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ProMat Sneak Peek: 5 Seminars Perfect for Order Fulfillment Professionals

by Ed Romaine · Published March 5, 2019 · Updated December 10, 2019

ProMat 2019 is right around the corner, scheduled to run from April 8 to April 11, 2019 at McCormick Place in Chicago. Considering that ProMat is the single largest trade show for those working in the order fulfillment, supply chain management, and the warehouse industries, it’s easy to understand why everyone is looking forward to the show.

For most attendees, time spent at the show is largely dedicated to meeting with potential customers, solutions providers, and partners, as well as scoping out the competition. But while those activities are obviously important, the teams that tend to get the most value out of attending ProMat are the ones that make a point of attending at least a handful of educational seminars that take place over the course of the event.

Need an Expert Opinion?

ProMat, after all, brings together the best and brightest minds from the world of logistics and puts them all in one place. If those minds are willing to share their thoughts and insights, we should listen!

Over the course of the four-day show, there are more than 150 keynotes, lectures, and educational seminars for you and your team to choose from. While it’s great to have so many options, the sheer volume can admittedly make settling your schedule a little difficult.

To help make selecting your ProMat 2019 educational schedule a little bit easier, we’ve decided to pull together a list of what we consider the best of the best sessions that you should consider attending.

If You’re Thinking About Automation

Robots, Cobots, and Autonomous Vehicles: The Cutting Edge of Order Fulfillment

When: Tuesday, April 9, 2019 from 12:00 to 12:45pm in Theatre C

Presenter: Dave Lodwig, Solutions Consultant at Conveyco Technologies

The focus: By attending this seminar, you’ll learn how one of the newest warehouse automation technologies—autonomous mobile robots (AMRs)—can help you reduce labor costs in the order picking, packing, and shipping processes of your operation.

You will learn how to put AMRs to use in the fulfillment process to reduce wasted travel and use labor more efficiently while increasing the amount of volume to meet changing business and consumer needs and expectations.

Deploying Automation to Successfully Manage Exploding SKU Growth as a Result of Increased Customer Demand

When: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 from 11:15am to 12:00pm in Theatre D

Presenter: Rod Strickland, Director of Logistics for TVH and Andy Lockhart, VP of Sales (Integrated Systems) for TGW Systems

The focus: Most businesses will experience SKU proliferation at some point as they grow and customers begin to demand an ever greater variety of product. But just because it is a common phenomena does not mean it is always easy to deal with. This seminar aims to show you how one business used automation to deal with the issue of explosive SKU growth so that you can put those lessons to use in your own operation.

If You’re Thinking About Ecommerce

3 Ways to Expand Your E-commerce Sortation Capacity

When: Tuesday, April 9, 2019 fro 3:45 to 4:30pm in Theatre B

Presenter: Tim Kraus, Manager (Product Management) for Honeywell Intelligrated

The focus: With the near exponential growth in ecommerce sales that the industry has been experiencing in the past decade, more and more operations are finding themselves needing to adapt to changing customer expectations. Especially important to ecommerce success is ensuring that your operation is relying on the right type of sorter. This seminar aims to discuss the different types of sorters available to your operation so that you can choose the right technology to support your ecommerce needs.

If You’re Thinking About Improving Your Operation’s Efficiency

Preview of MHI 2019 Annual Industry Report

When: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 from 8:45 to 9:45am in Room S100

Presenter: George W. Prest, CEO of MHI and a panel of experts

The focus: Each year, MHI conducts a study on the trends and technologies that are transforming supply chains and the order fulfillment industry at large. Wednesday morning’s keynote offers ProMat attendees a sneak peek of the report, and brings together a panel of manufacturing and supply chain professionals (including Annette Danek-Akey of Penguin Random House, Jim Liefer of Kindred AI, Joel Reed of IAM Robotics, and Randy V. Bradley of the University of Tennessee) to discuss the real-world significance of the report findings.

10 Steps to Improve Operational Efficiency

When: Monday, April 8, 2019 from 1:30 to 2:15pm in Theatre G

Presenter: Jerry Koch, Director of Marketing (Product Management) for Honeywell Intelligrated

The Focus: In order to combat challenges like evolving order profiles, a lack of skilled labor, and a shift towards omni-channel fulfillment, operations must be skilled at ensuring operational efficiency within each of their facilities—or risk being left behind. This seminar offers operations a 10-step framework that they can use to identify change indicators and make sure that efficiency is always top of mind.

What do you think?

If you’re attending ProMat 2019, we’d love to know which educational sessions you’re most excited to attend, or which topics you wish someone would address in the future.

Tags: Order Fulfillment Trade Shows ProMat

Ed Romaine

Ed Romaine has spent over 30 years involved with organizations looking to optimize their distribution, manufacturing, and warehousing operations. Focusing on the customer’s processes, automation and business model, Romaine has helped dozens of organizations improve profitability by reducing labor, floor space, errors and inventory while improving accuracy, inventory turns and cut-off times. Within the industry trade association, MHI, Romaine has taken numerous leadership positions including: Chairman of the Automated Storage & Retrieval (AS/RS) Group, Chairman of the Order Fulfillment Council of America, Chairman of the Warehouse Execution Systems Group and was one of the originators of the Carousel and VLM Product Section Group. He has also spearheaded the efforts to create the first ANSI industry safety standards for horizontal carousels. Romaine is a frequent editorial and information contributor to hundreds of publications, blogs and online publications and has been a speaker at dozens of Supply Chain, Logistics, Lean and Facility organizations and functions. Just a few include the Parcel Forum, Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), Promat, North American Material Handling, Modex, National Mfg Week, Southern California Plant Operations, NJ Material Handling Assoc., Applied Ergonomics, Warehousing Education & Research Council (WERC), Lean Manufacturing Conference, Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), NeoCon, Health Information Distribution Association (HIDA), National Catalog & Operations (NCOF), CSCMP and more.