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Liz Richards is the chief executive officer of MHEDA, the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association, a national trade association founded in 1954 with offices located in Wauconda, Ill.
Richards was hired by MHEDA in January 1995 as executive vice president and was named chief executive officer in 2015. She manages a staff of nine people with an operating budget of $4 million.
The membership of MHEDA is comprised of 600 companies from across North America that sell, service, manufacture, and install all types of material handling equipment, systems, and related technologies. The mission of MHEDA is to enhance each member company’s success by providing superior programming in the areas of education, benchmarking, and networking. MHEDA is governed by a volunteer board of directors populated by distributor/dealer executives and an advisory board of manufacturer members. Richards serves as CEO on the board of directors.
Richards reports directly to the board and is responsible for the management and general direction of MHEDA, including the implementation of all strategic initiatives and development of member programs and services. One of her key responsibilities is to facilitate and oversee the association’s annual strategic planning process.
Prior to working with MHEDA, Richards was employed in the health care industry for more than eight years. She and her husband Ron reside in Wauconda, Illinois.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 00:01
Nearly three decades serving the industry. Shippers and carriers share pain points. And a model for distribution.
Pull up a chair and join us as the editors of DC Velocity discuss these stories, as well as news and supply chain trends, on this week's Logistics Matters podcast.
Hi, I'm Dave Maloney. I'm group editorial director at DC Velocity. Welcome. We hope you're enjoying a great Thanksgiving weekend.
Logistics Matters is sponsored by Hyster Company, a global manufacturer of nearly a century of experience designing forklifts and high-capacity materials handling equipment used in the world’s most intense industries. Operations rely on Hyster as a strong partner for everything from choosing the right motive power source to their Edison award-winning operator-assist solution, Hyster Reaction. For more information, visit Hyster.com.
As usual, our DC Velocity senior editors Ben Ames and Victoria Kickham will be along to provide their insights into the top stories of this week. But to begin today: Our guest this week is Liz Richards. For nearly three decades, Liz has led the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association, better known as MHEDA. The organization helps distributors and their customers in finding the right material handling solutions for meeting today's distribution challenges. Liz is retiring as the MHEDA CEO at the end of the year, and as a good friend of ours for many years, I wanted to get her perspective on what she has seen in her time as a leader in the industry and the opportunities that lie ahead. Here's our conversation.
Welcome, Liz. It's good to have you with us on Logistics Matters.
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 01:43
Thanks, Dave. It's a pleasure being here. Thanks for asking.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 01:46
So, you've been with MHEDA for a very long time, and a lot of people may not be familiar with MHEDA itself. Could you talk about what the organization is and the roles that it plays in our industry?
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 01:58
Sure. So, MHEDA is the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association, founded in 1954, basically founded by nine distributors, forklift distributors, and grew pretty quickly from there, and was basically started as a means for the voice of the distributor, if you will, and manufacturer and distributor relations. And manufacturer-distributor relations is just as important today as it was back then, and what we do for the distributors is provide them with information, resources, education, benchmarking reports — ways to help them really excel in their businesses by providing them with the tools to grow and strengthen their own distributorship. But it's just as important, equally as important, for the manufacturers and the suppliers in the industry to be part of MHEDA. They want to know what the distributors are facing in terms of challenges so they can help them to succeed, and ultimately, the manufacturer and the end user to succeed as well.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 03:05
Yeah, it's a great organization, one we work with quite a bit, and you've been with MHEDA now for almost 29 years. How did you get interested in working in this industry?
