Tryon Solutions
Summary
Trion Solutions is a consulting company that specializes in helping clients implement and manage warehouse management systems (WMS). Their services are customized to each client's needs, and they work with a variety of clients, from small warehouses to large fulfillment centers. They also offer ongoing support and assistance to help their clients maintain a healthy and efficient WMS. While they do receive emergency calls from clients who are experiencing difficulties with their current WMS, a significant portion of their business is focused on proactive maintenance and upgrades Tribal Solutions is a supply chain consulting company that helps businesses optimize their warehouse operations through the use of various warehouse management systems (WMS). They partner with popular WMS providers like Blue Yonder and Kerber to implement their systems and provide ongoing support and customizations for clients. The company has expertise in automation and robotics integration with WMS, and offers both on-site and remote services. They hire staff with experience working for their partners and have a unique approach to building their team. Tryon Solutions, a company that offers delivery and support services for warehouse management systems, works closely with various software providers like Blue Yonder and CORBA to help clients implement and optimize their systems. They have a good relationship with these providers and often bring in newly graduated employees who undergo training to become certified software engineers. These young employees bring fresh perspectives and ideas to the table. The company is also a reseller of software and can work with clients who use the providers' own delivery services. While In this episode of the Warehouse and Operations as a Career podcast, host Marty discusses warehouse management systems (WMS) with guest Jody Mann, Director of Business Development at Tryon Solutions. They cover topics such as the history and evolution of WMS, how WMS and labor management and transportation management systems work together, and how Tryon Solutions can help companies find the right WMS solution for their needs. Jody also talks about how they can assist with integration, labor management, and transportation
Transcription
Speaker 2
[00.00.11]
Hey, what's up everyone? Welcome to another episode at the Warehouse Underground podcast. I'm Ben, I'll be the host of the show today. And joining me is Jody Phillips of Trion Solutions, now Warehouse Management Systems. I post about this a lot on LinkedIn if you follow me there. The very first podcast I did was, uh, about them very, very, very critical for you as an ops leader in this industry to have a very strong one. But how do you know that? How do you know if you're getting the most out of it? How do you know if there's someone that can go in and help you tweak it, like there's a lot of unknown you just to go to the vendor, you know, you don't know. And so that's why I'm very happy to have Jody on the show today because he's with Try on Solutions. They are in this space. They're not necessarily a provider of WMS, but they can be someone in your corner, an advocate for you to really help you navigate those waters. And so it should be a great show. And with that I'll go ahead and bring him on. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming on. And how are you, my friend?
Speaker 1
[00.01.25]
Good. Well, good. Good to talk to you. Uh, talking about the conversation. Uh, you know, as, as is, uh, our, our normal, uh, conversation with, with, uh, folks that we talked to very excited about it. We understand, as you mentioned, the importance of WMS and and finding the right solution for you, uh, and making sure that it's custom, uh, for your specific operation. So there's a, there's a lot of a lot of things behind, uh, that, that, that one statement there. So we got, we got some good stuff to talk about.
Speaker 2
[00.01.57]
Absolutely. It's key. Right. So tell the audience just a little bit about, you know, you, your background, how you got to the point where you are today with try on solutions and what what the company is all about.
Speaker 1
[00.02.10]
I started working with on solutions, uh, about seven years ago. Uh, and trying solutions is in itself a consulting house. Uh, but but we do a lot more than than that. Uh, a good bit of, of our business is project work. It's we're helping our clients, uh, identify the right gems. Uh, be be able to implement that. And then there's, uh, a along with any other software that you buy, there's going to be upgrades that are needed to be done. And when you're upgrading a system for a DC or a manufacturing plant or multiple of both of those, there's a lot of planning that has to take place. So, um, that's, you know, a big part of what Tryon does is that type of work helping people to implement to upgrade and maintain their warehouse management systems.
