Paper Blob Attacks U.S.

Records Storage Business Here to Stay!
Businesses create more than 30 billion documents per year. That was an assessment made just five years ago. With recent government regulations like HIPPA, this figure is apt to multiply quickly.

How have businesses responded? While companies should evaluate the cost of storing records internally, rarely does it cost out to. Talk to a records association insider and soon you’ll discover the hidden costs many companies ignore or forget. Many organizations when asked to review earlier assessments, and in almost every case the “in-house” costs were either not honest or understated”. What is the solution?

In addition to cost being the driving cost driving businesses to outsourced records storage solutions, the following are real reasons to consider:

• Controlled Access


• Climate Controlled Environment


• Protection Against Disasters


• Around the Clock Service


• Delivery and Pick-up Service


• Special Media Service

Information management has become a strategic capability for businesses today. Having a records management plan can mean the difference between remaining competitive or becoming obsolete.

Want to outsource but not sure where to turn? PRISM International (Professional Records & Information Services Management) can direct to you to an outsourced professional firm. They can be reached at PRISM International.

Want to evaluate in in-house solution or expand an existing storage facility to efficiently store and retrieve documents? Morrison Company has 75 years experience helping clients with storage and retrieval solutions. They can be reached at Morrison Company!

You Do That?

ROI Available to Justify Lift Table Purchases.
There are literally hundreds of uses for lift tables in manufacturing, warehousing and distribution facilities. And, in every case the addition of a powered lift makes the job faster, safer, and easier. Some typical applications include: machine feeding and offloading, product assembly, inspection quality control repair, feeding and offloading conveyors, and bridging different conveyor levels.

Today, improvements in productivity from the use of ergonomic equipment are more important than ever. The question now is not “how much does it cost?” but “will it pay for itself?” and “how fast?” Find out how . .

In an effort to demonstrate that ergonomic equipment will “pay for itself” we have developed a simple cost justification wheel. It shows how much time a piece of ergonomic equipment will have to save a worker in order for it to “pay for itself” in one year. It also shows how percentage gains in productivity can provide full payback of equipment costs in less than one year.

Positioning the work is easier, safer, and much more productive than positioning the worker. The elimination of bending and reaching is made possible by vertical adjustment to an infinite number of positions within the lifts working range. The addition of a turntable eliminates walking around the lift. Incorporating these special use lift tables into many applications not only makes a single worker more productive; it often allows one worker to perform tasks that normally require two.

In almost every case we’ve ever seen, production machines work faster than the people feeding them. Getting parts to machines faster not only increases worker productivity, it increases machine productivity, improving R.O.I. and shortening the amount of time it takes for production equipment to “pay for itself”.

Request your own “Cost Justification Wheel" by selecting ROI Wheel!

Is Team Selling Effective?

You may be surprised to learn if this trend is useful to increase sales!
Though sales may be career direction for many a lone wolf, there's much evidence to prove that selling en masse, or team selling, may have great benefits for the salesperson, team and company overall.

Companies using team selling reap rewards including: shorter selling cycles, happier customers & unity within the company. The reasons why are . . .

The method comes to life when a cross-functional group is created to service the diverse needs of prospects and clients. Team composition may be as simple as a sales rep and a support person. Or representatives from sales, customer service, IT, finance, operations and management may all have roles. This all-hands-on-deck approach helps elucidate who's responsible for what and gives clients a soothing sense that all the niggling details have a home.

Companies using team selling reap rewards when several disciplines work collaboratively toward fulfilling common goals: closing the sale, keeping the client, or winning the client back. Ancillary benefits of the approach include a shorter selling cycle, a happier customer, and unity within the company. According to Jill Griffin, author of Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It (Jossey-Bass), team selling "helps establish multiple relationships and contacts between the account and vendor." Because so many people are nurturing the account, there are fewer chances for the relationship to turn sour.

For customer comfort, name one person, likely the salesperson or in-house account manager, as the primary contact. Schedule weekly meetings to get issues addressed. In building and maintaining a team look out for the dreaded management-by-committee curse. To avoid creating more layers, policies and red tape (an aggravation for employees and customers), make sure team roles and hierarchy are well defined.

To encourage players to see the upside of a partnership-driven team, set up a compensation plan that rewards all participants for a successful implementation or landed sale. You can achieve this by creating both individual and team goals-stars are rewarded for their efforts, and they win again when the team thrives.

Iron Curtain Fall Source of Steel Shortages

Steel Surcharge Forecast Included
Communism falls and the free world cheers. News accounts in the 90’s announced the demise of communism in Europe. The Chinese government is reluctantly embracing the “capitalist experiment”, and building an infrastructure to support its 4 billion citizens.

