Technical Sales Solution Architect

Location: Cincinnati

The Solution Architect is a customer-facing technical and commercial resource within Kardex Solutions responsible for helping the Sales organization identify customer requirements, develop solution concepts, and effectively demonstrate how Kardex Solutions technologies can solve complex distribution and fulfillment challenges.

The role sits at the intersection of sales, solution design, operations, and technology. The Solution Architect engages early in the sales process to understand a prospect's operational challenges, material flows, business requirements, and growth objectives, then translates those requirements into an automation strategy centered primarily around AutoStore, conveyor and material handling technologies, and the broader Kardex Solutions portfolio.

A critical component of the role is making automation understandable and compelling. The Solution Architect will lead customer discovery sessions, solution workshops, product demonstrations, conceptual solution reviews, and technical presentations that enable customers to understand not only how the technology works, but how it improves their operation and delivers measurable business value.

The successful candidate will combine strong knowledge of warehouse operations and automation with the communication skills necessary to engage everyone from warehouse operators and engineers to senior executives.

Your tasks

Key Responsibilities

Customer Discovery & Requirements Definition

Partner with Sales to engage prospective and existing customers during the earliest stages of an opportunity.

Lead structured discovery sessions to understand

• Current warehouse and fulfillment processes
• Receiving, replenishment, storage, picking, packing, and shipping workflows
• SKU profiles and inventory characteristics
• Order profiles and demand patterns
• Required throughput and peak operating conditions
• Service-level requirements
• Labor requirements and constraints
• Available building footprint and facility limitations
• Growth expectations
• Integration requirements
• Customer business objectives and investment criteria
• Translate operational discussions into clear functional and technical requirements that can be used by Kardex Solutions engineering and solution design teams.
• Identify gaps in customer-provided information and work with Sales and the customer to collect the data required to develop an appropriate solution.

Solution Development

Develop high-level automation concepts that address the customer's operational and business requirements.

Evaluate where technologies such as

AutoStore

• Conveyor and sortation
• Goods-to-person technologies
• Pick and pack workstations
• AMRs and other mobile robotics
• Warehouse execution and control software
• Peripheral automation and value-added technologies
• can be combined to create an effective end-to-end solution.
• Work closely with Kardex Solutions engineering and design teams as opportunities progress from conceptual design into detailed engineering and proposal development.

Help ensure that proposed solutions balance

Operational performance

Technical feasibility

Simplicity

• Customer experience
• Implementation risk
• Capital investment
• Long-term total cost of ownership

AutoStore Solution Support

Serve as a knowledgeable customer-facing resource for AutoStore opportunities.

Help customers understand concepts including

• Grid and storage design
• Bin sizing and utilization
• Robot and port requirements

Throughput

• Workstation strategies
• Picking and replenishment processes
• System expansion
• Redundancy and availability
• Software integration
• Operational optimization
• Support the Sales team in explaining why a particular AutoStore configuration is appropriate for the customer's operation.
• Collaborate with internal engineering resources to ensure assumptions used during early sales conversations align with the final engineered solution.

Conveyor & Integrated Material Handling

Support the development and presentation of integrated conveyor solutions connecting AutoStore and surrounding warehouse processes.

Understand and help define material flows including

• Tote transportation
• Carton transportation
• Order consolidation

Packing

Shipping

Replenishment

Exception handling

Help customers understand how AutoStore, conveyor, software, and peripheral technologies work together as a complete system rather than as individual pieces of equipment.

Product Demonstrations

Develop and deliver compelling demonstrations of Kardex Solutions products and technologies.

Demonstrations may include

• Live AutoStore demonstrations
• Warehouse software demonstrations
• Solution simulations
• Conceptual system layouts
• Customer workflow demonstrations
• Operational scenarios
• Digital demonstrations
• Customer-specific use cases
• Whenever practical, demonstrations should reflect the customer's actual operation rather than generic functionality.

Translate technical capabilities into clear customer outcomes such as

• Increased throughput
• Reduced labor dependency
• Improved storage density
• Increased order accuracy
• Improved ergonomics
• Greater scalability
• Improved system availability
• Reduced operating cost

Sales Support

Act as a technical partner to Kardex Solutions Sales Managers throughout the opportunity lifecycle.

