Handled It: The Supply Chain Podcast

Carolina Handling

The supply chain is more connected, automated, and data-driven than ever, yet most leaders still feel like they’re managing chaos instead of progress. Handled It: The Supply Chain Podcast confronts that complexity head-on. Hosted by Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand from Carolina Handling, each episode explores how top operations leaders build resilient systems that withstand labor shortages, rising costs, and constant change. If you lead operations, distribution, or warehouse teams, this show delivers the conversations, frameworks, and field-tested lessons you need.

  1. 1d ago

    Why You Can’t Find Good Employees (It’s Not the Market)

    Every operation says the same thing: “We can’t find people.” Almost nobody asks whether the problem is actually the market. In this episode of Handled It, Joe Perkins, Brent Hillabrand, and Lauren Murphy sit down with Ben Brandon of Accrue Partners to draw the line between a talent shortage and a hiring problem. The conversation gets specific fast: a seven-figure bad hire made under pressure, what “hire for heart, train for skill” looks like in a real interview, and why culture add beats culture fit. The panel also makes the case nobody wants to hear: in every interview, the candidate is interviewing you too. In this episode, you will learn: Why “we can’t find people” is usually a process and expectations problem Where bad hires actually happen — and what they really cost How to hire for heart and train for skill Why “would I have a beer with them?” builds a team of sameness How a defined hiring process keeps you from losing candidates to competing offers

  2. Oct 29

    The $850B Problem Coming Back Through Your Door

    Every retailer knows the returns wave is coming. Almost nobody is ready when it hits the dock in January. In this episode of Handled It, Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand sit down with Aaron Lamb of Toyota Automated Logistics and Chris Youngs of Carolina Handling to dig into the $850 billion returns problem, and why the fix starts long before anything ships. The conversation gets practical fast: how product descriptions, fit tools and better tagging stop returns before they're ever ordered, what a real returns lane looks like versus pallets piling up in the corner, and why a wrong item shipped is the hardest return of all to bring back in. From there it's a look at how vision systems and AI are catching picking mistakes before they leave the building, how to tell a designed returns process from an improvised one, and what it costs when executives only watch what goes out the door. One retailer built a 200,000-square-foot building just to hold returns, and it gets used about three months a year. In this episode, you will learn: Why returns are a predictable problem most operations still treat as a surprise How to push the problem upstream into descriptions, tagging and order accuracy What a designed returns lane looks like versus the pile in the corner Why a wrong item shipped is the hardest return to bring back in How vision systems and AI catch picking errors before they ship How to tell if your returns process is designed or improvised Why executives need to see the whole building, not just the outbound side Returns don't start at the dock. They start with every decision made before the order ships. Learn how to shrink the wave before it forms, so January stops being a surprise.

  3. Oct 15

    Your Safety Numbers Are Lying to You

    Everybody wants a clean safety scorecard. Almost nobody asks whether the numbers are telling the truth. In this episode of Handled It, Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand sit down with Mark Hernandez, "Safety Mark," Carolina Handling's safety lead — to draw the line between a company that has a safety program and one that has a safety culture. The difference, as Mark puts it, is what happens on the floor when nobody is watching. The conversation gets specific fast: why "zero near misses" almost always means someone is staying quiet, how the near-miss iceberg hides the real risk beneath the incidents you actually record, and why psychological safety is what gets a hazard raised instead of buried. From there it's a practical tour of what strong culture looks like day to day — observing instead of policing, treating associates as the experts, separating urgency from shortcuts when the shift is already behind, acting on ideas from the field, and the small leadership habits (floor presence, housekeeping, a daily check-in text) that add up. And Mark makes the case nobody wants to hear: the moment you hand safety to one person with a clipboard, you've started building a wall of silence. In this episode, you will learn: Why a safety program lives on paper and a safety culture lives in behavior when no one's around Why "zero near misses" is a warning sign, not a win How the near-miss iceberg hides your real risk — and how to get it reported Why observing beats policing, and how curiosity gets the truth out of the floor How to separate urgency from shortcuts when you're short-staffed and behind The leadership habits that quietly build (or break) a safety culture Why you can't outsource safety to one person with a clipboard Your safety numbers aren't the story. What your people won't tell you is. Learn how to build a culture where hazards get raised instead of hidden — so everyone goes home better than they showed up.

