Oneiro Technologies, Inc

I founded Oneiro Technologies to provide turn-key automation systems for your e-commerce, distribution, fulfillment, or manufacturing operation.

I developed an innovative approach for warehousing which requires 15% of the labor and 50% of the space. Sound expensive? You might be surprised to hear about a typical 18 month payback.

Oneiro Technologies' purpose is to make innovative material handling solutions accessible to all. I bring robotics, augmented/extended reality, fulfillment software, and AI to operations of all sizes by being lean and having strategic partnerships. We are nimble and able to adapt to your needs.

I have been able to save millions of dollars per year for distribution and fulfillment operations by pursuing technology that truly works. It isn't easy to be cutting edge but it's my passion to develop a trusting relationship with both our clients and our suppliers.

I can offer what most can't...a world class solution fit to the needs of your operation with focus and agility.

Founder & CEO

ShipStork

ShipStork is a new type of 3PL fulfillment business.

Built from the ground up with a tech forward approach. We embrace automation and use it curate an amazing merchant experience. 

The consumer is our main focus. We will delight every step of the way from the time the order is placed until it is received. If it needs to be returned we make that a delight as well.

I believe this is what the fashion industry needs, tech forward fulfillment.

Stay tuned as we share the journey.

Co-Founder

DCS - Designed Conveyor Systems LLC

DCS is a great organization with an amazing close knit culture. 

My role here was to concept and sell cutting edge automation systems for e-commerce warehouses. Some people called my ideas crazy, some loved them. It was fun keeping the team on their toes. 

Together we built some amazing things through solid partnerships with OEM suppliers and clients alike.

We did a lot, providing fully integrated systems encompassing high speed pouch, case, tote & pallet 
handling. This included accumulation, merging, sortation, distribution, order fulfillment, inspection, verification, high density storage, WMS interfacing, truck loading & unloading, and robotic deployment.

I left DCS because it was just time to pursue my own crazy dreams of founding my own business.

Sr. System Sales Consultant

Intelligrated

I worked with Dave Stinson along with the awesome and eccentric Western Region team. Dave brought me in to build a controls team from scratch for the region. It was a great challenge of building a new team while concepting and selling automated systems to new customers.

As the principal engineer I was responsible for approving designs from both Mike Smeltzer's concepting team and Tim Lasko's engineering team. After a few rounds of back and forth, a white board full of dry erase marker notes, and Kevin Gray saying something hilarious, we would settle on something that would work for the customer.

We executed projects for citrus, almond, wine and various other industries. We even executed a project in a cold storage (-15 degree) facility. Yep that was cold...

Great team and great memories!

Principal Engineer

Barry-Wehmiller Design Group

Becoming a Director at Design Group means you know how to lead and you have a solid client base.

During this time I was located in the Modesto, CA office. We had a lot of projects focused on wineries both big and small. My team of project managers and engineers knew how to get the job done and be entertaining as well. Late night working sessions were often accompanied by a showing of Super Troopers or some other slapstick comedy.

We developed budgets for customers and helped them justify big spending projects by calculating the IRR.

The project management team was a well oiled machine executing projects as big as $30MM. They were masters at negotiating OEM equipment purchases and herding the cats (team members) as PMs do best. At one point our little office of 12 had a significant portion of the Design Group nationwide staff working on our winery projects. 

The mechanical engineering team spearheaded the first 3D laser scanning and facility design that I know of and were great at developing user friendly layouts in CAD. FAT tests were rock solid. 

The electrical engineering team knew NEC, UL and NFPA 79E compliance like the back of their hand. They programmed Allen Bradley PLCs in their sleep and some even loved it enough to automate things at home.

It was a pleasure leading this team.

Director

Accountable for managing all aspects of industrial engineering projects from conceptual design through execution.  

The majority of projects managed were in the consumer beverage industry i.e. bottled water, carbonated soft drinks, beer and wine.

Project Manager

Accountable for all aspects of electrical engineering, controls engineering, and mechanical engineering for multiple high speed packaging lines.  This included hard-to-handle bottles such as light weight PET water bottles and reverse tapered wine bottles.

Project Engineer

Anheuser-Busch

PLC, HMI and simulation programming for utility systems, brewing process and packaging lines.

Engineer

I Automate Warehouses with Robots and AI --> Let's double your capacity with only 25% of the labor \\ System Integrator with over 25 years and $250MM of capital project experience \\ Founder of Oneiro Technologies

Your warehouse has orders to get out the door, quickly and accurately. Perhaps you have considered new automation but are unsure about what works for your specific needs. 

