According to DC Velocity, the answer may be yes.

The maker of several over-the-counter drugs, including Tylenol, Motrin and Benadryl, announced a broad-based recall of these and other drugs after receiving complaints of an “unusual moldy, musty or mildew-like” odor. Johnson & Johnson received what the company described as a “small” number of complaints of issues including nausea, stomach pain, vomiting or diarrhea.

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WERC (Warehousing Education and Research Council) has announced its 2010 Annual conference, geared for the needs of warehouse and distribution management. The conference is set for May 16-19, 2010. The WERC conference offers on a strong educational program for warehousing/distribution professionals from long-time to just-starting-out. Practitioners, subject matter experts, industry suppliers and academics freely share their experience and ideas. You’ll walk away with new insights on the best ways to optimize resources, maximize productivity and optimize performance. For more information or registration details, visit the official WERC site.

Cliff Holste at Supply Chain Digest (opens in a new window) has a good piece on ways to improve picking productivity.

Distribution centers will benefit from emerging automated case picking technologies, but those don’t fit for every operation, at every level. They’re also expensive upgrades, so your ROI has to be considered as well.

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We just finished adding 3 new Conveyor White Papers, including helpful information on Critical Product and Load Orientation,  a  Picking, Packing and Loading Application Matrix, and Sortation System Controls Comparisons table. All of these documents are PDF files, and all of them open in new windows. They’re all single-page, designed for quick downloading and reading. We will be adding more of these as they’re produced, so check back often.

This is a plug for WERC’s upcoming seminar, “Achieving Warehouse Success: Your Comprehensive Guide to Managing an Effective Operation.” Warehousing requires expertise on 3 basic resources — space, equipment, and labor. Understanding how to integrate them for maximum effectiveness can transform any warehousing operation. The seminar is 3 days (October 14-16 in Long Beach, California). According to WERC, it will cover the following aspects of warehousing:

• How to identify the precise problems that are most troublesome in your warehouse
• Which operations require your attention and how to prioritize work demands
• Why leadership and communication skills are important to managing people, boosting morale, and solving labor/management conflicts
• How to lay out your warehouse for good space utilization, material handling compatibility, and optimum flow efficiency
• Which equipment and technology best suit your operations for storage and handling as well as order picking and order selection

WERC’s site says that it is good for Newly appointed supervisors and managers of warehouse, stockroom, storeroom and distribution centers, Supervisors and managers with little or no formal training, Plant storeroom, inventory, and materials managers, Stores, receiving, and shipping supervisors, or others who are interested in understanding the warehouse. It’s $975 for members, and $1,100 for nonmembers. Check it out at the WERC site if you are interested.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has extended some of the 2008 business tax breaks for equipment purchases. These provisions have the ability to enhance your return-on-investment for equipment purchases in 2009, rather than waiting into next year.

Here’s how it works…

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It’s been the big story in manufacturing for more than a decade: companies are sending plants offshore to take advantage of inexpensive labor. But according to Exel Logistics, the advantages of manufacturing overseas have waned over the last few years. Will U.S. companies begin to bring manufacturing operations home, faced with increasing burdens and decreasing ROI on their overseas facilities?

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You’ve probably heard it a hundred times: if you have forklifts in your facility, they are likely the most dangerous piece of equipment there. Accounting for 680,000 accidents, 95,000 injuries and nearly a hundred deaths every year, forklifts are a necessary but perilous piece of handling equipment. This is why people buy things like rack upright guards or steel guard railing – to keep them from hitting people, warehouse racks, equipment and storage media. Etcetera Software has developed a simulator for forklift drivers that you could find useful if you’re dealing with lift truck drivers.

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Today’s economy is tough – no doubt about that. Over the last couple of months, we have heard from several clients that they are no longer at their position, and searching for a job. If you’re in that position, we want to help. We are offering the ability for anyone in the industrial space to send us a resumé to be posted on our website. We’ll send a link to the resumé page to about 11,000 of our Material Handling Tips & Info newsletter subscribers every month — companies in our world of industrial facilities, warehousing, distribution, and commercial operations.

Employers interested in browsing resumes should go to www.cisco-eagle.com/resume. We will be adding resumes as often as they are submitted. 

This site is for those who are unemployed and looking for a job in our industry, not for job-changers. If you’re currently employed and seeking a new job, we ask that you not submit a resumé.

If you are not in the industrial, material handling, order fulfillment, warehousing, or distribution market, there are better places for your search. We ask that you not submit a resumé in an unrelated industry.

When you find a job, we ask that you inform us, so we can remove the document. Resumés are ideally submitted as Adobe PDF files, but we can accept Word documents and many other types. To send your resumé, utilize our general inquiry form. Use the document upload field to attach yours. In the notes, inform us that you are submitting a job resumé. We’ll need your e-mail and phone number in case there are any questions on the submission or we have difficulty with your document.

Best of luck in your search. And please, let us know if you find something.

The Material Handling Industry of America has a good video on the subject.

In my mind, material handling can be boiled down to this statement Cisco-Eagle’s leadership team developed years ago:

“Material Handling is a set of solutions for the movement, storage, retrieval, control and protection of materials and products throughout their manufacture, distribution, consumption and disposal. We enable clients to get the right amount of the right material to the right place at the right time in the right sequence in the right position in the right condition for the right cost in a safe manner.”