Manufacturing/DCs

WERC Matters: WERC’s Facility Assessment & Certification Program

In this Q&A, leaders from Blount International, Cambro Manufacturing and Hopewell Logistics discuss the value of their first—and second—WERC Facility Certification. By Michael Mikitka For more than a decade, the Warehouse Education and Research Council (WERC) has offered the Facility Assessment & Certification Program—an independent, unbiased evaluation of an operation’s warehousing practices as compared to industry standards. More than 80 ...

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Safer Handling: Ensuring Safety Is Not Sacrificed for Speed

Speed is the name of the game these days in conveyor and sortation systems. As the pressure to ship material faster grows with the rise of e-commerce and building customer expectations for rapid delivery, the systems that move and sort orders are accelerating. With that speed comes more potential for risks. “Sortation equipment was sorting 50 feet per minute a ...

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SMA Prepares Standards for IBC Adoption

As the ANSI-accredited developer of shelving systems and work platforms, the Storage Manufacturers Association (SMA) promotes the safe design and use of these crucial infrastructure components across the material handling industry. To that end, the SMA, led by Chairman Kevin O’Neill of MHI member Steele Solutions and Engineering Committee Chairman Arlin Keck of MHI member Steel King Industries, will complete ...

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Casters Make the World Go ’Round

Members of the Institute of Caster and Wheel Manufacturers (ICWM) were deemed essential during the COVID-19 pandemic—and for good reason. “Members of our group are very instrumental in the retail, material handling and medical industries, and activity within each increased during the pandemic—which was why caster and wheel manufacturers were deemed essential during the COVID-19 shutdowns,” said Alvar Diaz, vice ...

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Delivering a Miracle: Overcoming the Supply Chain Challenges of Manufacturing and Distributing the COVID-19 Vaccines

. By Sara Pearson Specter Before the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus was declared a pandemic by The World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, pharmaceutical companies and governments worldwide were already creating plans to develop, manufacture and distribute vaccines to the global population. Within two months, the U.S. had announced the formation of Operation Warp Speed, ...

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Need Agility? On-Demand Warehousing Might Help

By Jennifer Pazour, Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Agility, the ability to move quickly and easily, is a powerful, and some may say necessary, skill for success in today’s supply chains. This need for agile decision-making is changing how organizations acquire warehousing and distribution capabilities. An emerging, more flexible option is on-demand warehousing, which enables ...

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Aligning Sophisticated Tools in the Use of Lifting Devices

At their essence, electrification and machine controlling devices are about safety in industrial handling. Solutions in the field serve to make the workplace safer in every major manufacturing and distribution sector. Today, the central safety question the field faces is how to properly introduce increasingly sophisticated technological tools and to ensure they are aligned with each other in the operation ...

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Computer Controlled Systems Improving Precision, Accuracy, Speed

Across the country, third-party logistics companies are on the lookout for innovative storage and retrieval systems. Whether it’s for use in a cold storage facility or ambient application, there are a number of solutions offered to meet the handling demands of manufacturers, distribution centers and others along the supply and demand chain. There is even an MHI Industry Group that ...

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Social Distancing Decisions Impacting Robotics Choices

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 ...

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