Speaker 2
[00.03.04]
Uh, I gotcha. Now, do you? Do you? There are lots of different types of facilities out there. I mean, you have the big box, big fulfillment centers that are very fast and very automated and very big, and sometimes sites are across the country. And then you have your more traditional kind of like mid-market. Maybe they have a warehouse or two type thing, but where's your sweet spot at trial? And I mean, are you are you more comfortable? Do you service that big type publicly traded company or are you. Are you happier in the in the mid-market?
Speaker 1
[00.03.39]
We actually are are servicing both. Uh, we have some very large multinational clients, and we have some that only have 1 or 2 DCS. A lot of it depends, um, specifically excuse me specifically around, uh, the software that you're looking at. Uh, we don't we don't service and we don't work with every single vendor, um, in the, in the, in the world. But we have some specific ones that we support. Uh, a good bit of, of our work, as I mentioned, this project, what we also have ongoing managed services. Uh, we'll talk a little bit more about those later, but but that would be us. Us acting as your customer support for your specific, uh, WMS vendor. That way you're getting a much quicker response from us. We can handle most of the issues that you have. If we have to engage them. We're working directly with them. Um, as well as doing automated testing to make sure anything that goes into your production environments are, are going to be, uh, clean and, and not adversely affect you. So there's a good bit of things that that from a tri on perspective that we do and some of those apply to, to whether it's a one DC operation or maybe a hundred. Um, but we work with both. Um, and I think that from, from that perspective, we're, we're fairly. Open, you know, as far as, you know, working with with clients it doesn't it? We're not going to think that someone is too small to work with us, or that we're too small to work with them, I guess is the best way to put it. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.05.15]
I mean, I think too, and like the, the, the size of the facility, it's all about what's happening inside the software, right? Like what's happening inside the software, with the transactions, with the skews, with the picking, with the packing. And so the physical size of the facility doesn't always correlate with that. Like you could have a small facility that has very small SKUs and many transactions that are happening. And then that WMS might be way more elaborate than just the big bulky facility that that has a lot of big stuff in there. Um, so I don't think it would really matter.
Speaker 1
[00.05.53]
No. Absolutely. The size of the facility from a systems perspective. I mean, of course, you have to take that into account with server size and, you know, horsepower and all that kind of fun stuff. But really, it has to do more with the complexity of the operation. You know, how complex is what you're doing? A lot of places are literally just receive it, store it, ship it, and that's good. And and that can help dictate. Maybe you don't have to, uh, to find the most advanced WMS on the market. You can get by with, with one that is, uh, one that fits your needs. Um, you know, we we always, uh, if you don't, you don't have to deliver pizzas in a Ferrari. If you're delivering pizza, you can do it in a Pinto. That's fine. And that's that's all you need. But but there are going to be some situations where, uh, where you do need you need more than more of that complexity and a lot of that a lot of times that's, that's more driven by the corporation or the company itself than by the size of the operation. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.06.53]
And I think too, it's. There's a there's a progression that happens. So you may start out and with a mess and you're small and you only need it for a couple of basic things. But as your operation gets bigger and then you want to try to do more and more things like, oh, well, we want to do slotting now, and now we want to do zone picking, and now we want to do Bakelite and all these cool things that we've heard about. Well, you need to make sure that your, your WMS can do that. It can keep up with that. But at the same time, if you're a basic blocking and tackling operation, like you said, you don't need to even worry about slotting and all those things. You've only got like six people working in your warehouse. It's not going to make that big of a difference. So yeah,
Speaker 1
[00.07.38]
and a lot of that also the, the, the kind of the accessible um systems as well that you and I mentioned, um, transportation management, labor management, all of those things are going to be driven by, again, by complexity and size. You know, if you're only shipping out two truckloads a day, you probably do that on a, you know, a piece of paper. But if you're if you're moving, you know, high volumes, especially a parcel, especially of LTL and truckload, you know, those types of things, you're going to need those other systems that are that that integrate with WMS and with your ERP. Um, and, you know, that's that's what. That's what, you know, kind of our job is to help you select the right one. Be to understand that. Yes. Uh, I do need this. Or maybe this is on my five year plan. Um, you know, I can start budgeting now for for. Do I need labor management or about 20 people in the DC? Probably not. If I've got 200, that's what I need to start thinking about it. So, um, you know, a lot of, a lot of those types of things, to your point, are part of your roadmap, you know, not not only for, for for the, for the operations, but for the company as a whole. You know what? Where, where do you plan on being as a company in five years or ten years? And let's make sure that your operations and your systems are there to support that successfully. Right
Speaker 2
[00.08.59]
now. Let me ask you this. I mean, I've gone through a couple of WMS implementations in my career, and I and I and I am close with other people that have as well. And sometimes it went well and then other times it just did not like they were not happy with the service that they were getting from their vendor. They felt like they weren't being responsive enough to their needs in a in a timely manner and that type of thing. So how much of your business and how much of your customers are what I call like 911. 911. Help us. We we have this. We're in over our head like we need help. We're not getting it. And then how much of your business would you say is coming from people that are proactively ahead of time, trying to get ahead of it because because that 911 piece of it, I think is is starting to emerge because you sort of just get stovepipe into one provider, one vendor. And if you're not, if you're not getting it from them, you're you're kind of out of options there. So where do you we're just try and fall on that on that spectrum.
