As 2014 comes to a close, MHI would like to provide the readers of the MHI Newswire a look at the most popular articles from the year. The news brief will resume publication Jan. 7, 2015.

MHI Blog -- When ProMat 2015 opens on March 23 it will include not only 800 exhibits from the industry’s leading solution providers, but also a comprehensive Educational Conference of over 100 sessions that focus on what’s next in best-in-class solutions for manufacturing and supply chain operations.

The ProMat Conference will include four keynotes, 100+ show floor seminars and a Workforce Summit. The Conference will cover leading trends, best practices and state-of-the-art equipment and technology solutions that can make manufacturing and the entire supply chain work more efficiently and profitably.

Fast Company -- Two Cooper Union undergrads constructed a box that's less wasteful, easier to pack, easier to open, and good looking, too.

While some companies, like Ecovative, are tooling around with highly sustainable alternatives to shipping products around the world, two undergrads have just reinvented the humble cardboard container itself to be more efficient.

Extremely wasteful, environmentally harmful, and hard to put together, the standard cardboard box is as much of a practical necessity as it is a bane to a country dominated by big box retailers, warehouse clubs, and free SuperSaver shipping. Where others looked at the ubiquitous cardboard box and saw a necessary evil, undergraduates Henry Wang and Chris Curro saw a problem that needed to be solved. Their solution? The Rapid Packing Container, a cardboard box for the 21st century that is not only less wasteful than traditional paper boxes, but which can also be put together in seconds and easily reused.

MHI Blog -- Dramatic shifts in cost competitiveness around the world over the past decade are changing global sourcing and manufacturing investment strategies, according to a new report titled The Shifting Economics of Global Manufacturing: How Cost Competitiveness Is Changing Worldwide by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). 

The new report finds that improved cost competitiveness is leading to new factory investment in countries such as the UK and Mexico, where productivity has largely offset wage increases.

MHI -- In another sign that America is becoming more competitive in manufacturing, the U.S. is now equal to Mexico in "attractiveness" as a source for manufacturing operations and is on track to achieve cost parity with manufactured imports from China by 2015. That’s according to new research released by AlixPartners.

The report advises that before companies set up or move production they need to perform thorough, case-by-case analyses as a number of critical factors -- including product type, location, transportation and other variables -- that can greatly impact attractiveness and cost-effectiveness.

Modern Materials Handling -- More than one-third of U.S. businesses will move goods and services work back to the United States in the next 12 months, according to the results of the Grant Thornton Realities of Reshoring survey.

The numbers imply that as much as 5% of overall U.S. procurement may come back to the United States.

Modern Materials Handling -- MODEX 2014 is a done deal. All thoughts now turn to Chicago and ProMat 2015. Well, maybe not all thoughts. Here’s a few impressions I took away from the trip to Atlanta this week.

MHI Blog -- In the supply chain getting the best out of your employees is essential to working as a well oiled machine. Many people struggle at work to stay motivated and reach their full potential. How do you keep your team on track and inspire high quality performance? Here are a few things you can do as a leader to influence your team and generate positive results.

MHI Blog -- GE recently announced that it will build a new manufacturing facility to drive innovation and implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies across GE industrial businesses.

The new facility, located in Findlay Township, PA) represents a $32M investment over three years by the company and will result in the creation of 50 high-tech engineering jobs initially, in disciplines ranging from mechanical and electrical to systems and software engineering.

MHI -- Gartner, Inc. has released the findings from its 10th annual Supply Chain Top 25. A primary goal of the Supply Chain Top 25 research initiative is to raise awareness of the supply chain discipline and how it impacts the business.

 

"2014 marks the 10th year of our annual Supply Chain Top 25 ranking," said Stan Aronow, research vice president at Gartner. "As we reach this milestone, we have several longtime leaders with new lessons to share and a number of more recent entrants from the high-tech, consumer product and industrial sectors in the Top 25."

Huffington Post – A year ago, Amazon.com workers like 34-year-old Rejinaldo Rosales hiked miles of aisles each shift to "pick" each item a customer ordered and prepare it for shipping.

Now the e-commerce giant boasts that it has boosted efficiency — and given workers' legs a break — by deploying more than 15,000 wheeled robots to crisscross the floors of its biggest warehouses and deliver stacks of toys, books and other products to employees.

MHI Blog -- Meeting the demands of omnichannel fulfillment poses a definite challenge to retailers’ existing supply chains. Traditionally, retailers have used separate distribution facilities to meet the needs of different sales channels. According to a recent article in the Journal of Commerce, omnichannel has created a new supply chain paradigm that will "dominate omnicommerce, and eventually nearly all businesses.

MHI Blog -- E-commerce sales are growing 20% annually and are expected to reach $750 billion globally this year. This global shift toward e-commerce is changing how the retail and logistics industries operate.

This is the topic of a recently released Prologis research paper titled, "Inside the Global Supply Chain: E-commerce and a New Demand Model for Logistics Real Estate."

MHI Blog -- MHI has announced the speaker lineup for the 2014 MHI Executive Summit & Annual Conference. MHI has expanded the educational and informational offerings at this event to better serve our members and address important issues facing our industry. The goal is to bring the industry together to collaborate and develop into a living, growing community that shares knowledge and addresses current and future manufacturing and supply chain challenges and opportunities

The content of this year’s event was developed to address innovations that are driving supply chains that were examined in the recently published MHI Annual Industry Report and US Roadmap for Material Handling & Logistics.

MHI Blog -- U.S. News & World Report just released the new 30th edition of its college rankings.