Solutions Spotlight

Product Spotlight BY MICHAEL SENECAL The key to understanding sustainability in any industry is understanding the direct relationship between efficiency and the environment—improvements in one also mean improvements in the other. As enterprises with material handling needs strive to become more productive and efficient, they turn to members of MHI’s Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS) Industry Group for tools ...

Safer Handling BY TOM GRESHAM Operators of factories and warehouses increasingly are seeking to integrate industrial lift devices with other components of their spaces. No longer do lifts operate in relative isolation. In that way, lifts are “a piece of the overall machine now,” said James Johnston, director of engineering at MHI member Autoquip and chair of Lift Manufacturers Product ...

Continued outreach and education on the topics of worker safety during overhead lifting are the focus of the Alliance between the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Crane, Hoist and Monorail (CHM) members.

If supply chains are what make the world work, then electrification and control devices are what make supply chains function.

BY TOM GRESHAM Link to digital version of article in MHI Solutions. Twenty years ago, ergonomics “was kind of a nice thing to do,” said Jim Galante, chair of MHI’s Ergonomic Assist Systems & Equipment (EASE) Industry Group, but it was not an area that attracted close attention in material handling. In the decades since then, however, he said an ...

By Christian Dow The wall separating the front of a retail store from the back of the building is the line of scrimmage, and due to the pandemic, the back of the store is marching downfield with momentum while the front of the store gives up ground. That’s the message from supply chain experts who are helping retailers adjust to ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

By Christian Dow For high-end grocery chains seeking to provide a premium customer experience, it’s always a bad thing when customers are outnumbered in the aisles by fast-moving order pickers who often outcompete them for the same product inventory. Whether those order pickers are representing third parties such as Instacart or Shipt or are store employees hired during the pandemic ...