That’s where I help. Oneiro Technologies is a turn-key provider of automated solutions. I implement solutions tailored to your business. Focused on flexibility and scalability so that it works for you today and into the future. 

If you operate a warehouse, you face challenges every single day. I am not a consultant that only tells you how to fix your problems. I will develop solutions and implement those solutions. I cook what I eat so, I am with you throughout the entire process. 

If you have the desire to get more orders out the door with greater accuracy while lowering your expenses, consider this an invitation. 

Let’s kick things off with a free discovery session. It’s an opportunity for open dialogue, where I’ll listen and ask questions to understand your needs better. This session is commitment-free – it might just leave you with valuable insights to ponder or actionable ideas for future endeavors.

Curious? Reach out directly or book a time through the link in my profile. Let's explore what's possible together.

——

About me. 

Have you ever had a nickname?

I was once dubbed “The Wolf” by a colleague. No, not the one from Wall Street but in reference to the problem-solver from 'Pulp Fiction.'

Why the comparison? Because I fix the very problems that give fulfillment warehouses and manufacturing facilities sleepless nights.

But I won’t label myself as an “expert” as there are no experts.

So, who am I? I am a turn-key system integrator with a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that allow me to develop creative solutions for your most nagging problems.

These robots can build mixed SKU pallets with most any product 🤖 


The Packmaster combines…
brains of the Mujin controller, 
robots from Yaskawa Motoman, 
end of arm tooling from WSR Solutions
and an integrated stretch wrapper
to open up the possibility of truly mixed case palletizing.

Pair the palletizers with
goods to person / robot AMRs at the floor level
a vertical lift from Qimarox 
and a world class WES

then we have the most flexible scalable grocery distribution imaginable.

Modern automation is transforming DCs around the world. 

Warehouses need automation that handles the real world, not just a lab environment.
------
Oneiro Technologies, Inc was founded to transform the way automation is done.
 
♻️Leave a comment or repost♻️
 
🎥Video credit to Mujin and Yaskawa Motoman

Drew Thomas

CEO @ Oneiro Technologies | Co-founder @ ShipStork | 🏆 “Best Use of Robotics” 2024 | Turn-key, supplier-agnostic automation systems (up to $50MM) | 25+ years solving integration chaos

KISS=Keep It Simple Stupid!
Automation isn’t always about robots or AI 🤖 
often it is about simple reliable equipment just works, day after day.

My favorite vertical lift is made by Qimarox…
It’s a workhorse,
Well built and easy to maintain.

(over the years I have installed and evaluated dozens of vertical lifts from different OEMs)

This is one of those things where cutting corners will severely impact the reliability of the operation.

👉 I once had a customer insist on buying a low cost vertical case lift…
Because they didn’t see the value.

That turned out to be a huge mistake.
The lift had an error several times per shift.
Each stoppage took several minutes for an operator to become aware of the problem and fix the error.

Do you think 95% uptime is good?
What about a mean time between failure (MTBF) of 95 minutes and a mean time to repair (MTTR) of 5 minutes? 
That means every hour and a half the operator needs to fix a problem on a piece of equipment that is often a single point of failure. 

Selecting budget equipment might sound good short term but it often isn't the best decision long term.

Don't save a penny just to spend a dollar.
------
I founded Oneiro Technologies to provide best in class automation to warehouses of all sizes.

♻️Leave a comment or repost♻️

🎥Video credit to Qimarox

Robots can now load and unload packages🤖 
Stop putting people in hot trailers 🥵 

In warehousing we have dreamed of the day when people didn’t need to be stuffed into a trailer on a hot day, loading and unloading boxes.

The job is so hard that some people don't even make it through their first shift! 

I met the team from Dexterity, Inc. early in 2024…
which put the Mech on my radar…

My hopes have been dashed in the past...
so I have been cautiously optimistic.

(many well-funded companies and brilliant people have worked to solve this problem over the years)

What makes Mech different?
->2-arms that can work together when needed
->7 degrees of motion on the arms instead of 6, that extra pivot point gives it more reach
->new robot arms that sit between industrial arms and cobots to find the right balance of payload, reach and speed.
->built in integration with extendable conveyors (accordion conveyors don’t work without human intervention)
->mobile with the ability to switch doors
->added ability to tackle other tasks outside of the trailer such as palletizing or sorting

Dexterity has gone through significant testing at some large carrier facilities.

Modern automation is transforming DCs around the world. 

Warehouses need automation that handles the real world, not just a lab environment.
------
Oneiro Technologies was founded to transform the way automation is done.

