Industry Trends

Back in March, at MODEX 2014, we released the MHI Annual Industry Report: Innovations That Drive Supply Chains. That report, which is still available as a free download on www.MHI.org, was the first of a series of yearly studies that MHI has partnered with Deloitte to conduct. The Annual Industry Report separates the buzz from the reality surrounding five hot ...

Third-party logistics (3PL) providers offer their customers the opportunity to outsource some, or all, of their supply chain management functions. These might include warehousing, transportation, or even value-added services—such as goods procurement, kitting of parts or products, traceability and compliance, spare parts and production tooling supply, reverse logistics, repairs and more. Over the past three decades use of 3PLs has ...

It was 14 years ago that Dr. C John Langley, now professor of supply chain management at Penn State and director of development for the Center for Supply Chain Research at Smeal College of Business, laid out the seven immutable laws of collaborative logistics. “Immutable” turned out to be the key word. Despite how much has changed in terms of ...

There’s a lot of chatter in the supply chain and material handling industries centered on innovation. MHI wanted to separate the buzz from the actual, day-to-day reality experienced by supply chain managers. So, at the end of 2013, we teamed up with Deloitte to conduct a survey crafted to verify the importance of current and emerging innovations—directly from the trenches. ...

The supply chain represents as much as 40 percent of the operating costs of hospitals, the second-largest expense after labor. The average hospital carries 8,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) of in-house inventory and owns up to 35,000 SKUs end-to-end. The supplies a hospital requires run the spectrum from medication, artificial knees, operating tables, wheelchairs, intravenous solutions, wound dressings to bed ...

Competition has always been fierce in retail. But as retailers continue to contend for greater customer loyalty and a larger share of the market, those in shipping and material handling are finding themselves racing to keep up with demands for ever-faster delivery. “In the last years, humans are getting used to a much higher level of service,” said Marc van ...

During the past decade public-private partnerships (P3s) have built some vital transportation and infrastructure projects in the U.S. Now a similar cooperative approach is being applied to an entirely different sector—manufacturing. Regional manufacturing innovation institutes are bringing together the resources of private industry, colleges and universities, associations, research institutions and federal, state and local governments in an effort to boost ...

It’s no secret that the material handling and logistics industry faces a workforce challenge, both in attracting good workers to our field and in training them. MHI has been focused on this issue for many years, making it a key topic at MODEX and ProMat Expos. We’re also continuously building a collection of educational resources for both the secondary school ...

Sure, savvy business professionals always try to anticipate the future. But few come together with leading thinkers in the industry to anticipate the next decade. More than 100 participants—including end users, suppliers, consultants, academics, government officials and non-governmental organization representatives—did just that, holding sessions to discuss current issues and envisioning the future of material handling. The result is The U.S. ...

A year ago, our organization rebranded as MHI—The Industry That Makes Supply Chains Work. At the same time, we also evolved our focus. We recognize that suppliers and end users throughout the material handling industry—as well as in manufacturing, distribution, logistics and transportation—play a crucial role in supporting the overall supply chain. MHI is dedicated to offering more tools, not ...