Participate in

Customer discovery meetings

Qualification calls

• Site visits
• Solution workshops
• Executive presentations
• Technical presentations

Demonstrations

• RFP responses
• Proposal presentations
• Customer reference visits
• Trade shows and industry events
• Help Sales determine whether an opportunity is technically and commercially aligned with the capabilities of Kardex Solutions.
• Identify potential technical risks, scope gaps, unrealistic expectations, or solution constraints early in the sales process.
• Support the development of clear value propositions and solution differentiators.

Solution Storytelling

Translate complex automation technology into a clear story that customers can understand.

Present solutions differently depending on the audience.

For operations leaders, explain

Workflow

Labor impact

Throughput

Reliability

Ergonomics

Operational flexibility

For engineering and IT teams, explain

Technical architecture

Controls

Interfaces

System performance

Integration requirements

For executives, explain

Business impact

ROI

Scalability

Risk

Strategic value

Ensure Kardex Solutions proposals communicate the business outcome of the solution, not simply the equipment being supplied.

Internal Collaboration

Work closely with

Sales

Solution Design

Engineering

Software

Project Management

Customer Service

Product Management

Marketing

Strategic technology partners

Provide structured feedback to Product Management and Engineering regarding recurring customer requirements and market needs.

Help develop reusable sales tools such as

• Discovery templates
• Demonstration environments
• Solution presentation templates
• Customer use cases
• ROI tools
• Technical comparison documents
• Application guides

Key Performance Indicators

Success in this role may be measured through

• Sales opportunities supported
• Quality and completeness of customer requirements
• Percentage of qualified opportunities progressing to solution development
• Proposal conversion / win rate
• Effectiveness of customer demonstrations
• Reduction in late-stage scope changes
• Accuracy of early solution assumptions
• Customer engagement during workshops and demonstrations
• Sales team adoption of Solution Architect resources
• Development of repeatable demonstration and solution-selling tools
• The role should ultimately help Kardex Solutions increase win rate, shorten the sales cycle, improve solution quality, and reduce the technical risk associated with opportunities entering engineering.

Required Experience

• 5+ years of experience in warehouse automation, material handling, distribution operations, solution engineering, systems integration, or a related field.
• Strong understanding of warehouse and distribution center operations.
• Experience supporting customer-facing technical or solution-selling activities.
• Ability to understand operational data and translate it into automation requirements.
• Strong presentation and communication skills.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience working collaboratively with Sales and Engineering organizations.
• Ability to manage multiple opportunities simultaneously.

Preferred Experience

Experience with one or more of the following is strongly preferred:

AutoStore

Goods-to-person systems

Conveyor systems

Sortation

AS/RS

AMRs / AGVs

• Warehouse robotics
• WMS, WCS, or WES software
• Warehouse simulation
• Material handling systems integration
• Distribution center solution design
• Experience working for a material handling integrator, automation provider, consulting organization, or sophisticated distribution operation is highly desirable.

Technical Competencies

The successful candidate should understand many of the following concepts:

Warehouse material flow

Order fulfillment processes

Throughput calculations

SKU velocity

Inventory profiles

Storage density

Pick rates

Peak demand analysis

Conveyor capacity

System bottlenecks

Availability and redundancy

Controls architecture

Host-system integration

WMS/WCS/WES environments

ROI and automation business cases

The Solution Architect does not need to perform every aspect of detailed engineering but must possess enough technical depth to identify requirements, develop credible concepts, challenge assumptions, and effectively engage both customers and Kardex engineering specialists.

Professional Skills

The ideal candidate is

• Consultative rather than transactional
• Technically curious
• Comfortable asking detailed operational questions
• Able to challenge customer assumptions professionally
• Commercially aware
• Highly credible in front of customers
• Comfortable presenting to executives
• Capable of facilitating workshops
• Able to simplify complex concepts
• Collaborative across departments
• Comfortable working in an entrepreneurial and rapidly growing environment

Travel

Approximately 30–50% travel may be required depending on customer activity.

Travel will primarily support

Customer discovery sessions

Facility assessments

Demonstrations

• Solution workshops
• Proposal presentations
• Customer reference visits
• Industry events
• Role in the Kardex Solutions Sales Process
• The Solution Architect should become involved before a solution is engineered.

The preferred engagement model is

Qualify → Discover → Define Requirements → Develop Concept → Demonstrate → Validate → Engineer → Propose → Close

The Solution Architect owns the technical-commercial portion of the early stages of this process and acts as the bridge between the customer's operational requirements, the Sales organization, and Kardex Solutions engineering resources.

The objective is simple

Understand the customer's operation well enough to demonstrate and articulate the right Kardex solution before significant engineering resources are committed.

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