Despite the challenges in 2020 and heading into 2021, one theme still holds: securing future talent for the industry will continue to be an area of focus. By Maria Leggett The year 2020 will be top of mind for quite some time. For the supply chain and material handling industry, 2020 will be the year that everyone learned why supply ...

The trends in warehousing are based on new technologies, digitalization and IoT and Industry 4.0—with a high degree of automation and robotization. By Tone Lerher The emerging trends in warehousing—and in a variety of industries—are based on the development of new technologies, digitalization, the concept of the Internet of Things and the concept of Industry 4.0 with the high degree ...

ProMat is officially transforming into a state-of-the-art digital expo for 2021: ProMat Digital Experience (DX). Mark your calendars for April 12-16! After consultation with the MHI Board of Governors, MHI has made the difficult decision to cancel its in-person ProMat event in Chicago in April of 2021. The MHI Board determined that due to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic and the ...

By Michael Mikitka Annually, for the past 18 years, the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC) has undertaken a benchmarking study, DC Measures, to determine which warehousing and distribution performance metrics are most used by operations managers in facilities nationwide. Conducted every January, the research seeks to eradicate bad warehousing practices by asking respondents to report their actual levels of ...

The people who work at MHI—and its new division, Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC)—are the gears that keep the association rolling. They ensure MHI continues to be a valuable association and resource for people involved in the industry, and do so with wit, competence and a smile on their face. The goal of this column in MHI Solutions magazine ...

Matthew West remembers being home from college and telling his father and grandfather definitively that he didn’t want to earn a living fixing forklifts like they did. Fast forward almost a decade, and West is running his family’s forklift dealership, leading some residents of Goldsboro, NC, to refer to him as “the forklift guy” when they see him around town.“I ...

The need for social distancing inside warehouses and distribution centers to prevent COVID-19 exposure is expected to persist until after widespread vaccination. Robotics can help. Using robotic systems for heavy or repetitive manual labor, especially in small enclosed spaces, means workers are farther apart and fewer workers are needed in these tight spaces, said Volker Schmitz, Ph.D., president and CEO ...

If manufacturers or other enterprises need to install monorails with curves and switches to move materials and products within their facilities in multiple directions, the member companies of the Monorail Manufacturers Association are the ones to turn to. “Many companies use straight monorails, and they work great when you only need to move products in a straight line from point ...

By Jason Schenker The outlook for 2021 is solid—especially compared to 2020. In general, the year should be one of positive growth and improvements in economic activity, even if the trend of improvements is occasionally punctuated by intermittent COVID-19 outbreaks and systemic aftershocks in industries that have experienced asymmetric negative impacts in the wake of the COVID pandemic outbreak. Buttressing ...

The Protective Guarding Manufacturers Association (ProGMA) member companies have been busy. The leaders from across the industry have been regularly reviewing and discussing the latest technology and its impact on their day-to-day operations. With this in mind, ProGMA recently announced the launch of Protective Guarding Search Tool, which will streamline the protective guarding purchaser’s buying process when it comes to ...