special report | Warehousing Taking these five macro trends into account in your warehouse and DC siting decisions will help you reduce supply chain costs and inefficiencies for years to come. Picking a location for a warehouse or distribution center (DC) is not a decision to be taken lightly. If a company makes the wrong choice, it will mean increased supply chain costs and inefficiencies for years to come. To avoid this mistake, companies need to be aware of the macro trends brewing on the horizon that could affect a warehouse’s future costs or efficiency level. During our firm’s site selection engagements, we consult with a wide range of corporate managers who have input into the many quantitative and qualitative factors that go into location decisions for a new DC or warehousing operation. These include managers in traffic, facilities, finance, logistics, information technology, human resources, legal, engineering, telecommunications, manufacturing, and community relations, among others. It’s an eclectic group, and so are the topics of our conversations. Here are the five trends these managers are talking about most in their meetings with us. 1. PRIVATIZATION AND TOLLS Privatization of highways and bridges is a hot topic now for many of our distribution center clients. In the past, most highway and bridge infrastructure projects were funded by revenues from the gas tax. However, these revenues have been declining for years amid a cutback in driving, a shift to more fuel-efficient cars, and slumping auto sales. Privatization is being pushed by the Obama administration as a way to fund more highway and bridge infrastructure projects without raising fuel taxes. The likely result will be more toll roads, including portions of our interstate highway network. What we are hearing from the trucking industry is that they hate the notion of a national tolling […]