Topic: This Month in Modern

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to today’s challenges.

We’re living in a wonderful period of “realization,” where mangers are taking the time to examine exactly what they need in certain areas of an operation instead of throwing the kitchen sink at a problem and spending millions in the process.

The most overlooked opportunities for greater supply chain optimization are pallet and packaging design—something we set out to fix this month in our Annual Packaging Issue.

This month, Modern is proud to offer you the fifth installment of our annual Lift Truck Issue.

Working smarter through the appropriate application of technology has been a running theme in Modern over the last few years—so much in fact that we’ve dedicated one issue a year since 2012 to a deeper understanding of technology adoption levels as well as the role providers are playing in pushing the trends.

This month in Modern, we offer the latest installment of The Big Picture, one that illustrates how one of the savviest organizations in the world is taking a much-discussed theory and putting it into practice.

Manufacturers, retailers and third-party logistics organizations are investing massive amounts of effort and money—in a very short period of time—to ratchet up systems automation, install collaboration software and deploy mobile technology across the enterprise that can keep up with the pace of our new world.

To come back from ProMat 2015 and simply say the mood was “upbeat” would be an understatement of substantial proportions.

Considering that MHI is expecting more than 35,000 warehouse, distribution and logistics professionals at ProMat 2015 in Chicago this month, there’s a good chance that you’re reading this column while taking a break from walking the show floor—which just so happens to be the largest in the trade show’s 30-year history.

This year marks the 70th year that Modern Materials Handling has been published.

As we’ve been covering the last few years, the ability to design and implement a dynamic, flexible, automated distribution facility—one able to bend and respond to demand and cut freight costs—is a critical element to success in meeting the multichannel fulfillment challenge brought on by the evolution of e-commerce.

If you’re reading this issue inside your warehouse or distribution center facility take a good look at the people around you. Are they smiling? They should be.

Once locked neatly into its own silo, the continued momentum of e-commerce has turned the spotlight on packing processes and technologies as an increasingly fickle customer-base—both retail and B2B—has forced the hand of fulfillment operations to pick single-line, single-piece orders and ship smaller, more frequent deliveries.

This month in Modern, Trebilcock gives us his next Big Picture, one that represents a logical progression based on automation’s unmistakable importance in our new world. He digs into the emerging best practice of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) in materials handling.

Modern's annual lift truck issue takes a look at how CN manages mobile crane maintenance, the Top 20 lift truck suppliers, a look at the results of our annual reader survey, a state of the fuel cell market, and more.

This month, Trebilcock continues his Big Picture series with “5 ways to handle peak demand,” a closer look at how the rise of e-commerce, more frequent promotions, and competitive service-level agreements are creating more peak periods than ever before.

Fantatics has grown into the leading online retailer for officially licensed sports merchandise for professional and college sports teams. Today, Fanatics stocks 500,000 SKUs and has to be prepared for wild swings in demand that range from 30,000 units a day to 500,000 units during peak periods like the Final Four and the Super Bowl—and ship those units with only seconds left on the clock.

Around this time of year it’s natural to want to look back at the last 12 months to gain perspective on where we’ve been and where we’re going as an industry.

If you like research, and you know we do, then you’re going to love this issue of Modern.