inbound
To some people, a lift truck is
just a piece of utilitarian equipment. To others, it’s a piece of
utilitarian art.
To see what we mean, look no
further than Crown Equipment’s
ES/ET 4000 Series of stacker
forklifts, which recently received
a Good Design Award from The
Chicago Athenaeum: Museum
of Architecture and Design and the European Center for Architecture Art
Design and Urban Studies. The award jury chose the ES/ET 4000 Series as the
winner in the industrial category for its ergonomics and safety enhancements,
its integral approach to improving the forklift/operator relationship, and a
design that meets operators’ diverse daily needs, the company said.
Since 1950, the Good Design Awards have been handed out to designers
and manufacturers worldwide for visionary and innovative product concepts
that marry form with function.
Crown stacker truck wins international
design award
Here are some recent examples of charitable works and good deeds by companies in the logistics and material handling space:
b Employees from the robotics division of Bastian Solutions, a material
handling systems integrator, volunteered at Shriners Hospitals for Children
in St. Louis. The volunteers cleaned surgical towels, disinfected toys, washed
windows, sewed brace straps, and helped tag inventory.
b BlueGrace Logistics donated 44,000 pounds of pet food
to the Humane Society of
Tampa Bay, Fla., including its
food assistance programs for
owners who can’t afford to feed
their pets. The annual “Cats
vs. Dogs” pet food drive raised
more than twice the amount
collected in 2013. AAA Cooper,
FedEx Freight, and Reed TMS
Logistics also assisted.
b Toyota Material Handling U.S.A. Inc. announced the winners of its
“Lift A Co-Worker, Lift A Community” contest. Participants nominated
co-workers for recognition of their volunteer efforts and chose five nonprofit
organizations to receive donations. The winning organizations were: Arbor
Day Foundation (Toyota electric pallet truck), Amvets National (hand pallet
truck), Feeding America (hand pallet truck), and Best Friends Animal Society
and Direct Relief (cash donations).
Monthly mitzvahs
By definition, logistics and supply
chain management covers a lot of
territory. As a practitioner, you’re
expected to know something about
everything—transportation, procurement, inventory, order fulfillment, customer service, and
much more. Not only that, you’re
expected to understand how all
those pieces fit together. A tall
order, but a new series of guidebooks from the Council of Supply
Chain Management Professionals
(CSCMP) can help explain it all,
while providing practical advice
on implementing best practices in
your operation.
The “Definitive Guide” series
covers the following subjects:
integrated supply chain management, inventory management,
manufacturing and service operations, order fulfillment and customer service, supply chain best
practices, supply management
and procurement, transportation,
and warehousing. Each book is
designed to help readers master
the subject and apply what they’ve
learned in daily practice as well as
in strategic and tactical planning
and problem solving. In addition,
The Definitive Guide to Supply
Chain Best Practices includes case
studies that were specially commissioned by CSCMP for the
series. Case study topics include
supply chain collaboration,
advanced forecasting, management of inventory through cash-to-cash cycles, and transportation
optimization.
The eight “Definitive Guide”
books are available in print or
as e-books through Amazon.com
and FT Press. For more details, go
to http://cscmp.org/publication/
definitive-guide-series.
CSCMP releases
new “Definitive
Guide” series
