Today’s consumers know what they want — and they want it fast.

The global online marketplace has placed infinite possibilities at customers’ fingertips and competition is stiff. This is no longer a consumer trend; B2B companies have to change how they approach customer experience. Buyers are not only looking for a superior product, they also want great customer service and an efficient sales process.

Hue Schlegel of Wildeck put the current trend in the most succinct way possible: “The customer is king, so you have to give them what they want.”

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If there’s one takeaway from Modex 2016 that will stick with us it’s that the supply chain industry is evolving at a rapid pace. From automated material handling to software that harnesses and makes sense of big data to safer and more ergonomic products, the show was rife with innovation.

While the technology is improving, most companies are facing challenges in another critical aspect: Hiring skilled workers. As the workforce ages and veteran employees look to retire, companies are struggling to fill positions. We’ve written about the manufacturing skills gap before and it was a topic that came up repeatedly in our conversations with industry colleagues at Modex. After all, the Manufacturing Institute research shows that by 2025 the skills gap will result in 2 million unfilled jobs. It’s a great concern across the industry.

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Modex is more than an opportunity for the material handling industry to convene in Atlanta, GA, network with peers, and exhibit products and solutions. Heralded at “the Greatest Supply Chain Show on Earth,” Modex offers manufacturers and distributors access to cutting-edge innovations, allowing them to position themselves and their organizations to take full advantage of the next wave of technology to hit the industry.

Estimated at 25,000 attendees, Modex 2016 was a great event. We took the chance to speak with some of the exhibitors. Here’s what SixAxis President Rob Honeycutt told us about the future of automation in manufacturing and distribution.

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At Modex 2016 in Atlanta, we had the opportunity to sit down with Brian Neuwirth, President of UNEX, for a wide-ranging discussion on the state of manufacturing. He shared his insights on key issues facing the industry from improving customer experience to addressing the skills gap.

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You know that your warehouse is critically important to being able to satisfy customers. You know how warehousing mistakes can impact your company’s bottom line, and how excellent warehousing can boost it. You know that a lack of resources can cripple a thriving storage or distribution operation. You also know that there are people in some organizations who don’t understand this.

Communicating the warehouse’s value is almost as important as establishing it.

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What Does a Warehouse Management System Do?

A medium-sized chain of convenience stores once asked me to take a look at their Warehouse Management System (WMS) to see if it was time for an upgrade. After documenting all the functions it performed, we discovered that none of them could be described as serving warehouse activities. The system had lots of good purchasing functions—but offered nothing to support the actual warehouse.

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A great way to spend a day for warehousing, distribution, manufacturing, safety and other industrial professionals.

It’s a quick, one-day conference, now on its 14th year, packed with education and networking opportunities. It’s an easy drive for anyone in North Texas. There will be more than 40 exhibitors (including Cisco-Eagle) in attendance to give you a chance to see the newest technologies and chat with industry leaders. (Big bonus: one of those exhibitors will be Cisco-Eagle!). Read the rest of this entry »

Most operations maintain at least some numbers on the most critical aspects of the business. For order picking operations, you might track number of orders picked per day, hours per pick, cost-per-pick, on-time rates — and error rates. The question is this: how accurate are those numbers? For instance, if your system reports 50 order picking errors a week, does that represent half your errors? All of them? Most of them? It’s can be difficult to understand.

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Transportation management solutions are no longer just for moving freight at the lowest possible cost. Companies are using effective transportation management as a competitive advantage tool in the ever-challenging economic and commercial landscape. Additionally, shippers are now seeing both internal and outsourced transportation management solutions less as a commodity and more as a collaborative relationship between themselves and carriers as well as third party logistics services providers (3PLs).

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It’s an exciting year in the world of manufacturing. With the Internet of Things (IoT) becoming increasingly pervasive and innovations and new technologies paving the way for more efficient, productive, and intelligent industrial operations, manufacturers have the opportunity to continue with the forward momentum the industry experienced in 2014.

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