Speaker 1
[00.10.07]
Well, I would say that that is definitely part of our business. That's, you know, where someone has, you know, is using one of the providers that we work with, Blue Yonder or Kerber or Savion, those types of folks. Um, and they come to us and they say, you know, guys, we've got we've got a challenge here. We need help. And, you know, our our operations are affected. Um, and we get those calls. A good bit of our business is is ongoing, helping not only from a new implementation and upgrades, but ongoing business keeping it, keeping the systems and the operation healthy. Um, but but the 911 stuff, a good bit of what we do with our, with our clients is, again, I mentioned we act as customer care customer support for our clients. So they call us. And that's many times with that 911 comes from um, and again, you know, if they're looking, let's say from blue yonder perspective, we do blue yonder support for a lot of our large customers, uh, as part of our managed services. And what those, those folks, the feedback we get from, from our clients that we work with, those is that they get they get faster feedback and they're getting feedback from people who who know their business, who know their systems because we help them implement it, we help them upgrade it, and we understand some of the some of the modifications or, or um, uh, customizations that they've done to that system to fit their business. If you're going to Blue Yonder or you're going to Kerber or Soft Iron, you know, you're probably talking to someone who may or may not understand maybe some of the intricate details of, of their, their specific implementation. So, you know, from that perspective, we we do like that. And to be honest, we have great, great relationships with with our with our partners like Blue Yonder and Kerber and so on. Those folks, um, excuse me, they like us because we help them solve to solve problems as well. We have, you know, we we actually do, uh, staff augmentation work with some of those folks as well, where they use our folks on projects where they're where they're, uh, needing a little specific expertise, whether it's on a specific customer or a specific product.
Speaker 2
[00.12.22]
You know. What about what about customizations, though? I mean, because because a lot of users, I think like when they first start using the WMS, it's just like basic oh, we want to learn how it does this and it does this and we're happy with it. But it's just like anything else, I think the the more that they go and the more that they become comfortable with the basics, the more that they want to explore. Hey, what I would think it would be cool if it could do this or or that. Is that something that customers come to you and say, hey, can you put in this type of customization, or does that have to to go to the original vendor who is in there with the code? You know, how how does that how do customizations work out?
