MHI Blog — The countdown has begun to MODEX 2016 - April 4-7 at Atlanta's Georgia World Congress Center. With the show less than seven weeks away, it's time to register and make plans to attend.



The reasons why MODEX is the can't miss event in manufacturing and supply chain just keep growing. The conference is packed with thought leaders like Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, and there's even a networking event featuring the Blues Brothers Revue and a door prize of a Porsche Cayman S. While these points seem convincing enough on their own, there's so much more.

The Wall Street Journal — Spending by U.S. shippers fell to a two-year low in January, reflecting plunging fuel costs and a sluggish freight market, according to a survey by Cass Information Systems Inc.



Cass' monthly freight index report showed shipping expenditures falling to 1.4% from a year earlier, while volume in the same period was down 0.2%, extending declines to a fourth month.

AP — The Obama administration has approved the first U.S. factory in Cuba in more than half a century, allowing a two-man company from Alabama to build a plant assembling as many as 1,000 small tractors a year for sale to private farmers in Cuba.



The Treasury Department last week notified partners Horace Clemmons and Saul Berenthal that they can legally build tractors and other heavy equipment in a special economic zone started by the Cuban government to attract foreign investment.

The New York Times — DoorDash, one of a multitude of start-ups with a mobile app that lets people order and get food sent to their doorsteps, relies on contract drivers like Brian Navarro to make the deliveries. The problem is that workers like Mr. Navarro don't always stick around.



Mr. Navarro began driving for DoorDash and another delivery start-up, Postmates, in Los Angeles about four months ago. Mr. Navarro, 40, who previously drove for the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft, said he had seen plenty of contractors quit DoorDash and other delivery companies during the time he has worked with them.

Modern Materials Handling — As we all know, when it comes to the economy, it goes something like this: "the economy is as strong as consumer spending is" or something to that effect. That long-standing sentiment remains as accurate as ever, considering that consumer spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of total United States economic output and possibly even a tad more than that.

National Real Estate Investor — Though the U.S. logistics industry has recovered unexpectedly well from the last recession, reaching record highs in occupancy and absorption, experts believe the growth will peak sometime this year.



The improvement in the logistics property sector was tied to the simultaneous recovery of the global economy and increased demand for space created by e-commerce companies, who this year expect to see a 23 percent increase in sales, according to a recent report from commercial real estate services firm CBRE. Global online sales will grow to $3.5 trillion by 2019, the company said, pushing demand for industrial properties toward mid-sized and big-box distribution centers located close to major population centers.

MHL News — Looking at issues, challenges and opportunities that manufacturing companies face, a new report, State of the Global Supply Chain, found that 40% of manufacturing companies reported a supply chain disruption that impacted their business over the past 12 months. Despite this, less than a quarter (24%) currently have a Chief Supply Chain Officer in place to help orchestrate the response, and an additional 41% said they have no plans to hire one.

The Wall Street Journal — The two busiest U.S. ports on Thursday reported slight growth in imports, the latest sign that many companies are holding back on spending as they wait for the economic picture to clear.



The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which form the largest port complex in the Western Hemisphere, reported a 37% jump in container imports from a year earlier, when both ports slowed to a crawl amid protracted labor negotiations. Compared to the same period in 2014, the ports' combined volume only grew 1%. Exports were up 5% from last year but down 18% from January 2014.

The Wall Street Journal — Officials in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo, which houses the world’s largest port by cargo tonnage, are tapping the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to boost logistics education and research.

MHI Blog — The mission of the MHI Young Professionals Network (YPN) is to provide resources and programming to a diverse group of professionals looking to advance their careers in material handling, logistics and supply chain industries. Our goal is to increase industry retention, education and networking as well as to offer career support.



The YPN Awards honor material handling and supply chain professionals in the following categories: Outstanding Young Professional, and Mentor.

Industryweek — Small and medium-size enterprise (SME) owners need to understand that they have an untapped gold mine right in front of their eyes. It's their supply chain management system.



Even though SMEs can choose from among an abundance of such software, which supports the daily decision making of complex matters like what to buy, when, how much and from where, too few understand the true value of it.

Supplychain247 — To be fair, it's nearly impossible to predict what will turn out to be the biggest challenges supply chain leaders will encounter in the year ahead. 

www.supplychainshaman.com — Five years ago the buzz in marketing was rampant. The talk was all about digital marketing. Today marketing is just marketing. The term digital was dropped. The reason? Digital media and technologies were quickly absorbed into marketing processes and redefined the norm. Few companies speak of digital marketing now: it is just assumed.



In supply chain, leaders are just starting to think about digital. A frequent question from my clients is, "What is a digital supply chain process?" My answer is that a digital supply chain process uses new technologies to define processes to sense, respond and orchestrate bidirectionally from market to market (from the channel to supplier networks). 

Ebnonline — Although the cellular industry is busy pitching a yet-to-be-defined fifth-generation (5G) cellular standard as all things to all people (and all industries) including cars, carmakers' actual readiness for 5G is entirely another story.

Supplychain247 — The State of the Global Supply Chain Report is an analysis of the top issues, challenges and opportunities faced by manufacturers and industry executives for 2016 and beyond.

Logistics Viewpoints — Over the last two years, I've done extensive research on omni-channel fulfillment at ARC. My most recent survey was completed toward the end of 2015. One of the biggest growth opportunities for retailers and other B2C companies is the rise of e-commerce. Based on our survey respondents, digital retailing is continuing to grow in prominence. Currently, 83.8% of respondents indicated they receive direct retail orders through their online channel, compared to 75.7% who receive direct retail orders through a brick and mortar location. This is mainly due to the increase in the number of retailers selling exclusively on the Web.

MHI’s new Career Forum  enables manufacturing and supply chain professionals to view current job postings of MHI member companies. Go to http://www.mhi.org/careers to find the perfect opportunity for you.

RCR Wireless — In a patent filed on Feb. 9, Google forecasts potential interest in using autonomous, self-driving vehicles to deliver packages, a concept Amazon and Google have both been exploring with the use of drones.



The patent, number 9,256,852 B1, contemplates a "package delivery platform."