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 03:16
Well, I think, like many people I've run into over the years, it kind of just fell into my lap, if you will. I was very unfamiliar with the material handling industry and, frankly, associations, and, as you and I had discussed previously, I worked for a publishing company right out of college, Cahners, which became a big part of this industry as well. And when I left there, I went to work for a retirement community actually was — one of the publishers that I worked for had mentioned that the company had been sold. It was originally a Dun and Bradstreet company. And so I ended up at this retirement community for eight years. I was a building director and became very friendly with our attorney there, who left private law and eventually found his way to MHEDA. He was hired in my position, and about halfway through his year realized that [it] was something that he wasn't super enamored with. He was gonna move on to do other things, and he encouraged me to meet with the search committee, basically telling me that he thought I had the skill sets necessary, and lo and behold, they hired me. I remember my first ProMat thinking, "What in the world is all this stuff?" And so here I am, 28 years later. So, it definitely kind of fell into my lap, but it's been just life-changing. It's a wonderful industry filled with really great people, and I've heard other people say it's a life sentence, but in a good way, that once you get into it, you stay, and working with the Board of Directors over the years has just been a tremendous experience working with all these amazing leaders, learning so much from all of them.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 04:58
Yeah, I agree. It's a It's an industry that I fell into as well, and once you kind of get the bug, it is tough to leave, and here we are almost 30 years later, between the two of us here.
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 05:09
Yep, yeah, absolutely.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 05:12
So, you have been in this business for a long time. What have you seen have been the biggest changes in the industry during your time as the MHEDA CEO?
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 05:21
Interestingly, back in 1995, things as simple as email. We didn't have email. We faxed everything, and the pace of change was so different back then. We have all this technology now to make things more efficient, and frankly, I think it's made us all so much busier. Everybody expects an instant response, and, of course, we want to give everybody an instant response. So, just from a pure office environment, that's been a big change. But as far as the changes in the industry, I mean, obviously, automation. that demand has continued to grow over the last, probably 10 years during Covid. And the rise of e-commerce, I mean, that has been probably the biggest thing. And just the pace of change. I mean, it has just gotten crazy, where you can work 24 hours a day and still probably not keep up.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 06:20
Right, exactly. And you mentioned automation, are there particular technologies that have been brought into the material handling industry that your members have seized upon or have felt that they are an important part of the future of the industry?
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 06:38
One of the things that we're seeing is, there are a lot of member companies who are getting demands from customers and they're not in the automation field just yet, and they're really trying to learn it. So, we've had automation solutions conferences in the past, and what we realized is, our target audience is really those that want to get better-versed, well-versed, in the automation industry. And so that's where I think they're trying to capture as much as they can to understand what are the risks, what are the investments required, and realizing that there are a lot of risks and it's a huge investment, and finding people, especially engineers, and those that are both technical as well as sales-oriented is a real challenge. Equipment-wise, I mean, there's always so many new things coming out in the marketplace, so much with robotics, and now with AI. I think everybody's trying to wrap their arms around what makes the most sense, what's going to help their customers the most. Interestingly, I think there's been a shift from being an equipment distributor to an integrated solutions provider, and that means different things for different companies, and people are grappling with that right now.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 07:58
Sure. You mentioned AI and some of the other newer technologies. Where do you see the industry going in the future?
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 08:05
You know, if I had a crystal ball, I tell you, Dave, but I mean, I just think that it's going to continue to put a lot of demands on our industry, and those that are willing to make the investment and have the foresight to see what the customers are going to demand in the future, I think they're the ones that are going to be the most successful. But faster, better, more efficient, whatever that means for the customer. I think data plays a huge role. Our members need to really understand what the best data points are for their customers so that they can provide the best solution.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 08:43
You've emphasized the idea of "solution" as being something that your members are looking to provide to their customers. How important is establishing that kind of relationship with a dealership for someone who is looking to move into an automation project, or even just to fulfill their everyday needs as a distributor?
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 09:01
Well, we've seen a lot of alliances, because you can't, sometimes, be all things to all people. I mean, there are some integrators that are just way ahead of the curve, where they can provide everything from the controls, the installation, the wiring, the equipment, everything. But there's not that many of them that can do all of that, and so there's been a lot of alliances created, a lot of partnerships created, which I think is a really important part of the future. I think people need to understand that they have to work with one another and they have to find the right partners in order to solve the customer demands and challenges.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 09:43
So Liz, you'll be retiring at the end of the year, and you've been there almost 29 years. What would you see as the one achievement that you're the most proud of during your tenure at MHEDA?
