MHI And WERC Unveil New Products and Services for Members

WERC Matters
michael mikitka
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We’re three months into the new year and are excited to continue to roll out a variety of new initiatives, products and services developed by MHI and the Warehouse Education and Research Council (WERC). Among all the new developments is the new chair of the WERC Advisory Committee, Jason Minghini, vice president of supply chain solutions for Kenco Group, and member of the MHI Board of Governors. We recently chatted about what he’s looking forward to the most as he starts his WERC leadership tenure.

One of the first things he mentioned was how pleased he’s been with the success of the ongoing integration of WERC into MHI since the two associations joined forces 18 months ago.

“The combination of the two groups offers incredibly powerful benefits to members of both associations,” Minghini said. “MHI and its membership have gained access to WERC’s research and educational resources—including the DC Measures annual benchmarking report—while WERC’s members have access to multiple MHI resources, reports, publications, development programs, and networking and knowledge communities.”

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Among these resources, Minghini recounted, are:

  • Trend Hunter Reports
  • Economist Jason Schenker’s Market Forecast
  • Oxford Economics’ Material Handling Economic Impact Report
  • MHI Annual Industry Report
  • MHI Solutions Magazine
  • ProMat and MODEX Trade Shows
  • MHI’s Industry Groups
  • MHI’s Young Professionals Network (YPN)
  • MHI’s Marketing Professionals Community (Mpro)
  • MHI/WERC Leadership Development Program

“I am a member of the MHI Solutions Community and it’s been a tremendous value to my own professional development and our company’s operations,” he continued. “I also encourage everyone to consider Jason Schenker’s forecasts. His observations about the impact of the current economic environment—including COVID and other supply chain challenges—and predictions of how that will impact the market in the coming years is something that I, as well as many of my WERC and MHI connections, find extremely valuable.”

Also providing exceptional value is WERC’s DC Measures Annual Survey and Report, Minghini noted. Based on actual, practitioner-provided data across nearly 50 different metrics, the findings and accompanying analysis are provided by researchers Joe Tillman, founder of TSquared Logistics; Karl Manrodt, PhD, professor of logistics and director of the Master of Logistics and Supply Chain Management Online Program at Georgia College & State University; and Donnie Williams, PhD, clinical assistant professor and executive director of the Supply Chain Management Research Center at the University of Arkansas.

While warehousing and logistics practitioners have been referring to the study for nearly two decades to compare their own performance against that of others in the field, Minghini said a new online benchmarking tool accessible via werc.org with a paid subscription gives users exponentially more power to customize the data to best meet their internal evaluation needs at an unprecedented rate of speed.

With this online resource, users can filter through a compilation of all data since 2013 to match a variety of different parameters, including industry, operation type, preferred metrics and much more. Each report can be saved and downloaded in a choice of formats instantaneously. Although similar comparisons were available in the past, they had to be conducted by WERC’s research team and were not nearly as customizable or generated as fast.

“The online benchmarking tool is available now, and the new DC Measures report will be released at the WERC 2022 Conference,” he added. “I’m thrilled that we’ll be back in person in Louisville, KY, this year. While the online education sessions were well attended, WERC members definitely missed the face-to-face networking aspect of the conference, as did I.”

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WERC’s 45th Annual Conference will be held May 1-4, coinciding with the week-long Kentucky Derby Festival, said Chad Claude, WERC’s conference chair and director of operations at DHL Supply Chain. Like Minghini, he is also most looking forward to the in-person networking.

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Looking for more information on any of these programs, or the upcoming WERC Annual Conference? Connect with me at [email protected]. I look forward to seeing you in person in May!