Speaker 1
[00.13.08]
Oh, I don't know anything about that. Most folks, most you know, providers blue yonder, uh, Manhattan, all those folks, they they don't want to do customizations. What they want to do is for you to use their base product. They put they and those larger providers have a tremendous breadth of functionality. It's probably the that customization you're looking for is probably already a in their base code. You may not be using it. You may not have had, you know, fired it up yet. Um, so customizations are things that that a lot of folks just don't want to do. But what, what what we can do is configure your specific system to do what you're going to do. So, you know, it's it's it's not we're not going out and touching base code that they don't let us do that. They don't let anybody do that. They don't even like to do it themselves because it's such a, you know, it's high risk when you're when you're doing that. While they are only doing major upgrades, most of these folks once a year, you know, it's it's, uh, it's risky. Um, but to do configurations, there are ways that, you know, we can say, okay. And this is part we've, we've got part of our, um, uh, part of Tribal Solutions is called advisory services. They're really functional operational consultants. So they can say, tell me what problem you're trying to solve. And that's really how you try to go after it. Tell me what problem you're trying to solve. It may not have anything to do with, you know, changing code or doing a configuration. Why don't is, you know, are you married to this process? Maybe this process could change slightly and you could accomplish what you're looking for. Uh, it wouldn't, you know, maybe wouldn't negatively affect, maybe positively affect your operation. Um, but then again, there's, there's way that we can go in and configure the, uh, these, these systems that that can probably accomplish what you need without, you know, it's modifications and customizations have just kind of become a dirty word. And, you know, especially with these larger providers because they, you know, they've been burned before, you know, when you get it, it's and from a long term perspective, if you own your system and you're a big corporation or even a small company that small to midsize company and you've invested in that, you want to keep that, you want to keep earning from that investment, but you want it to keep saving you money in your operation. And so you don't want to have to change every time you you go back and, you know, add a new line of business or maybe start doing e-commerce or, you know, things like that, but but being able to really. Um, for us to be able to step in and say, let's figure out the best way to handle this. Is it operationally? Is it a configuration of your current system or maybe a combination of both. But but yeah, it's you know, those are the types of things that, that we really do excel in. And, and and as I mentioned, I think in our conversation a little bit more, a lot of that is coming from the automation side, robotics and things like that, where people are saying, can my system handle, you know, uh, an Amr, you know, can can my system currently as it sits, you know, handle on ASR and, you know, all of these types of automation that are out there. And the answer is probably yes. But you know, where where we come in and where we really, uh, excel is us. And a lot of folks in our industry is we're able to to integrate those things with the systems that they need to be integrated with, whether it's ERP, labor, WMS, TMS, those types of things. So it's, um, you know, usually there's a way to get what you want. It may not be the way you have in mind, but if you're if you're if you're in goal oriented, we can help you find the right solution.
Speaker 2
[00.16.55]
Yeah, I had a I had a provider that was on site one time with one of my employees that was complaining, and they wanted a lot of customization. They they just wanted it to to do something different. And so they, the provider came in and showed us like the actual code, the hard code. And I mean, it just blew our minds, like it looked like the matrix in there. And they were explaining to us that how the risk of that and like, we got it once we saw it and they did exactly what you described there. Well, what are you what are you hoping to get? Like what is your problem? And I can solve your problem in another way without, you know, having to go in and and touch this gnarly code. So I think that was pretty
Speaker 1
[00.17.35]
effective when you think about it, the I think. From my perspective. You know, in my 25 years of doing this, the two most complex systems that you're going to be using from a supply chain perspective, and maybe in your corporation are going to be your ERP and your division, because those two things have such a wide variety of functions that they have to be successful at. You know, you try. I mean, the closer you can stay to base code and, and the fewer modifications or configurations that you change, um, you know, it just it it it d risks the business, right? And, and that's a term that everybody likes to throw around. But you know, they say that and then they say, well we needed to do this. Well let's find let's find a way to do that without without compromising, compromising your operation. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.18.26]
Now let me ask you this. I mean, when you get when you get these calls, let's say it's exploratory or it's a 911911 call type thing. Do you do you need to be there? I mean, do you need to be on site or can you do this type thing remote, like how does it. How does that work?
