Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA, www.mhia.org) held its first-ever Material Handling and Logistics Summit last month in Whitefish, Mont. A group of 30 academics, consultants, equipment suppliers and end users spent three days discussing challenges in the industry and devising initiatives to address those challenges.

Developing the future workforce of the industry was a topic that came up repeatedly in the discussions, says Mike Ogle, vice president of education and technical services at MHIA and the organizer of the event.

Summit participants, says Ogle, expressed concern that well-trained and reliable personnel at all levels of the industry—from warehouse order pickers to materials handling engineers—may soon be hard to find.

The following are a few of the initiatives the group suggested to address this problem:

• Promoting materials handling and logistics at the high school level to increase industry awareness
• Expanding materials handling and logistics programs at trade schools and junior colleges
• Collaborating with universities to offer internships, site visits, guest lectures, etc.
• Encouraging intra-company rotation schemes to expose employees to all aspects of the business.

In addition to personnel concerns, the group identified several other priorities:

• Creating a funding source to support industry research and innovation
• Expanding collaboration between industry and academia
• Creating better interoperability for the equipment and software used in the industry
• Building a vision for next-generation supply chains and developing materials handling and logistics strategies to support them

In all, the group developed 14 themes and 52 initiatives, which MHIA CEO John Nofsinger says MHIA will use to guide the association's future activities. Detailed information about the event is available at www.mhia.org/summit2007.