34 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Robert Footlik Robert B. Footlik, PE is a retired Professional Industrial Engineer. With over 50 years’ experience as a Warehouse and Logistics Consultant to a wide variety of clients including Fastener Distributors, Bob has a wealth of valuable information for our industry and he is willing to share it. While Footlik & Associates is now closed, his expertise is still available to his friends and our readers. For friendly advice, a second opinion or just to start a conversation, he can be reached at robert@footlik.net. PROMAT 2017 FOR FASTENER DISTRIBUTORS Every odd numbered year the national materials handling and logistics show “ProMat” returns to McCormick Place in Chicago. Having attended Chicago shows for over 65 years I now have “seniority” on the show floor. That honor and .00 gets me a cup of coffee, but it also provides an opportunity to review the show from your perspective. For those who missed this exposition here are some of the trends and products that may be important to you. Faster, quieter, smarter, stronger New materials handling equipment is rarely revolutionary. The basic pallet jack and forklift from 50 years ago externally are virtually identical to what is produced today. A modern vehicle looks more sleek and polished but functionally it is little different from its predecessor. Both will do the job of lifting and moving pallets or loads and that’s where the similarity ends. Thanks to changes in buying and delivery pallet jacks are becoming stronger and lighter to operate in the harsh environment of the external world. Better bearings, deal with rain and snow and a few models now have wheels that can traverse mud. Capacities are reduced to better suit delivery loads and this is best exemplified by P & F (www.pnfkorea.com) who exhibited a folding pallet jack without hydraulics. It lays down to be pushing into the pallet and then the handle is used as a lever to raise the load. Cheap, simple and great for relatively light loads. CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLE Manual pallet jacks and power walkie equipment is finally being accessorized to enhance production. A number of vendors exhibited add on or integrated scales for weigh counting, along with GPS style locating systems, bar and radio frequency readers and other ways to communicate with a Warehouse Management System (WMS) in real time. This opens up some new opportunities for tracking inventory, work in process, shipped orders and productivity. It is one more link in developing individualized work standards and incentive systems. In this manner simple equipment becomes a sophisticated work tool…at an affordable cost. Similarly powered industrial trucks of every size, shape and function are being turned into high tech workhorses. While fork scales have been available for many years they are now more accurate and rugged enough to take every day abuse. The better systems such as Rice Lake (www.ricelake.com) enables the forklift driver to weigh, transfer and collect data as one operation. The information can then be transmitted using a wireless local area network to update production and inventory record continuously. There is even onboard diagnostics to insure the accuracy of the readings and proactively alert the driver to possible misreads and required preventative maintenance. For a Fastener Distributor who is serious about ISO compliance this is a significant communications and tracking link. CONTINUED ON PAGE 110
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