announced a $2.9 million automated picking line at its Eastern Creek fulfilment centre in Western Sydney. The line forms cartons, applies labels, removes waste, checks weights and uses cameras to inspect box contents. Amway reports a 15% productivity gain and 10% fewer mispicks and shortages from early operations. Those early figures come from the company, and Amway hasn't published a payback period or the volumes behind them. The project still gives a sense of scale. A few million dollars spent on one line, with the gains measured in percentages, looks a lot more like what an NZ distributor would do than a fully automated superhub.

Why the software and people sessions matter as much as the robots

Several sessions deal with matters that rarely appear in the sales brochure. IDC's Stephanie Krishnan opens the programme with a keynote on how decision rights, escalation paths and staff trust change once robots and AI agents handle routine execution. Chen Cui of GingerControl talks on Wednesday about which AI tools are working today in the document and decision work between a purchase order and a cleared shipment, and which ones are still pilots. TEG Risk's Andrey Zhidkov covers safety requirements for automated storage, shuttles and mobile robots under AS/NZS 4024.3704:2024 and ISO 3691-4:2023, along with the compliance gaps he commonly sees.

We think those three topics decide whether a warehouse project pays back. A robot that moves totes faster won't help if stock records in the ERP are wrong or orders reach the floor in batches. The same goes when nobody has decided who overrides the system during a peak. Mobile robots and goods-to-person systems take their instructions from a warehouse management system, and the WMS takes its orders and stock positions from the ERP. Gaps in that chain show up straight away once machines are working at full speed. Firms that want to understand where their own data and handoffs break down can start with a process and automation review before they talk hardware.

What it means for NZ businesses

Most NZ warehouses are small by international standards, and many still run on paper pick lists or a basic handheld scanner. The suppliers at the show argue that flexible equipment lets those sites automate in stages: a few mobile robots, an automated packing station, or a storage module that can grow. That approach carries less risk than a fixed conveyor system designed around today's order profile, but it puts more weight on software. Each new piece of equipment needs an integration, and each integration needs someone to own it after the installer leaves.

The cost side is mostly unpublished. The show material gives no NZ pricing, payback periods or utilisation figures. Buyers will have to build their own business case from their order data and get reference calls with existing customers.

Practical next steps

If you're attending or planning a project for 2027, we'd suggest:

• Pull twelve months of order lines, SKU counts and peak-day volumes before you talk to vendors, so you can test their throughput claims against your own data.
• Ask every hardware supplier which WMS and ERP systems they've already integrated with in New Zealand, and ask for a customer contact on the same platform as yours.
• Check how accurate your stock records are and how clean your item master data is. Automated picking punishes bad location and unit-of-measure data, and you can fix those records in your ERP before any robot arrives.
• Ask suppliers to show compliance with AS/NZS 4024.3704:2024 and ISO 3691-4:2023, and involve your health and safety lead early.
• Decide who on the floor can pause or override automated equipment, and how exceptions get escalated, before go-live.
• Ask for payback calculations that use your labour costs and volumes. Treat headline percentages from overseas sites as a starting point for questions.

The Briscoe Group session on Wednesday and the AutoStore buyer panel today are the two sessions we'd prioritise for anyone weighing a first automation project.