Micheal Odunsi Shares How Warehouses Are The Invisible Backbone of America’s Supply Chain

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When Americans click the buy now button, they rarely think about what happens next. But behind every order is a warehouse, and when warehouses stumble, the whole system feels it. The Department of Transportation estimates that freight bottlenecks cost the U.S. economy more than $66 billion each year in lost time and higher expenses. Those delays show up everywhere, from grocery store shelves to hospital supply rooms. For Micheal Odunsi, an operations leader who has spent years inside some of the country’s busiest facilities, warehouses aren’t just buildings. They are the engine rooms of the nation’s supply chain and strengthening them could mean stronger communities and a more competitive economy.

“Warehouses are the engine room of any supply chain, where all action happens,” Odunsi told me. “Every online order passes through the warehouse even as little as a pin, this is why being thorough is the baseline of a functional warehouse.” He points out that warehouses are invisible when they’re working well but painfully visible when they fail. One small disruption can cascade into thousands of late deliveries, broken trust with customers, and higher costs across the board.

Odunsi has spent his career fixing those choke points. At one site, he helped redesign processes to cut non-value time by more than 70 percent. In plain language, that means eliminating idle minutes when associates are waiting instead of moving freight. “Similar to cutting traffic jams in a busy city, once nonvalue time is cleared everything moves smoothly,” he said. The payoff is measurable including associates staying productive, costs coming down, and for customers it translates into faster delivery and more affordable prices.

The vulnerabilities in America’s warehouses became obvious during the pandemic. Facilities short on staff or reliant on manual scanning simply couldn’t keep up. “If the facility lacks the appropriate number of associates, flexibility, and technology needed the whole network slows down,” Odunsi explained. On peak nights, even a small gap in labor or machine availability could roll volume forward, causing thousands of delays. He believes the answer lies in a smarter mix of people and technology, with investments in automated tracking paired with strong planning and team development

What happens inside these warehouses doesn’t stay inside. Odunsi points to the ripple effect across industries: “A well-run warehouse means well stocked grocery shelves for families, hospitals avoid shortages, and retailers avoid missed sales.” The link between warehouse performance and everyday life is direct. If a pallet of food doesn’t leave the dock on time, it might mean fewer choices at the supermarket. If medical supplies are delayed, hospitals face risks no one wants to imagine.

Odunsi’s philosophy extends beyond metrics like cost-per-hour or on-time departure. He invests in people. “Developing managers and teams is essential because people are the base of operation,” he said. He’s trained managers on workflow and coached process assistants to take on greater responsibility, which has led to smoother shifts and stronger associate engagement. He sees leadership development as a great value, including better managers not only to improve productivity, but also create safer workplaces and leaders who take those skills into their families and communities.

At the national scale, the stakes are enormous. Odunsi estimates that applying his strategies broadly, such as cutting idle time, tightening workflows, and strengthening teams, could save billions. “I have seen how the project saves millions of dollars in one building, imagine running that across the country, the savings will be in billions,” he said. Those savings don’t just improve balance sheets. They lower logistics costs nationwide, which means cheaper commodities for customers, more reliable deliveries, and room for companies to grow and hire in the U.S.

The invisible warehouse may never get the spotlight, but Odunsi believes it should. The efficiency of those four walls shapes the prices we pay, the trust we place in brands, and the security of critical supplies. America’s supply chain competitiveness depends on what happens inside them. And as Odunsi’s work shows, when warehouses run smarter, the entire country benefits.

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This content is brought to you by Melissa Moraes.

Photo provided by the author.

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