Take the Blindfold Off Your Warehouse Operation
From Blind Spots to Breakthroughs: The Power of Visibility in Warehouse Operations
What happens when you bring NFL-style coaching to the warehouse floor?
In this live, in-person edition of Warehouse Visionaries, Evan sits down with Nick Palczynski, Director of Strategic Partnerships at OneTrack, for a candid conversation inside a real warehouse. With years of experience walking the aisles of distribution centers and working hand-in-hand with logistics leaders, Nick offers an unfiltered look into the hidden challenges—and the transformative potential—inside modern warehouse operations.
From cell phone distractions to forklift near-misses, Nick reveals how a lack of visibility isn't just inconvenient—it’s dangerous, expensive, and erodes productivity. But what if you could “watch the game tape” like a quarterback on the sidelines?
Nick shares how OneTrack’s computer vision platform is helping teams do just that: understand why things happen—not just what happened. By bringing video, coaching tools, and safety monitoring into one single source of truth, leaders can finally see the root causes of slowdowns, safety risks, and inefficiencies.
Key Takeaways:
- Why “work harder and faster” isn’t real coaching—and what actually works.
- How visibility transforms warehouse culture from reactive to proactive.
- Why safety is the biggest untapped opportunity—and how solving for it improves everything else.
- The real stories from the field: fires, blind spots, and the Wild West of warehousing.
If you’re a warehouse leader who feels like you’re managing in the dark, this episode is your flashlight.
Resources Mentioned:
Don’t wait. The best time to fix your warehouse’s visibility problem was yesterday. The next best time is now.
Transcript
Nick: If you're watching the NFL on any Sunday, the first thing that a quarterback does when he comes off the field after three and out is grabs his tablet. Right. He goes back and he watches. Well, first slams down his helmet. Then he grabs his tablet, and if it was really bad, then he slams the tablet.
In all reality, he's looking at and trying to learn from what just took place so he can be better. Right? And that's fundamentally what we're bringing to our customers: the ability to now understand what took place, what opportunity is there to change the process, to change the safety.
Evan: Hey everyone, this is Evan from OneTrack, and you are listening to a very special edition of Warehouse Visionaries.
Because we are actually in person — we got out from behind the computer screens to actually sit down in a real warehouse to talk through trends shaping the future of warehousing logistics, so the rest of you can do the same thing.
So without further ado, I'm gonna dive into talking to Nick Palczynski, the Director of Strategic Partnerships here at OneTrack. He is someone that is talking to warehouse leaders every day, in and out of warehouses pretty much every week at this point. A lot of great things to talk about. Nick, I appreciate it.
Nick: Absolutely. Coming to you live from the warehouse. Very good.
Evan: So for everyone listening, can you introduce yourself, your background, what brought you to OneTrack, and what you do here?
Nick: Yeah, absolutely. So Nick Palczynski, I'm the Director of Strategic Partnerships here at OneTrack.
I got into the computer vision space probably six or seven years ago now, and actually started out in agriculture. We were using camera technology to monitor for disease and pests, understand harvest loss in real time, and autonomously deliver that feedback to growers so they could make decisions on how to improve crop yield. Really interesting technology.
I then transitioned into the warehouse space here with OneTrack a little over three years ago. I’ll be the first to tell you, I did not love warehousing right out of the gate. It was something I struggled with — my mind didn’t operate like that. But it really started to click when I was walking through the supermarket and realized: wow, everything on these shelves, we see a lot of it. The amount of people it takes to get here really helped me put into perspective the importance and significance of this industry.
Slowly, I’ve really grown a love of what we do specifically, but also what our customers are doing, and how a technology like computer vision can ultimately raise the water level across their operations.
Evan: Yeah, no one really thinks about what it takes to get your box of cereal from the supermarket. All the steps, warehouses, final mile, truckloads — it’s kind of interesting to peek behind the curtain.
Nick: That’s right. My kids are huge lovers of Cheez-Its, and there are a lot of steps in that process to get those to the shelves.
Evan: So I mentioned in the intro here, but you see the inside of warehouses a lot. You talk to warehouse leaders a lot. How are warehouses currently managed today?
Nick: Great question. We’re in and out of so many different warehouses with so many different products. The one common factor across all facilities is that warehouses are still suited for an environment and system that doesn’t exist today.
There’s so much opportunity — in time, coaching, productivity improvements — that you just can’t access today without additional technology to unlock it. WMS and LMS get you part of the way there, but computer vision takes it further.
People always say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Well, video on a process or activity is like reading a novel. You really understand why something took place and what needs to improve for safety, efficiency, or productivity.
Evan: And I think about that lack of visibility. The warehouse we’re in right now is 400,000 square feet, and we’ve been in some that are a couple million square feet. You just can’t keep eyes on operations everywhere.
What do you think that lack of visibility causes downstream?
Nick: Huge effects. We were in a facility on Friday, and because of lack of visibility, pallets with damage can slip by. Every pallet that goes out is a revenue-generating opportunity.
