28 DC VELOCITY JANUARY 2014 www.dcvelocity.com
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three or four years, you folks have been leveraging that
strength to extend MHI’s reach into other sectors within
logistics and supply chain management. One example is the
launch of the Modex show in 2012. What was the rationale
behind your decision to go in the direction
of a broader supply chain event?
A As you know, the association was established in Pittsburgh in 1945 by
American manufacturers, manufacturing
for America, in America. Over the years,
obviously, the world changed. It has
become much smaller. You’ve got outsourcing, insourcing, nearshoring, offshoring—you know, the whole globalization trend.
That led us to start looking at our organization and looking forward. We asked
ourselves, “Where are we now? Where do we want to be in
2020 and where is the world going to be? How do we
remain relevant?” We did a complete analysis of our two
alternating trade shows, the Chicago-based ProMat show
and the Cleveland-based North American Material
Handling (NAMH) show. Ultimately, what we found is
that ProMat was a very strong show, with a great following.
But we also found that the NAMH show wasn’t so
strong—our research indicated it was located too close to
Chicago and it was too similar to ProMat. That led to the
decision to replace NAMH with a show in the Southeast
that would focus more broadly on the overall supply chain.
The results seem to have validated our
decision. The first show in 2012 had an
overwhelming response. For 2014, we are
really excited. We have expanded the show
to about 250,000 square feet, up from
180,000 square feet in 2012. We are collaborating or co-locating with other associations and show producers, which will further our goal of organizing a broader supply chain event.
It is also a good example of what we are
trying to do as an organization in terms of
collaboration. We realize we are the material handling industry and we are just one voice. What we are
trying to do is have a choir at Modex.
QLet’s talk about the Material Handling & Logistics Roadmap for a moment. What is the philosophy
behind the Roadmap initiative and what are some of the
early findings?
A It is a broad look out to 2025. Where are we now? Where are we going to be in 2025? We had over 100
participants in the sessions—from end users to academics
to suppliers and vendors. The thing that came out of it that
was most fascinating to me was that people really are
embracing technology. There were some pretty amazing
things that came out of the sessions and will be reflected in
the report. A lot of these things—like crowd sourcing, the
physical Internet, and 3-D printing—are tied to technology
advances that are going on right now. And a lot of them
point to change, rapid change.
Another interesting thing that came out of the sessions
is that the average lifespan of an S&P 500 company has
dropped to 15 years today from 67 years in 1927. I think
that validates what we are doing with the Roadmap
process. We have to be looking ahead and embracing the
future, because if we don’t, we aren’t going to be here in 10
years.
Another important finding was the extent to which we
are moving, or perhaps even have moved, from mass production to mass customization. And associated with that is
another Roadmap topic: what is going on with the likes of
Amazon right now, and how it is no longer about having
your purchases delivered in one or two days; it is about having them delivered to you wherever you are, not necessarily even to your home address. If you happen to be in, say,
Chicago and you want something, you are soon going to be
able to get it even at your hotel at a certain time. The implications of that for our industry are really far-reaching
because material handling is the link to making all those
processes happen. ;
