Tag: Future Trends

2010 Material Handling Shows Help Position You for Future

The poor economy led to lower attendance at 2009 material handling shows but 2010 promises to be a better year. Companies trying to hold onto their bottom line may have skipped last year’s show or sent only a token delegate or two. With the manufacturing and peripheral industries finally starting to post small increases, material handling and related industries are anticipating better attendance at 2010 conferences.

Annual conferences and trade shows offer unique opportunities to see what’s new in the industry and what the future holds. Staying up-to-date with your industry enables you to better position yourself to meet future demands. National trade shows are an excellent place to network. They’re a good place to search for new talent to strengthen or rejuvenate your operation. They’re also an excellent place to form alliances with other company representatives that can lead to greater national exposure and increased product sales.

Continuing education classes and workshops provide information on innovative solutions to management and marketing problems. Round table discussions provide an opportunity to trade techniques and strategies with other industry professionals. Dealer and product give you an opportunity to learn about new products, increase your product knowledge, and discover products or services that can augment or revitalize your current product line.

The big national material handling conference/trade shows scheduled for 2010 include:

  • NA 2010: Solutions that Make the Supply Chain Work sponsored by the Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA) will be held April 26-29 at the I-X Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The event will focus on positioning your business to take advantage of future trends. Click here for more information.
  • 2010: The Rules Have Changed sponsored by the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association (MHEDA) will be held May 1-5 at the Marriott Marco Island Resort & Spa on Marco Island, Florida. The conference will focus on providing insight into recession-driven maketing and economic trends. Click here for more information.

Hope for the Future: Redefining the Auto Industry

Despite harsh criticism, the President and Congress seem poised to throw a lifeline to America’s struggling auto industry. Critics say Detroit’s problems stem from 30 years of short-sightedness and poor decision-making. Failure to recognize future trends toward smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles compounded by failure to aggressively address budget-busting labor demands head critics’ lists of the poor management practices that have led to the U.S. auto industry’s financial woes (see our Nov. 12 post). Today, the auto industry defends itself.

U.S. auto industry representatives dispute their critics, saying critics oversimplify the issues and don’t credit automakers for the significant progress made in recent years. “In the last five years, there’s been more restructuring done in the automotive business than any other business in the history of the United States,” said Tony Cervone, General Motors VP of communications.

Auto industry spokesmen cite a decade’s worth of tough cost cutting measures, improved productivity and their switch to the production of more competitive, fuel-efficient cars as indications that Detroit has been working hard to reverse course and increase its competitiveness with popular foreign imports. They point out that their ability to compete is severely hampered by the demands of powerful labor unions and the strictures of multiple government regulations.

The recessionary economy and tight credit have placed additional burdens on automakers. New car sales are down, in part, because consumers aren’t spending. Across the economic board, consumers are harboring their financial resources and taking a wait and see attitude about the nation’s economic future. Adding insult to injury, the tight credit market has made it nearly impossible for people who want to buy a new car to get financing. Burned by the mortgage meltdown, banks have reined in lending practices and raised loan requirements.

The news isn’t all doom and gloom, however. Capitalizing on fuel-efficient designs initiated in 2000, Detroit is finally rolling out cheaper, competitive alternatives to the Asian-designed vehicles that dominate that sector of the market. Financial pressure is forcing the industry to consolidate and streamline production practices. President-elect Obama’s reminder to the American people that we will all have to sacrifice if the country is to weather the current economic crisis could play out in more reasonable labor contracts. And that Congressional lifeline is likely to come with lots of strings attached that should give Detroit the needed incentive to redefine itself more competitively.

Next time: Lessons to be learned from the auto industry meltdown

Making the Most of Your Space

A few years back, when business was booming, the answer to the need for increased space because of increased business was simple – upgrade to a larger facility that can handle the increase of inventory.  Now things aren’t quite so simple, increases in margins remain slim and there is constant competition to attract and keep new customers, so many business are leery about taking on greater overheads to try and meet customer demands – instead businesses are being forced to recreate the space that they are in an effort to hold the necessary inventory to satisfy customer demands.

This may mean changing storage racks, warehouse aisles and converting office space in order to make room for additional product storage and this restructuring of space may also mean that the equipment being used may no longer be as effective with the more constrained spaces.  Traditional forklifts can be bulky and may need a good deal of space to  maneuver  around a warehouse  – if you decrease the amount of room for travel there may no longer be enough room for a large forklift to effectively operate.

Though upgrading to smaller, safer and more efficient equipment will bring about an initial investment, unlike assuming a new lease for a larger space, this investment will immediately begin to pay for itself.  The powered carts and lifts from DJ Products allow a single employee to move heavy loads around in the smallest places easily – meaning that your employees won’t struggle at all in the smaller and more cramped spaces and that your business will maintain the same level of productivity despite the fact that your employees have less space to move around in.

Your new equipment will cost less to operate and allow your employees to get the job done quicker, which is exactly the formula you need to attract and keep more customers without having to move into a larger facility.