Some pallets are worth a couple thousand dollars; others are worth tens of thousands. That difference is very real. Bringing visibility to that process and making teams aware of what happened gives them the ability to change processes and improve customer experience.
Evan: And think about something as simple as a cell phone in a warehouse. Heavy machinery, people moving around — it’s so easy for someone to duck into a rack and check TikTok or YouTube. Most warehouses have a cell phone policy, but it’s one of the hardest things to enforce and also one of the biggest safety hazards.
Nick: Absolutely. Almost every customer has some type of cell phone policy, but they’re incredibly difficult to coach on when you just don’t know what’s happening out there.
Operators come to work wanting to do their best, but we’re human. Maybe you get a text from your wife, or you’re checking the football score. There are endless distractions.
The problem is, forklifts aren’t built with the same safety features as cars. One fraction of a second with your hands off the controls can lead to catastrophe. And unfortunately, we’ve seen that happen.
Evan: And you can’t solve problems if you can’t see them. So what can leaders start doing today to better manage their operations?
Nick: First, they’re bringing in OneTrack. (laughs) But seriously, giving supervisors the ability to have more robust conversations with operators fundamentally changes culture — safety, productivity, everything.
Coaching equals culture. Video plays a huge role in effective coaching.
Think back to that NFL analogy. Quarterbacks review tape right away to improve. That’s what we’re giving customers — the ability to see what took place and adjust. Sometimes it’s a small tweak that eliminates accidents or damage.
Evan: Some people might say, “I have WMS and LMS, I already have visibility.” What would you say to that?
Nick: They’re great tools, but they only give you part of the story — line item data, spreadsheets, graphs. The next step is understanding why.
Talking to operators isn’t always reliable; people forget. With video, you can show exactly what happened. That changes coaching from “work harder, be safer” to actually addressing the root cause.
Evan: What are some specific examples you’ve seen leaders coach on?
Nick: It’s not lost on us that site leaders juggle thousands of things. But even without OneTrack, the most important thing is to involve operators in tactical discussions and explain why.
With OneTrack, you can show the why. Humans remember better when they see. Bringing operators into that process drives real culture change.
Evan: And there’s also the issue of bloated tech stacks. So why should someone add OneTrack to all their other systems?
Nick: Because often OneTrack lets you eliminate multiple other tools. Many customers use six tools where OneTrack can consolidate them. It becomes the single source of truth — safety checklists, productivity, quality, even maintenance.
When safety improves, productivity and quality usually improve too. Visibility is the key lever.
Evan: So what does a Warehouse Operating System mean to you?
Nick: It means becoming the single source of truth. Many customers today use whiteboards for maintenance, spreadsheets for quality, paper checklists for safety. With OneTrack, everything is connected and visible in one place, automated in a dashboard.
Evan: What do you think is the biggest opportunity in warehouses today, aside from buying OneTrack?
Nick: Safety. Every customer says safety is number one. But there’s a difference between talking about safety and actually doing something about it.
So I always encourage leaders: when you look at tools, really ask, what value will this bring to my operation? What’s the path to ROI?
Evan: I always say you’ve got to audit your processes first. Figure out where time is spent, what the problems are, and then solve them. Sometimes that’s technology, sometimes it’s training, sometimes it’s staffing. Then add tech on top — that’s the force multiplier.
Nick: Exactly. First step: measure it. If you can measure, you can manage it. Right now, many processes just can’t be measured.
Evan: You’ve been in a lot of warehouses. What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen?
Nick: Fires. We’ve seen fires in warehouses. We’ve also seen severe accidents. Honestly, those are the scariest things.
Sometimes we walk into sites and we’re terrified the first few days — but later those same sites become some of our best customers, and some of the safest warehouses we see.
Evan: I’ve heard customers describe their past warehouses as the “Wild West” — racks damaged, forklifts tagged out in the back, no one knowing how much equipment was in the building. Unfortunately, that’s reality for a lot of warehouses: big spaces, high turnover, throughput demands, and a lot of gray areas overlooked.
Nick: That gray area can be incredibly dangerous. I was at a site a couple weeks ago where even staying in the pedestrian zone wasn’t safe — forklifts were still coming close. You had to keep your head on a swivel.
Evan: To close things out — what’s one piece of advice you’d give a leader who wants to improve warehouse safety culture?
Nick: Don’t wait. If you think you have an issue, you probably do. And it only takes one split second for something terrible to happen. Take action now.
Evan: Well Nick, I appreciate you sitting down with me today.
Nick: Thank you.
Evan: And thank you all for tuning in to another episode of Warehouse Visionaries. Subscribe to us on YouTube or LinkedIn to never miss an episode.
We’ll be dropping new episodes and content every week and month to keep you in the know on warehousing and logistics.
Here are my top three takeaways from today’s conversation:
- Dig into root causes. Warehouses are massive. You won’t know everything that happens unless you uncover the root causes of behaviors and problems.
- Find your most important thing. Don’t get lost in the noise. Focus on your biggest problems first, then find solutions. Tech is a multiplier, not the starting point.
- Don’t wait to act. Lack of visibility leads to downstream issues in safety, productivity, and quality. Start solving those problems now.
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