Regulated Rx Drug Industry

Retail Drug Industry Counts on Morrison Company
CVS and Walgreens continue to battle for bragging rights of who is the top retail drug store chain. Wal-Mart has announced its intention to enter the lucrative retail drug market.

While the industry waits to see the shake out, it’s business as usual for these retail drug leaders. Over the past 20 years, Morrison Company has completed projects for over 30 distribution centers for Walgreens, CVS, Discount Drug Mart, and Bindley Western (now known as Cardinal Drug). Why have so many heavily regulated firms with complex product lines turned to Morrison Company?

Even before the first truckloads of material arrive at the client facility, Morrison Company’s design engineers verified that their design has the necessary approvals from local building inspectors. Their engineered design has been the culmination of effort from a support cast of engineers from the multitude of suppliers and the clients’ facility planning firm.

Although each project is unique, all of them required the integration of many material-handling solutions using pallet rack, flow systems, mezzanines, shelving, and conveyor support systems. “With the average size of a Walgreens’ facility of 750,000 square foot, each project feels like we’re building a city,” indicates Jim Green – President of Morrison Company. What makes these projects significant is the coordination between the client, their building contractor, the design engineering team and the project management staff at Morrison Company. “A project of this scale will require our involvement for over one year, ordering, scheduling and installing material from over 150 complete truckloads,” said Mr. Green.

Ensuring the flow of material into the facility from day to day is the role of the Site Manager and the project management team. A choreographed ballet adequately describes the effort put forth by the project management team. Team participants include: Morrison Company design engineers, site manager, and installation crews; factory representatives, local building inspectors, general contractors, and the client’s project manager.

Do your plans include the expansion, consolidation or a new distribution center? Ask for details of how Morrison Company’s integrated handling solutions can positively impact your logistics goals.

US Chamber of Commerce Lobbying Efforts

Intellectual Property Rights
With the economy of the 21st century likely to focus increasingly on the creation and use of products of the mind, efforts to prevent illicit use of intellectual property will grow in importance. The emergence of the Internet and e-commerce will make some forms of intellectual property easier to use, but also easier to steal. As the United States is the largest producer of intellectual property in the world by far, it is incumbent upon the U.S. government to assume leadership in defending this vital class of property rights.

Many leading U.S. trade partners, including Argentina, China, and India, fail to provide adequate protection of copyrights, patents, and trademarks as such protection is defined by international conventions and World Trade Organization rules. The upshot is that a wide range of U.S. creators of intellectual property -- from software firms and pharmaceutical companies to movie studios and the recorded music industry -- lose billions of dollars a year in potential sales to piracy.

The Scope of the Problem

Intellectual Property (IP) theft costs U.S. companies $200-$250B a year in revenue and roughly 750,000 jobs to date. Counterfeit goods make up an estimated 5%-7% of world trade, resulting in lost economic opportunities domestically and abroad.

The problem of counterfeiting and piracy goes beyond the manufacture, distribution, and sale of unauthorized goods. Nearly all industries are being affected, from apparel and footwear, high-tech industrial goods, medicines, autos and auto parts, food and beverages, and cosmetics to copyrighted works, including entertainment and business software, movies, music, and books.

U.S. Chamber Position

We strongly advocate legislative and enforcement actions by our top trading partners to bar the theft of intellectual property created and owned by U.S. artists, researchers, and companies. The U.S. government should push our trading partners to uphold intellectual property rights, and countries that fail to do so should be subject to sanction under existing multilateral trade rules and bilateral accords.

You Do That?

Interlake Rack: Answers from the Top
Morrison Company President Jim Green has sold racking for over 35 years. If anyone has seen the trends in the material handling industry it’s been him. The initial uneasiness generated about Interlake’s decision to move to a bolted frame construction has died down. An exclusive interview with one of the top people in the storage rack business reveals nuances that may make your decision easier in the future of who to use for a racking project.

Readers of Material Handling BIZ were asked to contribute questions. Here is a sample of questions regarding Interlake rack.

Reader’s Question: Are welded connections are more structurally sound than bolted ones?

Jim's Answer: No, a properly designed bolted connection offers the same integrity as a welded connection. Both connections are covered in depth by the two major associations that govern steel design and construction in the U.S.: the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). The Interlock system is also engineered to meet the Rack Manufacturers Institute (RMI) 2002 design standards. A properly designed bolted connection offers as much protection as a system that uses welded connections.

Reader’s Question: Will bolted uprights will be hard to “square up” in the assembly process?

Jim's Answer: No, frame “squareness” is determined by component design and exact manufacturing processes. Rigid tolerances are maintained at Interlake’s ISO 9000:2001 certified production facilities.

Reader’s Question: Will bolted connections become loose over time requiring ongoing maintenance?

Jim's Answer: No, properly installed, the serrated nut & bolt with limited thread length connection remains tight and requires no ongoing maintenance. In fact, it takes 30% more effort to loosen than to tighten.

Interlake is the largest manufacturer of storage racks in the Americas, they also design and install more order picking systems than any other storage product manufacturer in the world. Their breadth of products and services along with their integration, engineering, and project management expertise have made Interlake the premier supplier of innovative storage, order fulfillment, and factory automation systems. For more information about an Interlake racking solution, contact Morrison Company.

