MHI announces the finalists for the 2015 MHI Innovation Award competition. The MHI Innovation Award serves to educate and provide valuable insights on the latest manufacturing and supply chain innovative products and services.

Have you ever wondered about the story behind Apple, the most iconic brand in the world? Or what the future holds for technology – like wearables, the Internet of Things, drones and driverless vehicles? Have you ever wanted to learn how to innovate from a creative genius who literally changed the world with his own disruptive inventions?

During the March 25 keynote at ProMat 2015, Apple co-founder and visionary Steve Wozniak will discuss the secrets of being a successful entrepreneur, the value of creativity and how to drive it, and how he thinks technology will affect our lives and supply chains in years to come.

Big data—the vast amounts of information that businesses, companies and organizations collect and store about inventory, operations, customers, vendors, sales and other transactions—and the challenges associated with strategically processing it play a key role in the operation of today’s most successful supply chains.

Material handling equipment new orders grew 8.1% in 2014 and are forecasted to grow 9% for 2015 and and 7% in 2016, according to the latest Material Handling Equipment Manufacturing Forecast (MHEM) released by MHI.

Collaborating with supply chain partners on sustainability initiatives can improve outcomes, including financial return and reduce a firm’s environmental footprint, according to a recent report by CDP and Accenture titled Supply Chain Sustainability Revealed: A Country Comparison. 

Finding the right solution is all about finding the right people. At ProMat, you’ll meet 800 of the leading solution providers and see their latest innovative equipment and systems in person, in action. You can establish relationships, exchange ideas and compare a variety of solutions on the exhibit floor and in over 100 educational sessions including four keynote sessions. You will find it all at ProMat – March 23-26 in Chicago.

Adaptable. Vital. Inclusive. Three words you might not typically hear to describe an organization celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2015. And yet, those are just a few of the descriptors used by three of MHI’s board members when discussing some of the reasons behind our association’s continued importance to the supply chain, material handling and logistics industries.

Aerospace manufacturers produced $162 billion worth of gas turbine-powered aircraft in 2013, according to Peter Zimm, a principal with ICF International, a consulting firm that works in the aviation industry. Zimm anticipates continued growth of 2.3 percent per year over the next decade.

The industry’s dominant manufacturers—Boeing and Airbus—each have eight-year production backlogs.

ProMat 2015 will feature a Supply Chain Workforce Summit on March 25 and 26 at McCormick Place in Chicago. The Summit will focus on how you can start now to develop your future workforce in material handling and logistics.

An 80-ton custom underhung crane system with multiple bridges covers an entire 460,000-square-foot aerospace facility.

A Crane Manufacturers Association of America (CMAA) member company recently provided lifting equipment for assembly of the world’s first major airliner to use composite materials as the primary material in the construction of the airframe.

If the experts are right, in a few years we’ll look back at 2014 as "the good ole’ days for recruiting."Over the next few years we are expecting the U.S. workforce to shrink dramatically. It is really a perfect storm...60 million Baby Boomers are retiring, with only 40 million new workers coming in to the workforce. And the participation rate of the younger generations—especially those in their teens and 20s—is at an all-time low. In other words, there will be fewer people available to work, and a smaller percentage of them will choose to work. The most likely result for our economy will be an increase in labor costs, and faster job switching by employees.

ProMat 2015 attendees are registering in record numbers for the event to be held March 23-25 at Chicago’s McCormick Place.

When attendees register, they are asked to answer a variety of demographic questions indicating their industry, product interest, buying authority and spending plans. Below are some highlights from current ProMat attendee demographics.

End users dealing with manual material handling (MMH) issues across North America’s industrial and manufacturing sectors benefit from the broad range of case studies highlighting ways to reduce injuries associated with MMH. Understanding how others have solved these issues is clearly illustrated in these brief, one page studies.

In 2015, MHI will introduce Solution Groups to its offering of product-specific Industry Groups. Solution Groups will collect information on trends and issues from the market and provide solutions and thought leadership, enabling MHI and its member companies to be the authoritative resource on material handling and supply chain topics.

The Storage Manufacturers Association is developing ANSI specifications. The effort has helped double its membership.

With the recent addition of two new members, the Storage Manufacturers Association (SMA) Product Group of MHI has doubled its membership—from seven to 13 members—in the past six years.

One of the more common tasks in material handling is people lifting objects. Historically this manual material handling has been done without assistance from lifting or positioning equipment. Unfortunately, encouraging workers to "lift correctly" has provided little measurable benefit in reducing the use of improper lifting procedures.

Building the future doesn’t always come naturally to people. Too often, we are harshly confronted or otherwise assaulted by a changing present before it registers that our future will be different. And we need to do something about it now.

Material handling and logistics are not exempt from this. Fortunately, some of the early detection work of what the future holds for us has already been done.

End users of lifting and moving technologies across North America’s industrial and manufacturing sectors will benefit from a range of case studies highlighting the advantages of choosing overhead lifting equipment for the material handling demands of their production processes.