CEO Update  Just as a conductor brings together a musical group into a cohesive performance, orchestration strategies keep your data, people and processes continually in sync. This powerful pairing of humans, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) provides an end‑to‑end, data‑driven view of your supply chain that boosts accuracy and improves efficiency. Adoption of new technology can be daunting for your ...

Executive Viewpoints BY ANNETTE DANEK‑AKEY, CHIEF SUPPLY CHAIN OFFICER, BARNES & NOBLE AND MEMBER OF THE MHI BOARD OF GOVERNORS It was the greatest compliment I’ve ever received. Our team was giving a tour to a group of customers when someone noticed that the material handling equipment went in and out through different buildings. They asked whether the building and ...

MHI Solutions Community BY CHRISTIAN DOW, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF MEMBERSHIP AND INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP, MHI ISTOCK.COM/AKINTEVS By now, just about everyone who shops online has experienced overpackaging. You order a few small items and receive an oversized box packed with void fill. Sure, you enjoy getting fast delivery of the products you need, but it’s hard not to bristle at ...

Feature BY MARY LOU JAY ISTOCK.COM/JAY YUNO No matter where or how you want to deploy AI in your company, there’s one element that is key to successful implementation: the quality of the data that you input into your AI models. “The path from AI’s potential to its inevitability for a company is paved with data. That’s an underlying capability ...

Economic Market Analysis BY JASON SCHENKER, PRESIDENT OF PRESTIGE ECONOMICS®, CHAIRMAN OF THE FUTURIST INSTITUTE® ISTOCK.COM/MICROSTOCKHUB The 2025 economic outlook is a mix of potential and pitfalls. On the upside, inflation is likely to cool further this year, while the labor market is poised to remain relatively solid, positive GDP growth continues and interest rates fall. However, geopolitical tensions and ...

Feature Collaborative robots (cobots) and autonomous vehicles are increasingly finding a home in warehouses and distribution centers (DCs). The success of those deployments, however, is not assured. Industry experts shared six best practices that can help achieve an effective implementation. BY SARA PEARSON SPECTER ISTOCK.COM/ONURDONGEL Well entrenched in manufacturing processes, collaborative robots (cobots) and mobile autonomous vehicles (MAVs) have increasingly ...

Safer Handling BY TOM GRESHAM The Crane, Hoist and Monorail (CHM) Alliance serves as a liaison for overhead lifting companies to OSHA, teaming with the federal agency to promote a wide range of safety initiatives in the field. The alliance represents three overhead lifting groups—Crane, Hoist and Monorail, respectively—within MHI. The alliance’s collaborative efforts with OSHA are proving to be ...

Feature From charging forklift batteries and electric vehicles to running conveyors and keeping the lights on, modern, clean supply chains depend on an uninterrupted supply of power from America’s electrical grid. But demand for power and other factors are testing the grid’s reliability like never before, sending users scrambling for solutions to ensure access to the electricity they need to ...

Feature Boosting E‑Commerce Operations’ Sustainability and Efficiency BY CAROL MILLER, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, MHI PHOTO PROVIDED BY STAPLES Driven by continued growth in e‑commerce, U.S. parcel shipping volumes grew to 21.7 billion in 2023, according to Pitney Bowes’ most recent annual Parcel Shipping Index. The report, issued in April 2024, predicted continued growth reaching 28.3 billion by 2028. Its authors ...

Solutions Spotlight BY KATIE KUEHNER‑HEBERT Robotics for warehousing and distribution applications are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence to be more efficient and effective, according to members of The Robotics Group (TRG) Industry Group of MHI. AI‑driven robotic solutions have played a pivotal role in expanding use cases far beyond the original manufacturing applications for robots that started more than 50 years ...