Certified Logistics Operators: The Future of the Material Handling Workforce

By Benoit Montreuil
President 2008-2009, College Industry Council on Material Handling Education

At the Material Handling and Logistics Summit held in Whitefish, Montana last summer, I asked all participants whether they would like to see their sons and daughters working in a distribution center? I was answered with a stunning silence. Not a single hand was raised. This was a powerful moment, since we had in the room a sample of America’s top players in material handling and logistics, the ones who are leading the conceptualization, design, engineering, implementation and operation of those distribution centers.

The question popped in my mind as an extrapolation from one of the Summit’s main consensus conclusions: we are facing a growing manpower crisis in material handling and logistics. The best example anecdotally illustrating the situation was provided by one of the Summit participants. He informed us that he knows of a distribution center in a metropolitan area where the manpower speaks twenty two different languages, with many people barely speaking English.

How did we get to such a crisis situation? Well, the answer is complex and multifaceted, but let me try to give it a shot.

The first hypothesis is that there are less workers on the job market due to demographic decline. This is a true fact that will be even more true in the future. Yet in most regions we do not have full employment and there are plenty of people looking for better jobs.

The second hypothesis is that America’s new generations prefer white collar jobs and thus shy away from working in factories and distribution centers. Again this is a true fact for at least part of the population. Yet America has been seeing its factories serially closing, operations being relocated on China and other emerging countries. Many of the factory workers that were laid off loved their job. Many of these could be great candidates for material handling and logistics jobs.

The third hypothesis is that material handling and logistics jobs are perceived as low pay, low skill, dull work, labor market entry jobs, to be avoided as much as possible. By having visited many sites and having talked to many workers I know this perception to be truly felt by a vast number of people. At the same time I know that in some distribution centers and production centers, material handling jobs are well designed, motivating jobs and that their workers are proud to be part of the operation.

So my simplified answer is that we face the impact of these three hypotheses concurrently, leading to a growing crisis situation.

What are the possible solutions? Well, we can import fresh workers from other countries who want to immigrate to America and who will readily accept work in the current working conditions. We can also get into a huge marketing initiative aiming to revamp the negative perception and to attract workers to the field. We can also computerize and automate our logistic centers and operations as much as possible, minimizing the need for manpower. I believe that each of these three solutions has merits in specific settings, but that it will be insufficient for addressing the scale and scope of the emerging crisis.

Deeper solutions are needed. They involve a new conceptualization of what a material handling and logistics job is to be, and of what a logistics center is to be: a change of paradigm. Let me start by an example depicting the current paradigm. For years we have aimed to make operations such as order picking as easy, productive and error-free as possible.

We are now in the age of pick-to-light and pick-to-voice solutions. In many implementations, this has significantly reduced waste and errors. Yet at the same time it has lead to a shrinking of the human contribution to the job. In fact, we are letting them think and decide less and less. Walk, scan, pick, place: operations quasi ideal for robotic operations, but there are not yet mobile robots with the vision, flexibility and dexterity of a human operator. Yet many human operators that we employ in such operations, when they return home, they get on the internet, play complex video games, manage their home budgets, deal with multiple complex social situations, attend courses, and desperately look for better jobs!

What if we completely change our mindset? Let me put you in an alternative world for a few moments. In that world, the industry relies on certified logistic operators. In that world, all distribution centers, factories and other logistics operations are designed to exploit the high skills of this certified workforce.
The certified logistic operators are trained to exploit all the physical handling and transport technologies. They consider themselves service professionals. They manage the computer and communications transactions and information requests. They self manage their operations in teams, dispatching themselves, being accountable for their operating and budget performance. The centers in which they work are designed to be workplaces of excellence. They are designed to exploit the brain, knowledge, agility and overall professionalism of their operators. They smartly combine automation and manual operations. They offer career paths for their talented workforce.

Is this alternative world simply a dream world? A utopia? Another of these university-professor crazy unconnected-to-the-real-world ideas? Maybe you can imagine an even better vision. The industry, with all its key actors working together, can make this happen. The key is: do we really want it? Is there really an emerging crisis? Is our current model sustainable in the future? Think about it and get to action. For more information, contact Mike Ogle at 800-345-1815/704-676-1190.

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