Modern Materials Handling - December 2011

THE BIG PICTUREWhere Business Meets Materials HandlingVoicesVoices of theBy Bob Trebilcock, Executive EditorSeveral years ago, an executive from Dematiccame to Modern’s offices to introduce a newway of thinking about the warehouse anddistribution center. He called it “four wallsand two windows.”The idea was simple. Materials handlingsolutions may happen inside the four wallsof a facility, but they are affected by whathappens outside of a facility. To be trulyefficient, a system needs visibility— thosetwo windows—into what is happeningdownstream and upstream.The concept goes a long way to explainingthe evolution of materials handling solutions.If all that mattered was efficiency inside thefour walls, we would all crossdock full palletsand be done with it. Instead, new customerservice requirements, store operations, justin-timemanufacturing strategies and valueaddedservices are driving distribution strategies.“How do I satisfy my customers and getan edge on my competition?” is the industrymantra. Questions like that have led to thedevelopment of sophisticated order fulfillmentstrategies such as the one featured in thismonth’s cover story on Skechers (see p. 14).Add the upcoming expansion of thePanama Canal to the list of catalysts.Scheduled for completion in 2012, thecanal will allow significantly larger shipsand shipments to serve the East Coast ofthe United States. To get a view throughthe windows of how this might impact whathappens inside the four walls of manufacturingand distribution facilities, Modernspoke to six supply chain experts.24 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 1 / MODERN MATERIALS HANDLING mmh.com