Speaker 1
[00.18.43]
All of the above. And as I mentioned, there are some things that that we do that probably dictate us being on site. You know, if it's if we're looking at an operation and we're trying to help you become more efficient, we do what we call a, you know, kind of an operational health check. Let us come in. We'll spend two days walking through your DC. We'll talk to you. We'll talk to your operations managers, to your leads, to your forklift drivers, to the guys on the dock. We'll we'll push through all of that and look in looking at the physical operations. And then we go into your system to see if they actually match the systematic operations. Because, you know, I mentioned this earlier, you can't human proof any systems. There's there's going to be a way that somebody is going to find a way to get around, you know, all the controls you think you have. So those types of those types of projects, we're all going to be on site. But the vast majority of the work that we do for support, for maintenance, you know, things of that nature. We're really working remotely. You know, we we're headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. But a fraction of the folks that work for Trion are in Raleigh. Um, we've got an office in Hyderabad, India, as well. Uh, and so, of course, you know, a lot of, all of their work. For, for most of our clients, both here and in Europe and APAC, are going to be remote. Um, but there are some things that do require us to be on site. Usually the ones you're talking about like that 911 call where I've gotta. I'm I'm shut down. You know, I'm, I can't close this trailer and it's got my entire my entire shipping dock is at a at a standstill. Those things we're going to handle remotely. Nobody needs to. No one needs to be on site for that. But, uh, you know, there are some of the things that we do that that are more operational, physical, functional, leaning that, that we do, uh, we do in person. I
Speaker 2
[00.20.34]
gotcha. Now, what about what about your staff? I mean, we kind of talked about what you do, but like where where does your team come from? I mean, are you are you hiring former people that were insiders at these WMS providers? Does does that not matter? Like how do you how do you build your staff and where does the where does the expertise come from that allows you to operate this way? We have an interesting approach to that. To answer your first question, yes, a lot of people that work for us have previously worked for our partners Blue Yonder or Kerber or whomever. Um, so yeah, we, you know, and a lot of that is, is, I think, normal for our, for our industry. Um, one of the things that we do differently to try it out is we have something called try on university and, uh, probably twice a year we will bring in, I don't know, 4 to 10 people, uh, freshly graduated from college, you know, from normally somewhere around the, the, uh, Raleigh area, UNC, uh, NC state, you know that have a they've got a computer science degree or some sort of technical degree. We bring them in and for the first four months they work for a try on they don't do any work. All they're doing is being trained. So we'll train them so they can be a cert a Blue Yonder certified software engineer. Or we'll put them through, uh, PMO training? Or will you know that all of the different things that we're doing, we're bringing those folks in and from from our perspective, you know, you look at me, I'm I'm I'm an old guy. And that's about half of what you see in the, in the industry now. But all about, you know, wandering around is what we want to do is bring in some, some new folks. And they're very exciting. They're very smart. Um, and, and, you know, it gives us the ability to say, hey, I've got someone, um, and we talk with some large corporations, uh, in the past, and they've been very excited about that because they do internship programs and that's somewhat like it is. But but these people are becoming employees. So, you know, we'll bring them in, get them certified, get them into a position. And, you know, instead of, uh, you know, set of charging, uh, a full maybe a full, uh, rate for them, we'll give them a discounted rate and say, hey, this this guy's going to do a lot of your legwork. He's going to save us money on the project. But understand that, you know, if you come and ask him a question, he may have to tell you he's going to have to go find you an answer because, you know, you graduated college six months ago, so, you know. But but those types of things, I think kind of set us apart a little bit because, hey, we want to bring more, more new and young people into the industry and be it gives us the ability to, to, to start to build out, you know what try on solutions does some of the good ideas that we we had recently as far as services and, you know, really being able to put folks on the ground if need be, you know, at a DC and, and, and work closely with our, with our clients. You know, it comes from us having that, you know, that that bench of people that is, you know, young and even ready to go, you know, it's it's really, uh, it's really been kind of the but but yeah, I think go ahead.
Speaker 1
[00.23.47]
Sorry. I was going to say to your point, a lot of, a lot of our folks have come from our, uh, you know, come from at some point in the past, I've worked for the provider, the partner that we're working with.
