Modex 2026 Recap

Scott Mitchell spent four great days at Modex, the largest supply chain industry event in the country with 1,000+ exhibitors, last week, and came away with a number of new insights in the rapidly evolving supply chain landscape as macro U.S. policy continues to whipsaw and the promised potential of AI becomes reality for many businesses.

Word of the Conference: Intralogistics

Intralogistics (the internal logistics of a warehouse, distribution center, or manufacturing environment) stood out to me as a major theme of the conference.  The concept certainly lacks the allure of previous buzzy themes (like digital twin or unified control tower), yet I found that to be a good thing, as there appears to be a greater seriousness in the tactics for increasing efficiency of flow within a facility leveraging automation, robotics, warehouse execution software, and AI.  This emphasis is good news for WES (warehouse execution systems) software companies like Logistiview that coordinate all of the equipment, robotics, and IoT devices in the warehouse.  This trend is also helping integrators like Conveyco that design, build, and deploy facility processes, equipment, AVGs (automated guided vehicles), and AMRs (autonomous mobile robotics).

Key Insights

• Manhattan is running away from the competition in enterprise WMS. I heard from multiple practitioners within the supply chain software ecosystem that, despite Manhattan’s high price point, the Company’s commitment to providing a world-class cloud native WMS without requiring customers to bundle other supply chain software (TMS, OMS, planning, etc.) and offering a strong mid-market solution (Manhattan SCALE) is winning over customers and rapidly increasing its market share.
• Tariff impacts remain stubbornly persistent bottlenecks. Despite the SCOTUS ruling in February that the executive branch overstepped its tariff authority, tariffs continue to impact US supply chains. Increased inspections and documentation burdens at customs continue to add 2-3 weeks of delay in the system. Additionally, many companies are still structurally resetting their import supply chains into the US to minimize tariffs. Those changes continue to create meaningful secondary supplier quality issues.
• AI beyond the hype cycle. AI, of course, was a major topic of conversation and demonstration. The tenor of the dialogue has shifted from breathless, generic optimism to deeper questions, like the best way to practically leverage its data collection abilities: for instance, via wearables for labor management (like Rufus) or cameras (like Datature)? “Beyond the barcode” was a common refrain as many AI application companies focus on providing additional information about movements and conditions of products, packages, bins, and racks.
• System integrators return to their engineering roots. In the face of Claude and other AI tools quickly gaining traction in supporting many aspects of software development, technology consultants and integrators (like Tryon) have shifted their positioning away from their ability to screw in software and toward their industrial engineering expertise in facility design, process flow, and change management.

Technology Spotlight

• Winner for most “against the grain” technology has to be Karolium and their unified zero-code enterprise platform. As most AI model builders seek to write more code faster, Karolium is launching a platform that uses human language as its code instead of a distinct coding language.
• Hardis, a PE-backed French WMS with installations in 25+ countries, is attempting to make a big push into the US, especially with cost-conscious mid-market players
• Tricentis – software for testing automation. Testing code has long been the lowest common denominator in software development. Tricentis, backed by GTCR, is growing rapidly by providing codeless, model-based testing without deep manual scripting.
• Truck Parking Club – the “Airbnb” for truck parking. Make money with your empty yard or lot space for parking trucks via their app.
• Spotwork – VC-backed company billing itself as “Indeed for qualified industrial labor”. I was impressed with the clarity of their positioning and relevance given how hard it is to find industrial labor these days.