There’s something interesting going on down in Charlotte, NC. That’s where MHI is headquartered. "What is MHI?" some of you are no doubt asking. MHI was not long ago the Material Handling Institute of America, changing its name a couple of years ago – and it seems with a real purpose. The old MHIA was an industry association that supported the cause of its member companies in areas such conveyors, automated guided vehicles, WMS and even the exciting category of casters and wheels – all very much material handling focused. A category such as inventory and network optimization tools that has high current penetration rates (about 48%) will naturally have relatively modest predicted five-year average growth rate (15%). One quick note is that membership in MHI is at a company level, not an individual level such as CSCMP, ISM, or WERC. That’s why in some quarters it is not well known. Some of that legacy core materials handling orientation is still around, but now it’s just known as MHI, with the relatively new tag line of "the industry that makes supply chains work." And that full supply chain orientation is increasingly on display, whether it’s the positioning of the now twice held MODEX trade show in Atlanta (the off-year show to MHI’s bi-annual ProMat show in Chicago), its rapidly evolving annual conference, and the large amount of work MHI did in 2014 to develop what it called the "U.S. Roadmap for Material Handling & Logistics." (Note: I was a modest participant in that process.) Similar changes for MHI’s "annual report" for 2015. In the past, this was a document that mostly summed up spending cycles for materials handling equipment and what types of equipment and systems were seeing what share of the money companies were spending. That annual report […]