Speaker 2
[00.23.56]
Yeah. And I think, like, when you bring in the young folks like that, I think, um. I think it's good because they don't. They don't have any. I don't want to say bad habits, right. But they don't have any preconceived notion. They don't have any. Hey, it's always been done this way. They really coming in with a fresh set of eyes. And this is valuable. And in the distribution industry too, right. You have new managers and they it's not it's not necessarily that I think people mean to do this as they get older, but they just kind of start to get stuck in a way that's worked for them. And it's hard. It's harder to come out of that. So I think that's definitely a good thing to bring in the new, fresh perspectives and fresh viewpoints, because they're the ones that can think differently and think outside the box and offer solution that maybe a 20 year vet is just not going to be able to, not going to be able to offer because they just don't think that way
Speaker 1
[00.24.49]
anymore. I agree, and it's been it's been really successful for you know, we it's it's really uh, again, I think when we first started not sure how it was going to work. And, you know, you also think, are we just training people to go work for other people? Well, most of the folks that that have gone through this process with us have stayed with us. They're still with us. So it's it's neat to build that, that camaraderie in that, you know, that company feeling that that you know, they, they're they're part of something pretty special in our industry for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.25.19]
Now let me ask you this question. I think you sort of already alluded to this earlier. Um, but when it comes to like the vendors, like the Blue Yonder or CORBA or whatever, you said that they have a good relationship with you, right? So my question was going to be like, or do they are they do they not like, you know. Do they not like a third party that is coming in and double checking their work and advising their clients and, and that type of thing. But it sounds like according to what you're saying, that that doesn't it's not going to fray that relationship at all. Like it. Everything should be good. In fact, the vendor is going to be happy with us. But is that always true? I mean, can it can it get dicey sometimes when somebody else in there or all that, or
Speaker 1
[00.26.06]
all of these folks have their own delivery services, so they have people that do exactly what we do. They have people that will go in and do, uh, you know, discovery to understand exactly what type of system you're looking for, what your requirements are, you know, what your volume is, how many people you have, what are your people doing, you know, and ah, so they've got that and then they've got people that can do the implementation and, and, and do the support. So we're just a duplicate of what they're doing. A lot of a lot of what we what we do. And again, we work closely, not only we work with their delivery services, we have our folks on our team that work with their delivery services, you know, um, but but a lot of it comes from they, you know, as a, I think as let's take maybe Blue Yonder, for example, they really are looking for new logos, right? They want to bring in new logos. They want to bring in, uh, you know, new customers. And that's really where their focus is from a sales perspective. And it takes up a lot of their delivery horsepower. And so they're okay. You know, we work with their sales organization. You know, if they if a sales organization says, look, I'm I'm under the gun here. You know, this this client wants to do this implementation, uh, new implementation in one of the DCS in six weeks or eight weeks. And, uh, you know, we're I'm, I'm I'm not able to do that with with our team. Can you guys help us those steps at this. But but then there's also times where again where we just partner with them. And so, you know, we we also are a reseller of their software. So there's a lot of times where we go out and someone comes to us and says, hey, I'm thinking about buying Blue Yonder software. Can you show it to me? Can you tell me what it does? We do demos for them, you know, and they and they see it and they like it. So we sell them the software and we do the implementation. Uh, sometimes they'll just go and use, uh, Blue yonder, uh, support. Sometimes they use our support. So, you know, it's a I think it's more of a, uh, you know, a symbiotic relationship. Uh, parasitic one. You know, I think I think we both benefit from it at times. And there are probably some times where we suffer a little and they suffer a little. But I don't think that, you know, from, from, you know, it's there is a little bit of a, you know, some years we're doing a lot more work for them. Some years they do more work themselves. But I think that, you know, again, uh, most of these, all the big ones that we work at, they have partner alliance organizations, big organizations that are built just to work with partners like us. So, you know, it's not a it's it's really not something where. Where they are. You know we're not competing. We're head to head with them. It's not a it's not a lot of friction. Um, you know, at times there's, you know, we find out where we're talking to a customer or a potential customer and they're like, oh, we were also talking to so-and-so. They're like, oh, okay, let me call them. You know, and so maybe you may end up that, that. Yeah, I call that sales guy and he's talking to him and he goes, yeah, we would love to use you guys for delivery services because of the timeline and what's involved. Or it could be that, yeah, our delivery is already involved. So you know we you know and so we'll we can step away at that point. So there's yeah there is some you know a little bit of, of, of um competition there. But for the most part it's like I said, it's, it's a good relationship. And, and again, uh, trying solutions have been around since 2009. And, and to answer your question here, uh, and, and the last question, the three people who founded, originally founded try on solutions all came from Red Prairie, who was, you know, before Jada became, uh, Blue Yonder. So, you know, that was kind of the a long, a long answer to your question. Yeah, there is a little bit of competition, but a lot of what we do is working hand in hand with them to make sure that customers happy because of the customers are not happy. They don't get the business. We don't get the business. Nobody's right.