  4. Oct 1

    The Free Productivity You Walk Past Every Day

    Not every productivity gain needs a capital request. In this episode of Handled It, Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand sit down with Dan Grupp and Ashley Watkins to talk about the low-hanging fruit,  the low-cost, low-drama changes that can move output right away, before anyone signs off on another hire, a new system, or a robot. If your instinct when the numbers slip is to add people or add technology, this conversation makes the case that you should walk your floor first. The group gets practical fast: shortening default Outlook and Teams meetings, cutting unnecessary standups, reducing wasted walking, relocating supplies, and re-slotting SKUs that clearly aren't where they belong. A dusty box sitting in a prime pick zone might look insignificant, but it can be a signal that your slotting strategy hasn't been questioned in years. From there, the conversation gets into a bigger problem: leaders often confuse "busy" with productive, become blind to waste that's hiding in plain sight, and fail to reanalyze processes that operators already know are broken. Dan and Ashley explain why the people closest to the work often have the best ideas, why incentive structures can keep them from speaking up, and how simple disciplines like Gemba walks and repeatedly asking "why" can uncover improvements without spending a dollar on automation. In this episode, you will learn: Why your cheapest productivity gains may already be hiding on the warehouse floor How meetings, standups, walking paths, and supply placement quietly eat into output Why dust on a box can tell you your slotting strategy needs another look How leaders become "waste blind" and start confusing activity with productivity Why operators often see the problem first — and what keeps them from speaking up How morale, absenteeism, turnover, lighting, and temperature affect measurable performance Why Gemba walks and root-cause thinking should come before expensive automation Before you buy another machine or post another job opening, look at the work that's already happening. The biggest productivity gains may come from removing the friction, wasted motion, and outdated habits your team has learned to work around every day.

  5. Sep 17

    You Sold the Same Item Twice

    Omnichannel fulfillment is becoming one of the biggest challenges in modern retail, but what happens when the customer promise gets ahead of the supply chain? In this episode, Joe Perkins, Brent Hillabrand, and guests Alex Haines and Aaron Lambe, from Toyota Automated Logistics, break down how retailers can balance store inventory, distribution centers, fulfillment costs, and customer expectations without creating unnecessary complexity. You’ll learn why real-time inventory visibility, flexible automation, and smarter fulfillment strategies are critical to keeping same-day, curbside, and e-commerce promises. The conversation explores how retailers are turning stores into fulfillment nodes, the hidden costs of store-level picking, the role of AI and supply chain orchestration, and why order profiles should influence automation and distribution center decisions. Alex and Aaron also share practical insights on inventory allocation, replenishment, warehouse design, data quality, and when retailers should optimize what they already have instead of investing in new facilities or technology. In this episode, you will learn: Understand how omnichannel fulfillment impacts inventory, stores, distribution centers, and the customer experience Learn why disconnected systems and inaccurate inventory data can undermine fulfillment promises Explore the tradeoffs between store fulfillment, distribution center fulfillment, and localized fulfillment nodes See how automation, AI, and supply chain orchestration can improve inventory visibility and fulfillment efficiency Learn why your order profile should guide warehouse design, automation, and capital investment decisions Don’t risk making customer promises your supply chain can’t keep. Learn how to build a more flexible, efficient omnichannel fulfillment strategy that works in the real world.

