This Month in Modern

Our Annual Salary Survey brings us up to date on average compensation and bonus numbers, educational levels, and career aspirations of today’s materials handling professionals.

Over the past 10 years, the editorial team at Modern has worked hard to plan theme issues that dive deeper into the state of the modern lift truck.

So, if you’re looking for transformation inspiration, then July is your month. 

This issue was designed to be a bit of a primer, a push to inspire those readers who’ve been on the fence, but are now moving forward on their plans to evaluate and apply some level of robotics and automation into their operations.

Unleash the Power of Robotics to Overcome Your Labor Challenges. Explore the Latest Automation and Robotic Solutions at ProMat 2023.

Well, it’s time to brush the dust off the suitcase and hope the khakis and blazer aren’t too snug, because early reports suggest ProMat 2023 (March 20 to 23) is going to be a whopper.

We kick off 2023 with a unique look at how materials handling technology is being put to work in vertical farming.

This month, our editorial team takes us inside a facility, explore the multiple methods companies are using to create more sustainable warehouses; snapshot of the Top 20 warehouses; power choices available for lift truck fleets; and we share our annual look at bins, totes and containers.

I think it’s a year for ‘recalibration’ using different levers, like trying to increase inventory turns or rethinking DC networks.”

This month in Modern, we continue to track the evolution of robotics and IoT and the roles these technologies are playing to help the labor force respond to and interact with supply chains.

In this issue, we learn that one of the world’s most innovative supply chain organizations believes the time is right for autonomous lift trucks; we offer our annual deep dive into the Top 20 lift truck suppliers; we roll out our annual reader survey that illustrates the state of lift truck usage and investment; and we learn that even an autonomous lift truck fleet is going to need some level of human oversight.

Once again we’re using July to fix the spotlight on technology and how important it is to now dive in and transform your operation to keep pace.

As we reported, readers told us they were geared up and ready to embrace more automation and robotics—and they were adding more budget to make it happen.

As we heard across the board, fulfillment pressures will continue in 2022, and flexibility and scalability will be more important than ever—putting a premium on the adoption of software, automated systems, robotics, mobile solutions and emerging next-generation technologies to build in new levels of resilience.

The economy has maintained strength, e-commerce is booming, and companies with distribution operations are struggling to keep up.