Cisco-Eagle has named Jason Eitreim as its 2010 Employee Owner of the Year. The annual award is made by a committee of Cisco-Eagle associates, the ESOP Advisory Committee, and recognizes one employee for going above and beyond the expected to promote our ownership culture and personal accountability and positively affect our stock value.

Eitreim has been with Cisco-Eagle in many capacities since joining the company in 1999.  He has served in customer service and sales associate roles before taking the lead as our Houston Market Manager.

Jason has served on various employee committees, including the ESOP Advisory Committee and Vendor Evaluation Team.

Previous winners include Anne Miller in 2008 and Darrell Griffin in 2009.

We recently mailed thousands of dock equipment mini-catalogs, so you may already have a copy. If not, read on to download one.

It focuses on ways to improve productivity, safety, and security at the shipping & receiving dock. The focus is on equipment such as our exclusive truck-to-dock delivery vehicle conveyor,  dock bumpers, dockplates, and dock door security cages, plastic strip doors. We also toss in some basic storage equipment like shelving and racks, along with all kinds of protective equipment, including edge-of-dock safety gates, bollard covers, man trap dock door cages, column protectors, and more.

• Check out the mini-catalog here (966KB PDF, opens a new window). You can also contact customer service and request a hard copy.
• Article: Security at the Shipping Dock: How to Harden the Target.

Prices are fluid and subject to change in this day and age of energy and steel volatility, so check the part number on our website for any changes.

The Lean Logistics Summit kicks of on June 22 in Cincinnati. The Summit will gather the world’s leading authorities on the subject of lean logistics. Authors, researchers, and company representatives actually on their own lean logistics journey will share their insights. Learn from them and learn from your peers as you network with like-minded professionals. Sessions of interest to warehousing and distribution professionals might include “A Case Study in Lean Distribution,” by Sarah Giffin, Sr. Operations Improvement Manager of CEVA Logistics on 6/22. Also, check out “Implementing Lean Inside the Logistics Facility” later that day. The summit costs $995, but use the code “leannation” for a 25% discount.

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This has very little to do with warehousing, storage, or material handling – the normal stuff you’d see on this blog. It has everything to do with the debt we owe our veterans as the long weekend approaches.  This certainly isn’t original on our part, but it’s about the most apt thing I can think of to say. If you served, or have family who have served, thanks. We owe you everything.

It is the  VETERAN,  not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.

It is  the VETERAN, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the VETERAN,  not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is  the VETERAN, not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to assemble.

It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the VETERAN, not the politician,
Who has given us the right to vote.

This is great news for small business. How great?

All businesses that purchase or finance less than $800,000 in business equipment should qualify for the Section 179 Deduction. To qualify for the Section 179 Deduction, the equipment purchased must be placed into service between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010. The list of qualifying equipment includes machines purchased for business use, vehicles, computers, and property attached to your building that isn’t part of the structure (essentially, most material handling equipment). For more information, check out the Section 179 website – it has lists of qualifying companies and an online calculator that helps you figure out your position. As always, see a tax professional to ensure your company and purchase qualify.

Please Note - The HIRE Act does not extend the 50% bonus depreciation that was available in the 2009 tax year.  We’ll let you know if there is movement toward extending that credit.

• www.section179.org has calculators and detailed equipment lists to help you understand how this may affect you.
• Crest Capital Section 179 Calculator

The ESOP Association recently announced its 2010 Annual Awards for Communications Excellence (AACE) award winners, and Cisco-Eagle was among the companies honored. These awards recognize the outstanding communications and educational programs. The awards were presented at the Association’s 33rd Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Cisco-Eagle has been an ESOP (employee owned) company since 2000. Our awards include:

• 1st Place: Category 5-B, External ESOP Advertising – Website
• Runner Up: Category 3-A, Printed Materials, 250 or fewer employees

For more information on Cisco-Eagle’s employee ownership culture, see our ESOP area.

Read more about the AACE Awards.

Implementing an energy-efficient lighting system can make your facility much brighter overall, and in particular, it can brighten those dark ‘canyons’ between rack rows.

It also saves you money on utility costs. In a large distribution center, the daily cost savings is significant, even before you factor in enhanced productivity due to an overall better working environment. But it gets better: Under the 2005 EPACT law, you can deduct the entire cost of a new lighting system, up to 60 cents a square foot if the system reduces lighting power density below he maximum allowable lighting power densities listed in ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2001, and if a few other requirements are met. This typically results in a much lower cost of ownership and a very quick return on investment.

Oh, and combined with other energy saving upgrades to your facility, that 60 cents could climb to $1.80 a square foot.

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The folks at the Material Handling Institute of America have thrown all of last year’s ProMat sessions in Podcast/Webcast form onto their website, for free. This presentation is intriguing – who doesn’t want to save a hundred grand? It’s presented by Louis J. Cerny, Vice President of Sedlak, and lasts about 37 minutes; it’s easy to listen to in the background if you don’t feel the need to watch the slide presentation.

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E24 Powered Roller Conveyor from Hytrol has become very popular with conveyor users due to its advantages over conventional conveyor and motorized rollers.  This quiet, energy-efficient conveyor fits the green mode that many operations are following, and can deliver exceptional flexibility, superb heat dissipation, and a robustness that cannot be achieved with motors embedded in conveyor rollers.

Below are two examples of  creative application of E24 technology…

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Typically, you see Vertical Lifts deployed in heavy industrial settings. They’re frequently used in multilevel facilities, in manufacturing plants, or paired with a mezzanine. Jason Eitreim of Cisco-Eagle’s Houston operation, recently worked with Pflow to implement a lift in a unique application: to help the University of Texas marching band access the field.

From the IEN Article:

“Tradition dictates that the Texas band, cheerleaders, and Big Bertha, the world’s largest bass drum, enter the stadium through the north end zone after a pre-game parade. The initial design had the band march from the street to the field down a ramp with a clearance of only 3 ft below the main concourse. When it was determined that Big Bertha would not fit down the ramp, the architectural team sought to find a feasible solution. After a thorough review of various options, a Pflow Series-F VRC was specified to periodically elevate a section of the concourse up 9 ft, creating a 12 ft high clearance for the band to safely enter and exit the stadium through the ramp that passes under the main concourse.”

“Pflow partnered on the project with Cisco-Eagle, a material handling company based in Dallas and a longtime Pflow dealer in the Southwest. After an initial on-site consultation with the general contractor and the project architects, Jason Eitreim of Cisco-Eagle and Chuck Cobb of Pflow collaborated with Pflow’s industry leading engineering team and returned with an innovative solution. No other lift manufacturer came back with a proposal after the initial review phase, apparently assessing that the demands required of a viable system would be too great.”

Read the rest at IEN Magazine.