As Dematic marks 60 years in Australia and New Zealand, CEO Michael Jerogin reflects on resilience, customer partnerships, and the future of automation.
For decades, Dematic has operated across Australia and New Zealand, but 2026 marks a significant milestone for the business as it celebrates its 60th anniversary in the region. The anniversary comes at a time when supply chain and logistics operations are under growing pressure.
Labour shortages, rising transport costs, land constraints, and demand volatility are forcing businesses to rethink how warehouses and distribution centres operate, with automation increasingly becoming part of that conversation.
For Michael Jerogin, CEO of Dematic APAC, the company’s longevity has been built on more than technology alone.
“I would say that the culture within the business has carried us through,” he says. “The foundations of the business, a culture of innovation, a culture focused on customer results, and a culture that still carries some of those family values around the way we interact with our people.”
Michael says those values have remained consistent even as the business has evolved over decades of change.
APAC CEO, Dematic.
“I look at care for our customers, care for our people, and achieving our results as being those values that form the basis for decision making and for the way that we behave as we drive our business forward,” he says.
Over its 60-year history in ANZ, Dematic has operated through periods including the Global Financial Crisis, challenging economic conditions in the early 2010s, and the disruption caused by COVID-19. Michael says those moments reinforced the importance of resilience and collaboration within the business.
“Working our way through those crises, we’ve come out stronger,” he says. “I think it has been partly due to the culture and the way that our people work together.”
Operating in Australia and New Zealand has also shaped the way Dematic approaches automation and customer relationships. According to Michael, the geographic realities of the region have required the business to develop strong local capabilities rather than relying heavily on overseas support.
“We do need a sense of independence,” he says. “We do have to have a certain resilience that allows us to operate and maintain that performance within a geographically separated and isolated world.”
That local investment has extended across engineering, consulting, technology capability, and manufacturing.
“We have invested locally because we have to,” Michael says. “We have built our local engineering competence, our local consulting and technology, and we have maintained our own manufacturing within Australia.”
While global automation providers often pursue standardisation at scale, Michael says the ANZ market requires a more balanced approach. Australia and New Zealand have comparatively smaller populations and fewer large-scale automated facilities than regions such as Europe and North America. Many projects remain unique installations tailored to individual operational requirements.
“There is an element of having to provide customised or bespoke solutions,” Michael says. “But at the same time, we understand, and our customers understand, the value of standardisation. It drives down cost, it removes risk.”
He says the challenge is finding the balance between repeatable systems and customer-specific outcomes.
“At the end of the day, each customer has elements to their business that are unique,” he says. “We have that ongoing challenge of looking to standardise where we can but still maintaining an awareness that the final solution that our customers are looking for requires some elements that are unique to their business.”
That philosophy has also influenced how Dematic approaches innovation. Rather than focusing solely on developing entirely new technologies, Michael says meaningful innovation often comes from how proven systems are applied to solve operational problems.
“One area where we have been innovative, particularly in this part of the world, has been how we have applied the basic products and the basic technologies that we have for a customer solution,” he says.
He points to Dematic’s work with protein and fresh meat producers across Australia and New Zealand as an example of that approach in practice.
“Our team spent a lot of time talking with primary producers in the protein or fresh meat products industry within Australia and New Zealand,” Michael says. “We listened to some of the challenges they had with their traditional materials handling systems.”
Those conversations eventually led to the development of a solution that became widely adopted within the sector.
“We developed a solution particularly for that industry that has proven to be one of those breakthroughs that has become a standard,” he says. “It has significantly reduced their costs of operation and led to some really interesting improvements and value for our customers, particularly around shelf life of product and distribution reach.”
Transparency and long-term customer relationships have also remained central to Dematic’s strategy. Michael says operating in ANZ has reinforced the importance of close partnerships with customers who face many of the same operational pressures.
“We have learned the value of transparency and partnership with our customers,” he says. “That close, genuine empathy for our customer has stood us apart and ensured that we’ve remained relevant.”
He says long-term lifecycle support has become increasingly important as automated systems remain operational for decades.
“Many of the systems that we put in operate well over 20 years,” Michael says. “Customers are expecting a return on that for that full 20-year lifecycle, and perhaps even more.”
To support that expectation, Dematic has continued investing in customer service capability across the region.
“Dematic in ANZ has the largest customer service organisation of any of our peers,” he says. “It is a separate and standalone business unit focused without compromise on servicing our customer and providing them the support when they need it.”
The broader supply chain landscape has also changed significantly over the past decade, particularly following COVID-19. Michael says the pandemic fundamentally shifted how senior business leaders viewed supply chain operations.
“COVID significantly changed the value of supply chain in the minds of senior executives within the corporate world,” he says. “It brought into stark reality what a disruption to your supply chain can do to your business.”
At the same time, businesses are placing greater emphasis on data, visibility, and decision-making tools.
“Probably some of the biggest changes that are happening are around the value of data,” Michael says. “The use of data to make better decisions, to make real-time decisions, based on the ability to capture information that perhaps wasn’t seen as that valuable 10 years ago.”
Technologies such as AI, digital twins, machine learning, and advanced software platforms are now becoming increasingly important within warehouse and logistics environments. Michael says those developments will continue shaping the future of automation, although he expects the core engineering foundations of the industry to remain consistent.
“There may be some breakthrough technologies,” he says. “There may be some real innovation around the use of software and data and that interface with the mechatronics world.”
At the same time, he expects scale and operational complexity to continue increasing.
“Our solutioning and consulting will only become more and more focused on larger and more complex operations as businesses continue to scale up,” Michael says.
Despite the technological evolution occurring across the sector, Michael believes the fundamentals behind strong customer relationships remain unchanged.
“I think many partnerships, the word gets used in a way that’s not really a partnership,” he says. “If we can continue to focus with empathy on our customers, we can work with them to solve their problems and the challenges that exist for all our businesses.”
As Dematic marks its 60th anniversary in Australia and New Zealand, the company’s message is less about celebrating longevity alone and more about adapting alongside customers through changing market conditions. For Michael, that ability to evolve while maintaining long-term relationships remains central to the business.
“I think that’s something that’s kept us effective and as a valued part of our customers’ supply chains for the past 60 years.”
