BY SUSAN LACEFIELD, EDITOR AT LARGE
INDUSTRY EVENTS
specialreport
THINKING OF DISTRIBUTION CENTERS AS DIMLY
lit caverns full of boxes, pallets, and racks is so 20th century. Nowadays, they are hot spots of technological innovation. Think about it: Conveyors as smart as fifth graders.
Customized packaging material made on the spot. Lift
trucks that can dance. Drones that can track your trailers
from the sky. Glasses that can tell you what and how much
to pick.
Need to keep pace with the latest
and greatest technological innovations? The Modex Show organized
by MHI (formerly the Material
Handling Industry of America) can
help. One of the largest expositions
for supply chain solutions in the
Americas, Modex will be showcasing
products and services from more than 850 exhibitors at
Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center from April 4–7.
The exhibits will cover the following categories of tech-
nologies, equipment, and services:
b Material handling equipment and systems, which
includes a broad range of products from the highly com-
plex (like automated storage and retrieval systems, and
automated guided vehicle systems) to the elegantly simple
(like casters, racks, and shelves)..
b Packaging, containers, and shipping equipment,
which encompasses not just pallets, containers, and shrink
wrap but also packaging machinery, equipment designed
for the inspection of products by weight or scanning, and
palletizers.
b Inventory management and controlling technologies,
which includes computers, controllers, and software pro-
grams as well as systems integrators.
b Dock and warehouse equipment
and supplies, such as dock level-
ers, pads, and doors; flooring; hoists;
cranes; monorails; and below/hook
lifting devices.
b Consultants and distribution
system planners, including simula-
tors, modelers, and third-party logis-
tics service providers.
b Automatic identification equipment and systems,
such as bar-code printers and scanners, radio-frequency
identification (RFID) systems, vision systems, and voice
recognition systems.
b Supply chain management, which serves as a catchall category for such products and services as alternative
fuel systems, parcel management and distribution, reverse
logistics, and inventory security services.
At the Modex exhibition and conference in Atlanta, attendees can get up close and
personal with sizzling new technology, equipment, and services for the supply chain.
Hot spot
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