Guest: Omar Qari of Logicbroker on how retailers and brands respond to shifting geopolitical uncertainty; Carton diversity drives sortation designs; China doubles down on robotics

Our guest on this week's episode is Omar Qari, CEO of Logicbroker. Every industry has had to adjust to the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty – the Iran war, high fuel prices, volatile tariff policy – the list goes on. So, how are retailers and brands making the needed adjustments to deal with these shifting trade conditions and uncertain supply availability? Our guest offers his insights with Senior News Editor Ben Ames.Most warehouses have packages of some kind that they need to sort - either inbound cases that have to go to storage or processing areas or goods in outbound packages that have to be sorted to dock doors. Senior Editor Victoria Kickham wrote for this month’s DC Velocity about how the wide diversity of these cartons is driving changes in automated sortation system design.Ben Ames reports that it’s no surprise  that robotics technology is taking on a larger role in how supply chains operate. We’ve also seen for some years now that many of the Asia-Pacific nations are leaders in that category, both in building robots and in using them for applications like manufacturing. But we saw a report this week about exactly how China sees that sector developing in coming years. This comes from China’s latest Five-Year Plan, which is China's blueprint for operating its economy. And sure enough, the country said it will continue to place robotics at the heart of its industrial system, along with artificial intelligence. Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:LogicbrokerSortation Report: Pushing the limitsChina places AI-powered robots at the center of its five-year planVisit DC VelocityVisit Supply Chain XchangeSend feedback about this podcast to [email protected] podcast episode is sponsored by: Werner