This fireside chat recap is from Day 1 of FreightWaves’ Future of Supply Chain live event in Rogers, Arkansas. For more information and content from the event, click here.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Automating the middle mile for B2B logistics and the importance of industry partnerships.
DETAILS: The middle mile isn’t the sexiest part of the supply chain. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t rife with innovation — and Gatik is at the forefront. The company’s middle-mile vehicles operate without a driver — instead, its trucks and vans transport goods to and from distribution hubs, microfulfillment centers and retail stores using autonomous technology. Gatik’s vehicles have been driving themselves for years now, most notably through a partnership with Walmart.
SPEAKER: Gatik CEO Gautam Narang and CTO Arjun Narang
BIO: Gautam Narang is the co-founder and CEO at Gatik, the leader in autonomous middle-mile logistics. The company delivers goods using its fleet of light- and medium-duty trucks, focusing on short-haul B2B logistics for Fortune 500 retailers such as Walmart. Before founding Gatik, Gautam Narang led multiple high-profile teams building diverse robotic systems from moon rovers and self-driving cars to off-road autonomous vehicles and bomb-disposal robots. Arjun Narang is the co-founder and CTO at Gatik. Arjun has 12-plus years of experience working in the robotics space and AV space, with expertise in perception, probabilistic modeling and multitask learning. He was recently named one of Business Insider’s Self-Driving Power Players of 2022.
KEY QUOTES FROM GAUTAM AND ARJUN NARANG:
“Nobody is really focusing on the middle mile. It is seen as an ‘unsexy’ part of the supply chain. So our focus was to build a real business, focusing on that underserved area of application.”
Arjun Narang
“As consumers are expecting one-hour, two-hour delivery, in order to make that happen, retailers need to move their supply chain closer to the end consumer. And when you do that, a single manned route is not a possibility. You need multiple routes, multiple drivers, more trips, more frequency. That’s where we come in.”
Gautam Narang
“Working directly with the right partner allows us to scale the right way, scale the safe way. Who you partner with is very important, especially if you’re looking to scale in the B2B space.”
Arjun Narang
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