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By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 11/1/2000

50 years ago

For almost 20 years we Americans have held a morbid fear of overproduction. Except for wartime emergencies, there has been no concern with the possibility of producing too little.

Now is the time to channel the negative thinking of the past into a positive approach. Government, labor, and business should devote as constant and sincere an effort to increasing production as they have to restraining it. From the editorial

The wheel is the most fundamental element of materials handling equipment. Choose the wrong wheel and you have a noisy, expensive, or sluggish piece of equipment. Choose the right wheel and movement with minimum cost and effort, as well as maintenance expense, can be obtained. From a feature on wheels

25 years ago

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Universal Product Code concept to be applied outside the grocery industry, or to shipping cartons or unit loads within the grocery industry. Jack Fylpaa, Quaker Oats Co., predicts that it will be at least 8 years before the benefits of the UPC are realized in industrial packaging, warehouse automation, or unit-load handling. From the Management Newsletter

Five years ago next month, President Nixon signed the Act, which gave birth to OSHA. Some 4 months later, in April 1971, OSHA's official activities began. Generally speaking, OSHA has proved to be a good idea. OSHA has not become a bureaucratic monster. It has not become a tool for business-hating activists in government. And it is not blindly dictatorial. From a feature on OSHA's fifth year-time for assessment

10 years ago

The waiting and the second-guessing are over: The brand new Saturn auto plant is up and running. General Motors' $1.9 billion bet on a new type of car manufactured at a new type of plant is now spread out on the table for everyone to see. The new GM plant features moving work platforms, monorails, AS/RS, conveyors, and lift trucks. From News & Trends

Standardized bar code shipment labels are here to stay. Over 30 major industries already have written standards.

A supplier's ability to meet bar code label standards has become an important new measure of customer service. Some companies even reject entire shipments because of improper or unreadable bar coded labels. From a feature on bar code label standards