Speaker 2
[00.30.07]
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a win win situation to me. I mean, for everybody involved and that's just the way that it goes. If they really care about their customers and try on solutions, can offer them a better solution for whatever reason. Like we don't have the bandwidth right now or we're then I think that they should they should do that. I, I would I would respect that. If the company
Speaker 1
[00.30.28]
did that. It'll open a conversation between the two companies. So we're we're good. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2
[00.30.34]
Now you've mentioned a couple of different VMs providers. So CORBA um blue yonder. But is that it. Like what are you are you tied down to a finite number or. No.
Speaker 1
[00.30.46]
Can't
Speaker 2
[00.30.47]
pick it up as you go if it's something that you haven't worked with
Speaker 1
[00.30.50]
before. Yeah. I mean, you know, we do we, we we work with Blue Yonder obviously that's you know was has always been the, the the provider that we work with uh also worked with Gerber uh, you know and they're, they're in process of uh, rebranding now. So that's a pretty exciting, uh, opportunity um, with software on, uh, and also work with, uh, like, Logica, uh, EVs, you know, some of some of those probably, um, mid-tier, mid to top tier markets. Um. Uh, what we want to do is be able to to provide our customers with whatever solution matches their needs. And, you know, if you're talking about somebody who's a, uh, a mid-sized company, you know, that has two DCS or, you know, maybe 20 or 30, 40 people working in those DCS, and each one, they're not going to probably want to to, you know, cash in on, uh, on blue yonder to the point you made earlier, though they may grow into that, they may get to a point where they say, you know what? You know, we're about to open five more DCS. Yeah, we're going to need something like that, but we're going to find them the right solution, uh, to match their needs, not just for today, but for, you know, one, three, five year plan. Let's figure out where we are. Uh, put it on a roadmap. And, and, you know, again, there's, there's budget, budget concerns that everybody has, but we, uh, we want to make sure that our clients are not overpaying for what they don't need, but just the opposite, not not getting a system that's not going to meet all their requirements, because either of those situations, you know, is bad for us and bad for the provider. Yeah. Now
Speaker 2
[00.32.33]
do you just stop at WMS or do you kind of expand into labor management systems and trade and transportation management systems too, because they work in and and I mean, they're very closely, closely connected with the WMS. So what about what about those?
Speaker 1
[00.32.48]
From a from a prominent perspective, we have some, uh, labor management expertise. Transportation management. Uh, a lot of what we're doing with either LMS or TMS is going to be integration, integrating a WMS into that. Um, but if there's is there specific work that needs to be done or someone's looking to implement, uh, a lot of what we'll do, uh, from, from that, from, from a Treinen perspective is we have partners, uh, that, that are, that are specialists for labor management, specialists for transportation, labor management. We can do basics for labor management. And the way we the way we think about labor is crawl, walk, run. You know, crawling is really just, you know, getting some reporting. Uh, walking is where you're looking at some reasonable expectation of what a person should be doing. But then you talk about engineered standards. That's a little bit out of our wheelhouse, but we have very close partners that will bring in work on our projects. You know, it's still a triumph project. They're working as part of our team. Same thing with TMS. You know, there's just some some expertise that, um, you know, that the the the challenge really is there are so many different labor management systems and transportation management systems that we we didn't we as a company don't want to try to hire someone that's an expert, you know, one person, an expert, and recreate one person who's an expert and or ship one person who's, you know, so we we we leverage our we leverage our partner alliance for that, uh, to make, you know, that that makes both financial and functional sense because, you know, it's we don't want we don't want to be, uh, you know, the, the, the part of a of a project that is, uh, is going to slow anything down or be a weak point. So we're going to bring in the strongest partners that we have and, and allow them to, to help us be successful for the, for our, for our clients.
