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By Art Van Bodegraven
The art and science of ergonomics haves been with us for quite a while now.  Some – many – actually understand their importance in the health and welfare of working associates, whether clerks, drivers, laborers, or whatever.  We also get it: good ergonomics means good business in supporting productive job performance in any number of environments.
Maybe ergonomics has been overshadowed recently with the PR surrounding the cult of “green,” but it’s still relevant.  So relevant that a new school of consulting is making money by showing employers how to avoid down-the-road medical costs by installing good ergonomic equipment and practices. more...

By Art Van Bodegraven
Time was that diversity in our world meant that a person of the feminine persuasion had snagged a job customarily performed by males.  In sensitive and progressive organizations, the ramifications of the event were that we had to stop telling jokes about traveling salesmen and farmers’ daughters.
But our world has changed – a lot.  It is no longer populated by hard-drinking overweight traffic managers and warehouse supervisors.  It is a commonplace to find women running distribution operations – big ones.  It is not rare for a female executive to have complete responsibility for a corporate supply chain. more...

By Art Van Bodegraven
It’s an old joke, and not very funny anymore.  “Will the last person to leave (fill in name of city) please turn out the lights?”  We’re not picking on Flint for the sake of beating up on the downtrodden, but Flint is an exemplar – the poster child – for communities in economic death throes.  Goodnight and Goodbye, by the way, has no connection with the Jonas Brothers’ song.
The dynamics of community collapse are complex; Flint has been dying for well over twenty-five years.  But, at the core, the issue is that Flint is irrelevant to global automotive supply chains, and that’s the death knell.  Hey, Flint is irrelevant to domestic automotive supply chains.  It may even be irrelevant to the General Motors supply chain. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.
As six sigma and lean manufacturing principles become widely accepted as standard practice, there has been increasing pressure to apply them in the warehouse, too.
It would be wonderful if warehousing operations were as stable and scheduled as their manufacturing counterparts. And, in some instances, they are. I have mentioned before the big benefit of being able to plan tomorrow’s work today. Then we have the opportunity to plan the staffing to match a steady workload spread evenly over the day. more...

By James M. Apple, Jr. and published in Modern Materials Handling Magazine.
The signs indicate that the economy is beginning to rebound. And, it is that time of the year when many part-time employes are needed to handle the Christmas peak. Managers of distribution and retail operations are lamenting the fact that they will have to contend with a wave of part-time and temporary employes to make it through.
Employe turn-over is the most frequent complaint of most warehouse managers.
But we don’t have to suffer with low productivity and higher error rates. more...