Operations Manager Issues

Employee Evaluation Basics

What is an Employee Evaluation?

An employee evaluation can be called many things, including a performance evaluation, employee review, job evaluation, employee performance evaluation, and performance appraisal. An employee evaluation measures several aspects of an employee's job, including the quantity of work, quality of work, and overall characteristics of the employee at work.

Performance evaluations are important because they help align employees with overall organizational strategy. Setting employee goals and objectives and evaluating if those goals and objectives are met helps an organization's success and most importantly, the employee's individual success and job satisfaction. The ultimate goal of an employee evaluation is to improve performance, morale, and reward past employee performance.

How to Implement an Effective Performance Management System

The best way to begin implementing an effective performance management system is to identify job criteria - elements of a job where employee performance can be measured. An employer must set expectations for employees on how their work is being measured, compared with other standards, and communicated to them.

A manager may look at several areas to determine performance information for each employee.

• Result of their work
• Character traits
• Behavioral traits

The first type of information to look at for job evaluations is the result of an employee's work. What has an employee accomplished on the job? When looking at this information managers can expect well-defined and measurable feedback. The other two types of information to look at when performing an employee evaluation are far more elusive and more difficult to evaluate - character traits and behavioral traits, such as personality and attitude on the job. These traits can sometimes be vague, so it's a good idea to further define and explain employee expectations.

Finally, identify defined standards so employees know what level they are at. The standards should be realistic, measurable and understood by all employees - especially the manager and employee.

Ultimately, a good performance management system will let the employer properly identify, measure, evaluate, improve, and reward employee performance.

Business School Book Review

University of Virginia
Are you a reader? If so this article will feature book reviews by some the county’s best and brightest business school professors. While they’re recommendations may not always be about business, the books do have something to say about perseverance and integrity. This month’s featured professor is Timothy M. Laseter of the Darden College of Business at the University of Virginia.

His research has focused on individuals' organizational relationships and the skills required of effective managers, and it has been published in the leading academic journals. As such, Timothy M. Laseter’s favorite books are:

OUT OF THE CRISIS by W. Edwards Deming

"- Deming wrote this manifesto to American management in 1982. The book articulates the philosophy that Deming used in the 1960s to help drive Japan's quality transformation. Deming offers a unique blend of statistics and common sense to highlight many fallacies of traditional management practices. A must-read for anyone interested in Total Quality Management and a useful read for anyone interested in business."

THE MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD by James P. Womack

"- Although many books predate it, The Machine That Changed the World offers the most comprehensive, analytical treatise on Japan's manufacturing superiority. The team at MIT captured the true essence of "World Class Manufacturing," "JIT," and other Japanese manufacturing techniques and ultimately coined the new term "Lean" to capture the phenomenon."

THE BIG TIME by Laurence Shames

"- One of my favorites among many "business histories," this well-written book by Laurence Shames documents the story of a host of business icons. By focusing on the Harvard Business School Class of 1949-the first class to graduate after World War II-the book paints a fascinating picture of the extraordinary growth years as the U.S. economy grew to true world dominance."

Biographical Info:

Instructor in Business Administration Timothy M. Laseter teaches in the Operations area at Darden. Prior to joining the Darden faculty in 2002, Laseter was a partner in Booz Allen Hamilton's operations practice with concentrations on operations strategy, supply chain management, and sourcing for a wide variety of global businesses.

Industry Trends

What Goes Into Selecting a Location for a Greenfield DC?
The following article is submitted by Sedlak—providing independent, client-focused distribution consulting services. Find out more at www.jasedlak.com

Transportation and Utilities Accessibility

Can you get there from here? Make sure the site is easily accessible from the major local road or interstate highway you see on the map. If access to rail, water and air transport is important to your company, does the infrastructure exist nearby to support them?

Be sure to determine the cost and difficulty of making utility connections. Because power is the most critical of utilities, meet early on with power officials to fully investigate energy options and the ramifications of new construction. Naturally, you should arrange the same meetings with water and telecommunications officials.

Topography

Hire a fully qualified soils engineer to assess and report on the proposed land drainage, wetlands and floodplain issues, groundwater, soil type, percolation rates, and load-bearing capacity, as well as to determine if any hazardous materials are buried beneath the ground.

If green is your thing, can you balance your concern for the environment with what you’ll need to do to and how you’ll continue to use the land to accommodate running your new business?

Community Concerns

Find out whether the community is in the “not in my backyard” frame of mind. Initial savings on a reasonably priced site can quickly be drained in prolonged public hearings, presentations and goodwill meetings with community leaders who are not already predisposed to welcoming new construction.

Of course, you’ll want to know all there is to know about local tax advantages, as well as availability of workers and quality of life factors for your workforce. A catalog fulfillment director recommends assessing your potential workforce by going out into the community and interacting closely with residents. Observe “the way employees greet and provide services to you at places such as restaurants, hotels, stores, and even the airport and fast food chains.” Then compare what you see with the work ethic you expect from your future workers.

Codes

Before you begin designing that new DC, you must understand the local codes for landscaping, parking, access roads, and loading and buffer zones. Are setbacks required or noise ordinances or height restrictions in place?

Bottom line: Doing all your homework before entering the ballpark will result in your rounding all the bases and achieving a home run, winning the game.