U.S. manufacturers say their networks of warehouses are constraining their business agility, due to legacy infrastructure and lack of strategic design, according to a study from Warehouse Specialists LLC (WSI), a Wisconsin-based logistics, distribution and storage company.
As a result, the manufacturing industry is managing compounding pressure while running networks built for a different era, WSI said. Three-quarters of leaders say their warehouse network evolved organically over time rather than being strategically designed, and nearly the same share say their current model was built for an operating environment that no longer exists.
Those statistics come from “How Manufacturers Are Structuring Warehouse Operations in 2026,” a survey featuring insights from 306 supply chain, operations, and logistics leaders at U.S. manufacturing companies across chemicals, metals, food and beverage, building materials, electronics, and other industrial sectors.
“Companies have responded to a chaotic supply chain in different ways. Some have focused on cost-cutting. But many have learned that a network optimized purely for cost is also optimized to fail under pressure,” said Paul Simmons, President at WSI. “The manufacturers moving forward are the ones deliberately redesigning, not just optimizing what they already have.”
Additional findings include:
- 88% expect their U.S. warehouse and distribution footprint to change in the next 18 months through expansion, consolidation, or a shift in operating model.
- 75% agree their network evolved organically rather than by design, creating structural inefficiencies that optimization alone cannot solve.
- 67% have grown more likely to consider switching their 3PL provider due to friction in the past 12 months.
- 53% experienced a warehouse-related compliance incident, audit finding, or safety event in the last two years.