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 09:56
So, I've been asked that question a few times now, and I think our biggest strength has been identifying every year what the major challenges and trends are that are facing our members. We go through a strategic planning process every year, and it really is — and I've called it this many times before — our organizational engine. We really focus on the future, while executing the current-year plans, and so when we do that, and we define these trends, then we're able to provide our members with information resources, educational programs, white papers — various services to help them address those trends. So, I think over the years, that has been such a big part of MHEDA's success. The other thing — and I just looked this up, I realized that we were going to be talking today — we have a team of 10 individuals that work at MHEDA, and combined, we have a tenure of 164 years at MHEDA, and that eliminates two recent retirees with a combined 40-year tenure. So, to me, that just speaks volumes. You know, we talked about being involved with this industry. We've all, I think, come to really love the material handling industry, the members within it, and to me that's a huge achievement. The other really big achievement is, we've hired my successor, Jeannette Walker, who comes with a great deal of experience in the industry, over 20 years. She started with MHEDA in July, as we've gone through the knowledge transfer, and that transition has been absolutely seamless, and she's got great plans ahead, and to me that's a big achievement. Because of MHEDA's near and dear to my heart, I wanted to make sure that we have the right person in place, and we went through a very long process to go through this succession plan, and Jeannette rose to the top. I'm super excited for her and for MHEDA's future with her at the helm.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 12:05
As you mentioned, Liz, this industry is one big family. A lot of us know each other, and have known each other for decades, even, and on behalf of all of us, thank you for the work that you've done for almost three decades in serving MHEDA and the material handling industry.
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 12:21
Thank you, Dave. It's been a real pleasure. I'm definitely going to miss it. Looking forward to retirement, but the thing that I'll miss the most are the people. The people in this industry are just phenomenal, and I count so many of them friends, and hopefully we'll stay in touch.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 12:37
Thank you again, Liz.
Liz Richards, CEO, MHEDA 12:38
Thank you.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 12:40
We've been talking to Liz Richards, the soon-to-be-retired CEO of MHEDA, the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association. Now let's take a look at some of the other supply chain news from the week. Ben, it's been a challenging year for both shippers and their carriers, but you wrote this week that they should not have relationships that are in opposition to each other, nor have competing goals. What do you mean by this?
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 13:05
That's exactly right. We saw a report from McKinsey, the consulting firm, and they said that turbulent market forces are compelling companies to transform their logistics functions with the goals of greater flexibility, predictability, efficiency, and resilience. That part wasn't a big surprise. We've been covering a lot of those those efforts in recent years. But the report also found, as you mentioned, that the pain points for shippers and logistics providers are actually similar. So, that part implies that instead of being, like in an arms race with competing goals, shippers and providers actually could have some opportunities to address shared challenges, particularly wherever they can coordinate or complement each other's capabilities. For example, respondents in McKinsey's industry survey, part of the report said that their top pain points for transportation were cost management, driver management and productivity improvement. And then the top pain points for warehousing were labor management, productivity improvement, and performance management. As you can tell a lot of the same terminology and there are a lot of overlap between those two lists.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 14:19
Ben, there is an encouraging outlook there. Did McKinsey say how they can work together to the benefit of both groups?