♻️Leave a comment or repost♻️

🎥Video credit to Dexterity, Inc.

Robots are taking over.. 🤖
dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs
 
Many distribution centers operate by picking cases of product from pallets at floor level. 

An army of pickers drive around on motorized pallet jacks.
Picking cases from floor level pallets and building outbound loads.
They move at a fast pace and have a high risk for injury.

(20 years ago my first time in a high volume DC felt quite dangerous)

The workers move fast but…
cases picked per worker per hour is not efficient because one worker often needs to travel long distances from one location to the next.

They also loose time marshalling loads and picking up a new empty pallet.

While goods to person is a great technology for DCs..
it is sometimes disruptive to deploy within an existing operation.

For an alternative we are currently exploring person to goods technology from Lowpad - Autonomous Mobile Robots for a grocery distributor.
Dynamic zone picking has a lot to offer.

Here’s the workflow if using pallets (roll cages is similar)
>An order is received from the WMS
>An AMR picks up an empty pallet from a PALOMAT® pallet stacker to begin the picking process
then moves through the pallet racking, stopping at each pick location 
>a nearby operator is notified to meet it at the location who picks and places the cases
>when finished the AMR drops off completed pallet at the wrapping area 
>then moves a wrapped pallet to the staging/marshalling area..
>then starts the process over.

The workers operate in “dynamic zones”
Their walking distance is limited by being instructed to meet a different Lowpad unit at a nearby location.

The task seems easy..but the coordination and sequencing needs refined software.

Automation is transforming DCs around the world.

I spend time vetting out the details of technology suppliers:
Is it safe?
Is it easy to use?
Will it allow the ops team to be in control?
 
Robots need to handle the real world, not just a lab environment.
 
♻️Leave a comment or repost if you found this useful! ♻️
 
🎥Video credit to Lowpad - Autonomous Mobile Robots

Warehouses need automation that handles the real world, not just a lab environment.

Watch the POV of a robot on a mission. 👀🤖 

Shelf to person (S2P) systems like this one from Liftians have changed the way product is moved in a warehouse.

Workers…
instead of wasting time driving through the warehouse…
have product brought to them.

This greatly increases efficiency and safety by keeping operator activity in one location.

It’s flexible and works with pallets, cases, and units of nearly any size.
As a bonus, it is more affordable than most any other automation.

👇 
**A pallet operation example**

At receiving
Your forklift operator places the inbound pallet on a steel stand..
An AMR then moves that pallet into inventory..

>When an order is placed for that product..
An AMR retrieves..
moves to the pick station..
then moves back to inventory.

>When an inventory pallet is emptied
An AMR moves it to the pallet stacker..
Where the pallet is removed..
Freeing the stand for a new pallet to be placed on at receiving.

>For completed outbound order pallets,
An AMR moves the pallet built by an operator to the stretch wrapper
Where it is wrapped and labeled
The AMR then moves the pallet into a queuing area.

>When shipping is ready to ship the pallet..
An AMR retrieves the completed pallet
Moves it to the shipping dock
A forklift operator removes the pallet and loads it into the truck.

A warehouse team should be performing high value tasks like picking and packing orders.
…not walking…
...or riding miles on a forklift…

That’s why I prefer to use AMRs.
------
Oneiro Technologies was founded to transform the way automation is done.

♻️Leave a comment or repost♻️

🎥 Video credit to Liftians

Quick ROI automation just makes sense.

This is core technology for efficient ecommerce fulfillment.
Auto baggers like this from PAC Machinery are fast, low cost, and make an impact immediately.
 
In summary:
->The packer scans the order
->Places units into the opening
->Presses a button.
->The machine prints and applies the shipping label.
->Seals the package.
->Plus indexes and opens the next pouch...ready for the next order
 
The rate of the machine is 500-600 per hour (dependent on the length of the bag and operator speed)

When paired with a goods to person system like that from Liftians, Mushiny Intelligence, Geek+, or Quicktron Robotics this provides amazing efficiency.

1 person can pick and pack singles on the fly while picking multiline orders to a lighted put wall.
 
The package can then either be dropped into a tote or dispensed onto a sorting system

I frequently hear people say they aren’t ready for automation.
 
But remember…this is automation.
✅Easy
✅Effective
✅Affordable
------
I founded Oneiro Technologies to provide best in class automation to warehouses of all sizes.
 
♻️Leave a comment or repost♻️
 
🎥Video credit to PAC Machinery

I'm not sold on pick assist AMRs...

