MHI 2016: Listening to the voice of the customer

Sitting in my basement office on a chilly fall New Hampshire day, it's hard to imagine that just a week ago, I was sweltering in the heat in Tucson. I traveled west to attend the annual meeting of MHI, the association that represents the materials handling industry in North America.

As someone who's been attending these meetings for years, I want to take my hat off to the organizers. It was one of the largest of these events that I've ever been to, and while I did not attend the executive summit, there were more educational events for conference attendees than the past.

The theme this year was “Accelerating Change,” something I think everyone is experiencing in their warehousing and distribution operations, if not their broader supply chains. Certainly industries as varied as retail, health care and industrial distribution have had their worlds turned upside down by new customer demands faster than anyone imagined or predicted. What that's really driving is a need to get closer and closer to the customer – to the real point of demand – in order to meet those demands without breaking the bank. That, in turn, has led to some soul searching within the industry and the association as to how to best accelerate change. Here are a few examples I left Tucson with.

The voice of the customer: For some time now, MHI industry groups have talked about inviting end users to their meetings and conferences to hear the voice of the customer. This year, they heard from a Target executive who presented his vision of the future, which he titled, “The Customer Isn't Always Right, But …….” He asked the industry to consider the following five principles when designing solutions: 1.) Speed – no one ever complains when they get things fast. 2.) Value – in the past customers, put a value on the effort to get something working when what they really want is a return on capital for working better, faster and cheaper. 3.) Support – what customers need is a common approach to automation across equipment platforms, and presumably equipment manufacturers, that will streamline hiring, training and maintenance. 4.) IP – end users don't need to know an OEM's secret sauce; instead they need interfaces and touch points to what makes the system work. 5.) Ideation – end users need highly flexible solutions and environment where both small and big ideas can be tested and proved. “All that I want is that you agree with everything I said,” he concluded. “What I need is for you to listen.” If the industry wants to hear the voice of the customer, they just heard it.

New era of support: One of the initiatives underway in the Automation Systems Group is a project to develop interoperability standards for automated materials handling systems, something that is taken for granted in other industries. If the goal is to truly accelerate automation, that seems like a great first step. Or, as Todd Farwell, a committee member who works for Caterpillar put it: “Our customers need to make money, and we need to create solutions that enable our customers to make money.” Later, I sat in on a presentation on another initiative to create a group within MHI that would offer consultative support to end users trying to solve problems in a “safe harbor environment,” meaning that the member companies offering the consulting services won't also be trying to sell a solution. Both initiatives are at early stages, and with regard to the consulting practice it appeared as if there's still a lot of work to do. Regardless of the outcome, what they represented to me is a maturation of our industry and a realization of the complexity and interdependency of our solutions.

New era of continuing education: I attend a lot of conferences and industry associations. Education and certification are the hallmarks of APICS, CSCMP, ISM and WERC conferences, along with the programs put on by university supply chain management programs. MHI took up that challenge this year. Sure, there are more offerings at the other association meetings, but any number of attendees told me how much they got out of the sessions they attended, and that there were more than they had time to attend.

What the heck is Blockchain and why do I care? Late in the day last Friday, as I was about to knock off and pack, I had a conversation with the director of a university supply chain program who mentioned a new technology: Blockchain. Truth be told, I had no idea what he was talking about. Next day at the conference, Rick Fox from Fox IV Technologies asked me if I knew anything about Blockchain. We joked a little about how it had seemingly come up out of nowhere, at least as relates to our industry. By the end of the conference, I was getting emails from Blockchain vendors, wondering if I wanted to learn more. I have a little better understanding of what Blockchain is than I did ten days ago, but still don't quite know how it applies to the supply chain. But, I'm anxious to learn whether this is the next technology we will need to pay attention to.

Workforce could be the biggest issue the industry faces: The Tucson event marked the third conference I've attended in the past six weeks. I'm struck by how much the challenges around finding and keeping the talent we need at all levels of our organizations dominated the conversation at all three events.

It's a reminder that we not only need to get closer to our customers, but also to our employees.

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