NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Mike Jenkins, American Warehouse Association
MR. JENKINS: This is my home town Chicago. For those of you not from here, this is not a significant snow storm. You will not have trouble leaving today. So don't get nervous and leave our session early.
I am Mike Jenkins. I am President and Chief Executive Officer of the American and Canadian Warehouse Associations, and I represent companies engaged in public and contract warehousing, distribution center management and logistic support services. We are a trade association that is 106 years old, and we provide our members education, training, marketing, government affairs, et cetera.
I would like to set the stage for the warehouse discussions today with just an understanding of the significance of logistics in today's business. In the United States the logistics industry is a 700 billion, with a "B", dollar industry that will grow to $900 billion by the year 2,000. Logistics because of its significance in the United States has become a board room topic. Feature articles in Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today have all focused on logistics as the last bastian of competitive advantage for American business. When I was in France in December, they are telling the same story there and all around the world.
Warehousing is the heart of the logistics industry because today's warehouses have become product transformation centers where the product is finished, packaged and priced before it is distributed. Now, most of you who are familiar with warehouses have to work real hard to get away from the historic image of warehouses being dark, dirty, dangerous places. In fact, some people might describe it as a dark and dirty place with boxes stacked up for Kojak to knock down. That is not true.
Today's warehouses as product transformation centers are clean, bright and safe, and today's warehouse is an information technology driven facility with people as the most valuable asset. Today's panel, effective warehouse ergonomics programs, is going to take a look at three different approaches to ergonomics in the warehouse workplace. Our three speakers this morning are Chuck Swanderski with Lowes, Dave Forte with J.C. Penney and Richard Murphy, Jr. with Murphy Warehouses.
Now, before we start with the first speaker, I would like to give you the rules of engagement for the next hour and a half. Each of the speakers will talk for about 20 minutes on their particular applications of ergonomics, and at the end we will have to 20 to 30 minutes for questions and answers. We would be delighted to take any questions that you might have, but if there is information that you would specifically like and aren't comfortable asking that question, feel free to write it on the back of your business card, either a question or a request for information, give it to me after the session, and I will see that it gets to the correct speaker or to the agency who has graciously hosted today's event.
