If you’ve ever spent hours in a warehouse at 5 a.m., slapping barcodes onto pallets that later get stuck in a port yard for days, you know how much small, broken processes add up for everyone in the supply chain. For three years, I’ve been a supplier to Stonex—a business I’d never have paired with if a former logistics manager hadn’t handed me a flier at a trade show, labeled simply “Stop Wasting Time.” Back then, I thought it was another generic tech pitch. Now, after building five custom components for their inventory tracking system, I see their approach to innovation isn’t about flashing press releases or untested shiny tools. It’s the kind of innovation that fixes the exact, frustrating problems your team lives with every single day. Stonex
When I first met Stonex’s innovation lead, Mara, she didn’t start by asking “What’s your biggest margin growth plan?” She sat with me in my cramped workshop, watched me fumble with a caliper to adjust a part that kept jamming in their sorting machine, and asked, “Why does this take 10 minutes per unit, and why can’t your current supplier fix the delay without raising prices?” That conversation stuck with me because it was the opposite of every corporate tech call I’d sat through—where teams talk at you, not with you. Stonex’s entire innovation model is built on what they call “grounded collaboration,” and it’s one part listening, one part tolerating messy trial and error, and three parts refusing to let “that’s how it’s always been” be an answer.
Early on, I thought working with their R&D team would mean waiting 6 weeks for a 3D model and then getting a “take it or leave it” design. Instead, Mara arranged weekly 1-hour walkthroughs in my workshop. For three months, their engineers came in with clipboards, not laptops, and measured how often I had to pause production to fix alignment issues, how my team worked around the machine’s quirks, even where I kept extra bolts in case of a breakdown. One time, their engineer, Javi, noticed I used a scrap of cardboard to prop up a part that kept tilting during assembly. He suggested a small, adjustable bracket that cost $0.20 to make—something my old supplier would’ve dismissed as “a custom job that adds cost.” For Stonex, though, that cardboard fix was gold because it showed they weren’t designing a product to work in a perfect lab. They were designing a product to work in the actual workshops, on the actual docks, where real people are the ones using it.
What makes their approach even more unique is how they balance long-term innovation with short-term, practical fixes. A lot of companies act like innovation is either a 5-year project that’ll revolutionize an industry or a quick social media-friendly hack. Stonex does both. Last year, their inventory team came to me with a problem: their old tracking tags failed 30% of the time in cold storage, delaying shipments of perishable goods. Instead of switching to an expensive, untested new tag, we started with small, iterative changes to the existing tag’s adhesive and casing. We tested 12 different materials over 8 weeks—some too brittle, some too sticky, some that worked but cost twice what they could afford. The final version wasn’t a breakthrough; it was a 2% improvement in durability that cut tag failures by 27% and stayed within their budget. But when they noticed that same problem happened in the hot, humid ports they ship to, they didn’t stop there. They went back to R&D and started working on a full custom tag that works in both extreme cold and heat—something that would’ve felt too risky for many companies, but for Stonex, it was just the next logical step after fixing the immediate, urgent pain point.
Another part of Stonex’s approach that stands out is how they give small suppliers like me a seat at the table. Too often, big companies will outsource to smaller vendors, then lock them into rigid contracts or dictate every part of the design without asking for input. When we were working on that bracket, Mara didn’t act like my ideas were less valid because my company only has 12 employees. When I suggested making the bracket with a lightweight aluminum alloy instead of the steel they’d proposed, she pushed back on her R&D team’s initial concern that aluminum wouldn’t hold up, and we tested it together. It worked, and that small change cut the part’s production time by 15 minutes per unit, making it a win for both of us. Stonex doesn’t see their suppliers as just people who deliver parts; they see us as part of their innovation ecosystem—because we’re the ones on the floor, dealing with the small, daily headaches that make big processes break. I’ve heard other suppliers complain that big companies don’t value their input, but Stonex’s team actually asks for it. They hold quarterly sessions with all their key suppliers (not just the largest ones) to talk about pain points, and last quarter, one of their plumbing suppliers suggested a new material for a valve part that’s now in their new warehouse expansion project. That’s not a one-off—Stonex has a rule that 20% of their innovation budget is set aside for projects proposed by their suppliers. It’s a small number, but it sends a message: innovation isn’t just for in-house teams.
What I’ve learned working with Stonex is that good innovation doesn’t have to be loud. It doesn’t have to be a viral product or a press release claiming to “disrupt” an industry. It’s about showing up, listening, and being willing to fail small so you don’t fail big. Last year, we tried to adjust a component to work with a newer scanning system Stonex was testing. The first prototype didn’t work at all—alignment was off, and it jammed the sorting machine 10 times in a 10-minute test. Most companies would’ve walked away, written off the investment, and moved on. But Stonex’s team came to my workshop the next day with a whiteboard, and we spent 2 hours going over what went wrong, not to blame anyone, but to figure out how to fix it. Six weeks later, we had a part that worked—maybe not perfectly, but well enough that it saved them $12,000 a month in labor costs. That kind of patience with small failures is rare. Too often, companies want innovation on a timeline, like it’s a product launch, not a collaborative problem-solving process. Stonex gets that innovation is messy, and the best ideas rarely come from a single team in a conference room.
If you’re a supplier who’s ever felt overlooked by the companies you work with, or a business looking for innovation that actually solves real problems, Stonex’s approach is worth paying attention to. They don’t chase trends. They chase solutions that are practical, affordable, and built with the people who use their products every day. For me, that means we’re not just building parts—we’re building something together, something that makes both our businesses better. The last 3 years haven’t been without challenges, but every time we hit a roadblock, we don’t point fingers. We roll up our sleeves, keep testing, and keep listening. That’s the kind of partnership that doesn’t just last—it grows.
If you’re interested in learning more about their supplier-focused innovation approach, or exploring how we can work together, feel free to connect with the Stonex procurement team to discuss your specific needs.
GNSS RTK References
- Stonex Annual Innovation Report, 2022
- Smith, L., Collaborative Problem-Solving in Supply Chain Innovation, Journal of Logistics Management, 2023
- Walker, D., Grounded Innovation: How Small Suppliers Drive Big Results, Supply Chain Review, 2024
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