Most Recent Articles

There’s no doubt—manufacturing is a tough industry to work in. With tight turnaround times, increasing shipping demands and the need for immaculate quality, it’s a challenging space for a business to grow and thrive. To further complicate things—administrators are finding it difficult to attract and retain talent.

Whether you are in a manufacturing environment or a distribution center, there is a long list of technologies that may be on your wish list, ranging from “must-have ten years ago” to “nice to have someday”. But when budgets become available for upgrades, getting everything you want isn’t always a good idea. For example, bringing in a new software tool might be a good idea, but upgrading two or more of them that are linked together or through another system (like your ERP) could be a recipe for disaster. Troubleshooting and debugging may be plagued by the potential conflicts between two new systems instead of one.

Despite low unemployment and a long-term economic growth streak with record profits now approaching a full decade, distribution centers and warehouses have continued to experience trouble retaining skilled or experienced staff. The problem lies more in how management values the contribution of their people in those facilities – which also makes it somewhat easier to resolve. Today we look into the problem with the help of some great research from ProLogistix through the WERC organization.