Speaker 2
[00.34.42]
I got you now. I mean, where can people go to find out more about you? I mean, how do they contact you if they are interested in working with you? I mean, are you out there on the trade show type thing? And what does it look like for 2025 and beyond for trial
Speaker 1
[00.34.59]
this time of year? You know, this is this is when a lot of the trade shows are happening. Uh, uh, Pro Matt is coming up. Of course will be there. Um, you know, we go to our all of our partners users conference, whether it be Carver, who, like I said, it's it's, uh, rebranding now. Blue yonder has got their user conference coming up. A lot of these things are happening. Um, so we will quite often have boots at some of these larger events. Um, of course website, you know, try on solutions.com easy to find us. Um, but we're also pretty active on LinkedIn. Uh, you know, a lot of, uh, in the past as a, as a smaller company in the past, um, try on we didn't spend a tremendous amount of of money and effort on marketing. But over the last probably, I'd say 6 to 8 years, that's been more of a focus. Uh, we we have a business development group, we have a marketing group, and they're working closely together for us and have really expanded kind of our footprint, our digital footprint that's allowed us to be more, uh, you know, we're getting a lot more, uh, opportunities from our digital, uh, presence than we did in the past. A lot more traffic on our website. Um, and they've been pretty creative on, uh, getting some things, uh, you know, moving from a trade show perspective. So, uh, absolutely. You know, you can find me on LinkedIn, of course, but, uh, I can follow try on solutions on LinkedIn. And of course, our website has lots of, uh, lots of information, um, not only about all of our WMS work. We mentioned TMS and LMS. We do, uh, one of the big one of our big focuses, uh, within our own projects, but also that we sell as a separate, uh, managed service is automated testing. And so that's something that. Uh, I have. It's near and dear to my heart. I was in operations, like I said, for about 12 years, and I remember sitting, you know, 5:00 in the morning on a Saturday trying to do, uh, you know, testing to make sure that the, the update we were going to do for our WLS was not going to break operation, just making my eye twitch. Judy. And I literally I literally that's I mean, I can I can share so many terrible stories of, you know, bringing in a hundred people to do to do a volume test. And five minutes into the test, it breaks and everybody has to go home. But, you know, everybody for four hours and they get free pizza. So, you know, it's just it's just a the, the fact that that there there are opportunities for automated testing that can greatly, greatly reduce the risk of, of putting something into production that can have an unforeseen, uh, impact is I, I just don't know why anyone would not do it. It makes so much sense to me from my operational experience and and seeing, you know, seeing other things, whether I was involved or from afar, where people, you know, implemented a new system or put in an upgrade and, you know, you don't ship anything for a week, you know, that's how people that's how people are on the job market when that happens. So it's, uh, it's it's I know it's a little scary. Um, yeah. Uh, we we certainly have lots of that information on our website.
Speaker 2
[00.38.15]
Good. Good deal. Well, Jody Mann, thank you very much for coming on to the podcast. I appreciate it. Uh, lots of good discussion and, uh, may maybe come again in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1
[00.38.27]
absolutely. Would love to. Good talking to you. And, uh, we, uh, we look forward to, uh, maybe we'll run into you at a, uh, trade show somewhere. I'm fine. Hope so.
Speaker 2
[00.38.36]
I hope so. All right, we'll take care, and I will. I'll see you next time.
Speaker 1
[00.38.40]
Appreciate it. Bye bye. Bye bye.
Speaker 2
[00.38.45]
All right, guys, that concludes today's show. Uh, thank you again for trying on solutions for coming in. It's a very good resource for you to reach out to in that WMS space. They can help you in a lot of ways. Uh, so like always, if you have not signed up for the warehouse underground, uh, message board, uh, please do that. Please be a part of that community. And with that, I will see you next time at the next podcast.
