CEO @ Oneiro Technologies | Board advisor | Automation for ecommerce and B2B Fulfillment | 🏆 Winner “Best Use of Robotics” 2024 | 25+ years of executive leadership

You might be considering automation but unsure where to start or what actually works for your specific challenges.

That’s why I founded Oneiro Technologies as an agnostic system integrator. For years I worked for system integrators that would push their technology. Many times it wasn't right for the customer.

Being supplier-agnostic, means combining the right tech; AMRs, shuttles, digital twins, print-and-apply robots, etc. to match your needs. We are successful together because we work as a team to design and implement tailored, turnkey automation solutions. 

Whether you're trying to pack more orders, reduce labor strain, or just make the chaos manageable—I’ll help you build a system that scales with your business.

Someone once nicknamed me “The Wolf.” Not the Wall Street kind—the one from Pulp Fiction. I take that as a compliment. Because I fix the messy, high-stakes problems that keep fulfillment leaders up at night.

Ready to get more orders out with less stress and fewer resources?

Let’s kick things off with a free discovery session. No pressure—just real talk about what’s holding you back and what’s possible.

Drew Thomas

Senior operations executive with 25+ years of experience leading large-scale distribution and logistics networks across Canada. Proven track record of stabilizing underperforming operations, scaling capacity, and delivering measurable performance gains in complex, high-volume environments.

Recognized for leading workforces of up to 475 employees with full P&L accountability exceeding $100M. Extensive experience driving major transformation initiatives including WMS deployments, automation, and network optimization, consistently improving throughput, service levels, and cost performance without incremental capital.

Strategic, decisive leader with deep expertise aligning people, process, technology, and automation to deliver sustainable operational results.

Roch Lefrançois

Smart and Safe working solutions are something we need more of in our world of Distribution and Logistics.

This is a good example.

See for yourself.

Original post by Florian Palatini. Solution by ErgoPack Deutschland GmbH

Original credits to Boris Glavaš Eduardo BANZATO Steve Davis

Sr. Director – Operations & Distribution | Automation • Continuous Improvement | Open to New Opportunities (Québec and/or Montréal)

Fluent in engineering l connecting innovators & investors l content sharing 675k followers I @item

Semi automated strapping ⁉️ Twice as fast & 100% ergonomic 💪 

✔️ No bending under the pallet

✔️ One-person operation

✔️ Faster, more consistent strapping

✔️ Less physical strain … every single cycle

by ErgoPack Deutschland GmbH  
via Simone Vietti 
 #ergonomics 
Boris Glavaš Eduardo BANZATO Steve Davis

Inventory integrity is often discussed as an operational topic, but its real impact goes much further. Accuracy issues directly affect financial performance, service reliability, and the ability of an organization to scale without friction.

I just published a new article titled Inventory Integrity: A Direct Driver of Financial Performance, Service Levels, and Growth. It looks at inventory accuracy through a practical lens, connecting warehouse execution to cash flow, customer commitments, and long term growth.

Here is the article. Have a good read and feel free to share.

Inventory integrity is often treated as an operational metric, but its impact extends directly into finance, customer experience, and growth capacity.

Open article: Inventory Integrity: A Direct Driver of Financial Performance, Service Levels, and Growth by Roch Lefrançois • 3 min read

Inventory Integrity: A Direct Driver of Financial Performance, Service Levels, and Growth

There's a trend right now and the post below highlights it.

As much as automation may have been seen as the way forward, with single shipping hubs, reality seems to indicate it isn't always the best strategy.

I'm inviting you to have a read into Ben Angel's post. Someone had the chance to connect with. He's passionate and very much into it.

On another note, I'm still around despite less posts lately. Worry not, more articles to come. Always available through DMs as well.

Warehouse Operations & Fulfillment Strategy

Macy's plans to close its automated direct-to-consumer fulfillment facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma this spring.

The 1.3-million-sq-ft site near Owasso went live in 2015 amid significant industry attention and was designed to support large-scale e-commerce fulfillment. At peak, the operation supported roughly 1,500 full- and part-time employees, plus an additional ~1,000 seasonal associates.

This announcement adds to a growing list of closures and strategic reversals by large retailers that made heavy, long-term investments in dedicated, highly automated e-commerce fulfillment centers.

The pattern is becoming harder to ignore: Automation architectures — software and hardware alike — that lack the flexibility to adapt to changing consumer behavior don’t survive.

One additional dimension worth considering is vendor lock-in. This facility was designed by a well-known automation vendor using a tightly coupled, largely proprietary architecture — effectively a “black-box” integration across material flow, controls, software, and fixed hardware such as conveyors, sortation, and pick-to-light. I can only speculate, but it’s plausible that modifying or redesigning the flow to support today’s faster and more volatile demand patterns would have been both too costly and too time-consuming — making closure the faster and more economically rational option.

By contrast, Amazon Fulfillment Technologies & Robotics and Walmart are actively upgrading similarly aged fulfillment facilities across the US and Canada, layering in newer robotics and automated workflow technologies. A key difference is that both retain full control of their automation orchestration and software layers, allowing them to swap, evolve, and integrate hardware from multiple vendors without being locked into any single architecture or single vendor.

If you’re evaluating automating your warehouse — or reassessing an existing facility — and want to better understand how to retain control of your automation orchestration layer, included your WCS and WES, while minimizing long-term vendor lock-in, I’m happy to compare notes and make independent recommendations.

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