A distributor in Ohio just financed $2.8M in warehouse automation equipment—autonomous mobile robots, conveyor extensions, and a sortation system upgrade. Their equipment lessor asked the obvious question: “Why now? You’ve been running the same warehouse layout for 12 years.”

The answer revealed everything: “Amazon delivery expectations killed our manual picking operation. Customers expect next-day delivery at prices that don’t support the labor we’d need. We either automate or we’re uncompetitive in 18 months.”