Automation in North America Strong Due to Headcount Pressures 

For decades European manufacturing facilities have been faced with higher land and labor costs and different order profiles. The result brought automation inside the facilities. Pcdata USA understands how these European companies have weighed certain qualitative aspects differently from those in North America. Given pressure on headcounts, increasing land constraints, and need for more case and unique individual picking, North American facilities are seeing the traditional barriers to automation subside. Beyond typical analysis points such as CapEx and OpEx, even the most basic solutions, such as a pickcarts, are part of a deeper conversation how to develop a thorough and holistic assessment of automation options that will be presented at ProMAT 2015. 

Cost of Mis-Picks: Underestimating Excess Worker Motion is Costly

It is easy to underestimate how much excess worker motion, product transportation, and touches can cost an organization. Bringing mobile power technology into the receiving, picking, shipping, and/or inventory management process eliminates costly footsteps and creates rapid and significant changes in volumes, accuracy, and efficiency. Mobile power can help obtain measurable productivity gains and significant cost savings without months of planning and implementation. One of the key takeaways from ProMAT 2015 will be learning how mobile power technology can significantly increase speed and throughput while reducing labor costs in receiving, picking, shipping, and inventory management processes. Attendees will see real-case examples (with compelling quantitative data) where mobile power has been effectively implemented in the warehouse, and review justification tools to make a case and get buy-in from IT and management. 

Order Fulfillment Solutions Improving Efficiencies & Productivity

MHI's Order Fulfillment Systems group will review the newest products and solutions found at ProMAT 2015. A wide range of technologies will be presented to improve efficiencies and productivity on Monday, March 23rd at Noon in Theater G. The event will utilize a logical format to improve labor, throughput, space utilization, order packing density, and accuracy. The full gamut of order picking, packing and shipping solutions, and systems from the world's leading organizations will be presented. Solutions for issues such as: DIM (dimensional pricing), reducing shipping costs, sustainability, free order shipping, lean practices, and more will also be discussed.  

Improving Picking Labor Utilization

William Ferrell of Clemson University and  Kimberly Ellis of Virginia Tech will discuss how supply chain disruptors from e-commerce to the workforce are accelerating change in material handling and logistics. This ProMAT 2015 session will look at the ten disruptors that are having the most impact on supply chains today and the ten core competencies needed to counteract the disruptors. The event is sponsored by the Material Handling & Logistics U.S. Roadmap and will take place on Monday, March 23, 2015 from 12:45 pm to 1:30 pm in Theater F.

Picking Performance Impacted by Aging and Obese Workers

Innovative use of material handling equipment solves serious ergonomic problems and drives productivity gains. Rapidly aging and more obese workers are challenging the effectiveness of many equipment designs. Many manual material handling tasks have more than one solution and selecting the right equipment based on employees physical abilities can help maximize investment. This dynamic situation will be analyzed at a ProMAT 2015 presentation on Monday, March 23, 2015 from 2:15 pm to 3:00 pm located in Theater F.