China, ten years ago, consumed about 10% of the world’s steel capacity. In 2004 30% of the world’s output for rolled steel is bound for China and experts expect this number to grow as government officials expand the development of country’s infrastructure. Could it get worse?

Enter the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The steel industry anticipates the steel shortage to continue for years as China “builds up” to showcase their country’s place as a super power.

The material handling industry’s reliance on domestic and imported steel, unfortunately, will not see short term relaxation on prices. The weak dollar has fueled a reluctance among foreign steel producers to re-establish exportation to the U.S.

Election year uncertainty will delay any move by the Bush administration’s attempts to effect steel pricing with trade policy moves.

Is there hope? Bush administration officials indicate steel production is already seen increased levels. World demand for rolled steel will continue and steel production has responded as noted by a 13.7% increase in production in Q1 2004 alone. This trend is expected to grow which will in turn relax steel prices and the steel industry expects to see steel prices to stabilize by Q4 2004.

Playing the waiting game may not be the best approach! Calculating how long to wait for stable pricing will be a gamble. The Fed has already hinted they will raise interest rates to control inflationary pressure. Several rate increases will impact the cost of funds companies will relay upon to pay for capital improvements.

Responding to these challenges can only be made easier by partnering with trusted suppliers. Surcharges passed along are a reaction to an uncertain marketplace and at present unavoidable. Future issues of Material Handling BIZ will address strategies to minimize price pressures. Stay tuned!

No Downtime Wanted

Design and Project Management Expertise Put to the Test
Ever have these challenges: Expand the receiving department including the adjacent order and fulfillment operations with new systems while keeping the current operation running at full capacity? Learn how this project was pulled off!

In response to projected business growth, DEMCO, a manufacturer and distributor of products serving library and school professionals, desired to incorporate the new product line’s material at their current facility. The scope of the project was to modify the order flow operation to accept the new SKU’s, to more efficiency utilize the existing receiving area all when the facility continued to operate. Learn how . . .

The design engineering and project management teams at Morrison Company closely worked with DEMCO’s supply chain consultant to implement a two-fold material handling system.

More specifically the engineered handling solution Morrison Company designed and delivered most effectively made use of DEMCO’s existing facility and worked well with the recommendation of their supply chain consultant. A second level was added to the receiving area with a wide-span mezzanine. The design called for the newly expanded receiving area created by the mezzanine to interface directly with an order and fulfillment center to be converted from a multiple manufacturing operation located within the facility grounds.

Pallet, decked and carton flow racking were recommended and installed the accommodate storage, carton and split case pick applications respectively. The resulting solutions added 500 sq. feet to the receiving area as well as 24,500 sq. feet in a new order and fulfillment operation. Do you have a similar challenge? Put Morrison Company to the test!

Hidden Secrets Revealed

Ergonomics and Your Company’s Risk for Lawsuits
In today’s society, even the company using sound safety and ergonomics principles and practices will, eventually, face lawsuits. However, the negative effects of such suits can be minimized by such safe practices.

What has been discovered is that a serious and active program in safety and ergonomics pays not only in the savings from lost time, worker’s compensation, and other indirect and direct cost from accidents, but also generates productivity gains in the order of 20 to 25 percent with many jobs. Find out more . . .

The National Safety Council reports about 13,000 occupational deaths and over 2 million injuries with at least one day away from work each year.

According to that report, 88% were caused by unsafe acts, 10% from unsafe conditions, and 2% from unpreventable causes. Unsafe acts and unsafe conditions contribute to accidents, and it is management’s responsibility to reduce or eliminate the unsafe acts and conditions, especially when the unsafe act is inherent in the work method used by the employee.

Material handling equipment and systems, and environmental characteristics influence human and thus total man-machine system performance. Optimal performance is obtained when products, equipment, workstations and work methods are designed keeping human capabilities and limitations in consideration. The costs of ignoring these basic principles are as follows:

• Lawsuits


• Increased Lost Time


• Higher Medical and Material Costs


• Increased Absenteeism


• Low-Quality Work


• Injuries and Strains


• Increased Probability of Accidents and Errors


• Increased Labor Turnover


• Less Spare Capacity to Deal With Emergencies


• Less Production Output

Developing an effective warehouse and logistics plan around sound safety guidelines will deliver lasting and profitable benefits. How do you get started? Contact a logistics or safety professional as well as a material handling company to provide an assessment of your needs.