Had a review today where real world data from a customer using a quality WMS beat the follow me-style AMR technology.

What was the rate?
115 / hr for the AMR
120 / hr for the WMS

This was with both using a cluster pick method with 20 bins per cart. 

Cluster picking is a strategy where multiple order bins are on the cart and pickers walk through the racking picking complete orders to various bins.

How are push carts faster?
->workers can walk at a faster pace (follow me AMRs are slow)
->carts rarely get "stuck" (follow me AMRs 

Warehouse automation needs to handle the real world, not just a lab environment.

If you want real improvement use QR code based shelf to person AMRs like Liftians or Mushiny Intelligence
🫳🎤⬇️  
------
Oneiro Technologies was founded to transform the way automation is done by using real, impactful technology without the BS.

♻️Leave a comment or repost♻️

I'm sure someone in my network is up for this challenge.

Hi Linkedin friends - this is an open RFP for a CMS (Capacity Management System).

--

Confession: I suck at warehousing. 

At Fetch Fulfillment, we’re great at fulfillment: picking and packing e-commerce orders. But we’re not strong at warehousing.

By warehousing I mean:
1. Knowing exactly where in our building to slot each of our 7,000 SKUs, based on SKU velocity + needed storage type
2. Knowing exactly how much inventory to put in pickable for each SKU, based on its sell-through rate + SKU dims + master-carton dims, balancing pickable space + replen labor
3. Knowing exactly what storage types and sizes we need to have in our warehouse, and what type/size to prescribe for each SKU, out of the many possible configurations:
3a. Pallet pick
3b. Master cartons on bare racks
3c. Bins on racks
3d. Pallite / Flexcon slots
3e. Hanging folders in filing cabinets
4. Knowing when, where, and how to move off-season inventory

If we were better at warehousing, we could easily serve twice as many brands in the same space. 

We wouldn’t need to sign another 5-year lease with a new building. We wouldn’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on more racking and forklifts. We wouldn’t need to hire a whole new team to staff a new building. We wouldn’t have to shuttle people and stuff back and forth between buildings.

Can someone sell me a CMS that tells me:

1. Do I have enough space to serve X new customer?
2. How much saleable capacity do I have?
3. How do I slot each sku?
4. What is my checklist of space optimization tasks I can assign to my spare labor?
5. What should I palletize & send to offsite storage?

Size of market: did you know, 30% of all commercial real estate in America is leased by 3PLs like Fetch? What if you could make all of us twice as efficient at warehousing? 🤯 

Detailed RFP in comments.

Real world AI being used to make reselling pre-loved items a breeze.

I'm excited to use what HAMMOQ Inc. has developed as part of our returns automation.

Pair this with mobile robot technology from Mushiny Intelligence or Liftians to move the garment on hangar in and out of storage or to order picking stations.

Also use an auto fold, bag, and tag machine to neatly place apparel into a bag to be ready for picking.

What normally takes people minutes can be done in seconds...
with greater accuracy.

Automation needs to handle the real world, not just a lab environment.
------
Oneiro Technologies was founded to transform the way automation is done.

♻️Leave a comment or repost♻️

🎥Video credit to HAMMOQ Inc.

Let's be honest here…

There is no one-size fits all automation. Too many OEMs try to make their tech do backflips to fit your business. It’s like fitting a square peg into a round hole.

Don’t get distracted by shiny new technology without someone in your corner who can call bs on the sales pitches.

With that said, the right fitting automation can revolutionize your operation. It can eliminate most errors, scale your business with greater efficiency, and be flexible to roll with your changes.

A few things make Oneiro Technologies different:
1️⃣ We are agnostic and constantly vetting out new technology before most folks are even aware it exists. This keeps us up to speed and ahead of industry changes.
2️⃣ We don’t claim to know everything. It’s a big world with a lot to offer, so we built a network of industry insiders who often tell us the real story.
3️⃣ We do not design in a vacuum. We ask you questions and listen to your team. There are many similarities between your business and other distribution and fulfillment operations but there are also many nuanced differences.
4️⃣ We plan for failures and exceptions. All processes will have exceptions and all automation will have errors. You need to have a plan for the unexpected so you can always keep filling orders.
5️⃣ If we are not a good fit for your business we will share advice on who might be able to help you.

So, what do we do?

We design and build turn-key warehouse automation tailored to your needs. Founded on the belief that innovation should be accessible, flexible, and scalable. We help companies of all sizes succeed.

What are you waiting for? Today is the best time to get started.

📽️ Video credit to one of our technology partners Mujin

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