Advanced Technology, Innovative Material Handling Systems, and Ways to Reduce Labor: Highlights from ProMat 2025

With a robust crowd of over tens of thousands of industry professionals all gathered this week in Chicago to peer into the future, a few major themes were apparent in talking to exhibitors and show attendees:

• Labor reduction. Most distribution center operators say they're struggling to find enough people to do the daily work, and finding seasonal help when they want twice as many people. Exhibitors presented dozens of technologies that minimize training, simplify work or automate functions.
• Going up. Vertical systems are everywhere at the show. New facilities are building higher and higher roofs to be able to stack material vertically and minimize real estate costs.
• OEM-backed startups. IndustryWeek's Dennis Scimeca has been writing about this trend for a few years—major companies starting in-house incubators or venture capital operations to capture new ideas and product innovations. At ProMat, I talked to companies backed by Toyota, Nokia, Piaggio and several others. 
• Cool technology. Well, not exactly a trend, but something I definitely noticed. Whether it was robots that charge themselves while moving through a facility, AI-driven picking systems that automatically re-sorted misplaced goods or drones running inspection, there were just a bunch of cool, nifty ideas on display.