  6. Sep 3

    Your Team Isn't Slow. Your Technology Is

    Everybody is talking about the labor shortage. Almost nobody is asking the better question. In this episode of Handled It, Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand sit down with Eddie Lowry, Automation Systems Engineer at Carolina Handling, and Alex Haines, Head of Accounts at Toyota Automated Logistics, to make the case that most operations don't have a labor problem at all — they have a tooling problem. If your instinct when the numbers slip is to post another job ad, this conversation will challenge where that next dollar should actually go. The group gets specific fast: why so many warehouse managers still read "moving" as "productive," why an empty forklift raises eyebrows but an empty-handed picker doesn't, and how operators learn to look busy just to get by. From there it's a practical tour of what augmentation actually looks like on a floor — goods-to-person, AMRs, conveyor, vertical lift modules, shuttles — and an honest accounting of why these projects fail. Spoiler: it's almost never the equipment. Eddie and Alex get into over-scoping and under-scoping, the assumptions buried in every proposal, the machine rate that doesn't survive contact with a real human being, and the financing and phasing options most operators don't know exist. In this episode, you will learn: Why "we can't find people" is often a tooling problem wearing a labor-shortage costumeWhy managers reward movement instead of output, and what that costs youHow to decide whether the next dollar goes to a new hire or a new toolWhat actually kills automation projects, and why the box is rarely the culpritWhy you should never automate a process you haven't mappedHow scaling in, financing, and phased rollouts lower the barrier to entryWhy the biggest return may be the people who stop quittingYour team isn't slow. Your technology is. Learn how to take the walking, the searching, and the repetition out of the job so the people you already have can do work worth a human's time.

  7. Aug 20

    Why Complexity Is Quietly Eating Your Margin

    Complexity doesn’t announce itself. It accumulates. One extra approval. One redundant system. One workaround that quietly becomes standard practice. Before long, the operation is slower, costlier, and more frustrating despite having more tools and processes than ever. In this POV episode of Handled It, Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand are joined by Ashley Watkins and Woody Paschal of Carolina Handling to unpack complexity as a hidden cost that rarely appears on a P&L but affects every line of it. Woody shares real-world examples from the field, including a segmented manufacturing operation where “pockets of simplicity” quietly added up to system-wide complexity, and a customer who saved more than $25,000 a year simply by adding a pickup to an already scheduled return trip. The group explores how complexity creeps in without anyone consciously choosing it, how a “process Frankenstein” is built one reasonable decision at a time, why 30% of warehouse labor is spent on non-value-adding work, and why the solution is almost always subtraction, not addition. In this episode, you will learn: Why complexity is something you accumulate, not choose, and why it rarely fixes itself How “pockets of simplicity” create system-wide complexity Why adding process is easy, but removing it is hard What 30% non-value-adding labor really costs Why subtraction beats addition in process improvement When technology simplifies operations and when it adds complexity How Carolina Handling uses data to reveal the real problem The most expensive thing in your operation is the one that never shows up in a budget line. Learn how to find it and take it back.

  8. Aug 6

    The One Thing You Underfund That Controls Your Uptime

    Maintenance isn't a line item to cut when the month gets tight. It's the strategy that quietly decides your uptime, your costs, and your culture. In this episode of Handled It, Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand are joined by David Horak and Lauren Murphy to unpack the reactive maintenance trap: why operational disasters rarely start with a catastrophic failure, but with one PM that got pushed, and then another. From PM compliance and telematics to total cost of ownership and the partnership model behind Carolina Handling's own 10,000-asset fleet, the group breaks down why the cheapest-looking maintenance decision this month is often the most expensive one next quarter. They get into the "stability vs. chaos" gap between a scheduled visit and an emergency call, how deferred maintenance erodes both the equipment and the people running it, and why a documented 3–5x ROI on preventive maintenance still loses, because the real barrier is cultural, not financial. In this episode, you will learn: Why reactive maintenance disasters start with one pushed PM How deferring maintenance "saves" money now and compounds into bigger spend later Why PM compliance is a leading indicator of operational health How telematics turns firefighting into fireproofing Why maintenance is a culture, retention, and safety issue, not just a mechanical one Why total cost of ownership, not purchase price, should be the first number on the table

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The supply chain is more connected, automated, and data-driven than ever, yet most leaders still feel like they’re managing chaos instead of progress. Handled It: The Supply Chain Podcast confronts that complexity head-on. Hosted by Joe Perkins and Brent Hillabrand from Carolina Handling, each episode explores how top operations leaders build resilient systems that withstand labor shortages, rising costs, and constant change. If you lead operations, distribution, or warehouse teams, this show delivers the conversations, frameworks, and field-tested lessons you need.

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