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 14:26
Well, there's good news and bad news on that. The good news is that the report said both shippers and logistics providers have sustained or grown their technology investments since 2020. We shouldn't take that for granted in a period that has spanned challenges like the pandemic and inflation and interest rates and all this stuff. But even with money to invest, adopting new technology can be a challenge. The technology landscape has become increasingly complex, so companies face questions about not only what value they expect from the particular technology, but also particularly how that technology will fit into their existing landscape. So whenever they add something new, it has to fit in with their day-to-day operating models and their underlying logistics processes. So against that backdrop, McKinsey's researchers said that shippers and providers, they have to balance two goals: not only selecting the right use cases, but also ensuring that their numerous transportation and warehousing solutions integrate together. That's particularly tough, because the report pointed out that about a third — 34% — of logistics providers now have as many as eight or nine different technology solutions in their transportation technology stacks alone, and a little more than a third have five or more solutions in their warehousing operations. So, that's a whole lot of moving parts, and it makes it even more challenging when you try to add one more.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 15:52
Yeah, well, it does sound very complicated to solve, but of course, once they recognize a problem, I know we have a lot of smart people in this industry that can begin to tackle them.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 16:00
And it'll be neat to watch it happen.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 16:03
Thanks, Ben.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 16:04
Glad to.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 16:05
And Victoria, you have an upcoming story for our December issue of DC Velocity that focuses on what some people are calling as a model of high-tech material handling systems and green energy solutions. Can you give us a bit of a sneak peek at your story?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 16:21
Absolutely, happy to. Yeah, so I've wrote about a new DHL Express hub that opened in Atlanta, actually over the summer. It's at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and DHL claims it's the most eco-friendly hub and it's Americas network. It also happens to be a showplace of automation, which made it an interesting facility for us to learn more about. Essentially, the hub has this eco-centric design that incorporates some of sort of the latest and greatest automated material handling technologies right alongside green energy solutions. DHL says the new hub will serve as a model of innovation for its newly constructed facilities moving forward. The company has a stated goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, so all new developments go through a detailed assessment to identify how they can contribute to that carbon neutrality goal. DHL invested $84 and a half million in this particular facility, and it spans 100,000 square feet, and it provides direct connections between 19 southeastern U.S. cities, as well as other DHL hubs around the world.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 17:28
Victoria, what kind of automation is in that facility, and what are some of the energy-saving features that you wrote about?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 17:35
Well, as I said, it is a technology showplace and, full disclosure, I've not visited the facility, but I did get some details from DHL representatives about it, and they also have a really good video that shows how everything works. DHL partnered with a few different material handling specialists to create this fully automated operation. In a nutshell, it features 10 automatic bulk trailer unloaders; a network of high-tech sorter and conveyor solutions; and X-ray machines and multiscan tunnels for package scanning. At full capacity, it can sort up to 20,000 pieces per hour, or nearly 100,000 pieces per day. As for the green aspects, those are impressive as well. The hub generates up to 50% of the energy consumed on site via 65,000 square feet of rooftop solar panels, ad the company says that will prevent the release of 380 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, so, a pretty big number. The rest of the energy consumed on site comes from renewable sources that are purchased through renewable energy certificates, or RECs. The hub incorporates a bunch of other eco-friendly features: things like LED lighting, electric forklifts, dock seals, and rapid-rise doors, all of which help conserve energy throughout the building. Also, sensors monitor all of the material handling equipment to track and maintain efficiency — so, quite a lot going on. DHL couldn't provide any details on productivity improvements from all that automation just yet, but they said the anticipated energy savings alone are making a big difference in moving toward the company's net-zero goals. So, yet another example of how the logistics industry is focusing on the environment.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 19:17
That looks like a pretty cool facility, and we look forward to reading the full story in the December issue, which of course should be hitting our readers' desks pretty soon, and they can also find it online now.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 19:29
That's right.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 19:30
Thanks, Victoria.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 19:32
You're welcome.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 19:32
We encourage listeners to go to DCVelocity.com for more on these and other supply chain stories. Also check out the podcast Notes section for some direct links to read more about the topics that we discussed today.
We'd like to thank Liz Richards of MHEDA for being our guest. We welcome your comments on this topic and our other stories. You can email us at podcast@dcvelocity.com.
We also encourage you to subscribe to Logistics Matters at your favorite podcast platform. Our new episodes are uploaded on Fridays.
Speaking of subscribing, check out our sister podcast series Supply Chain in the Fast Lane, coproduced by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and Supply Chain Quarterly. Search for "Supply Chain in the Fast Lane" wherever you get your podcasts.
And a reminder that Logistics Matters is sponsored by Hyster. With strength, durability, and their continual focus on safety, Hyster is powering your possibilities. For more information, visit Hyster.com.
We'll be back again next week with another edition of Logistics Matters. Be sure to join us. Until then, enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend and have a great week following.
Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:
- McKinsey: Shippers and logistics providers share common pain points
- Automation meets sustainability in Atlanta
- Visit Supply Chain Quarterly
- Listen to CSCMP and Supply Chain Quarterly's Supply Chain in the Fast Lane podcast
- Listen to Supply Chain Quarterly's Top 10 Supply Chain Threats podcast
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