Corrugated Pie Filling

Posted by Tom Andel

I had an interesting series of conversations with principals of the Material Handling Industry of America (www.MHIA.org) last week when attending NA2006, the association’s biennial trade show held at Cleveland’s I-X Center. The topic was the huge increase in the market valuation depicted in MHIA’s 2006-2007 annual report. $125 billion was the figure quoted. I can remember only a couple years ago when the material handling piechart was $60 billion big. What kind of new filling was baked into this year’s pie?

“The old Standard Industry Classification [SIC] program was woefully inefficient as a market research tool,” explains John Nofsinger, MHIA ceo. “Third party logistics is now included, as is the corrugated associated with getting goods through the supply chain and unitizing loads. We now have a better handle for the proportion of that industry represented by those activities as opposed to consumer packaging and the like.”

In MHIA’s new market valuation, corrugated falls under “pallets, containers and packaging,” which together represent a third of the industry’s new pie. Nofsinger says MHIA will reach out to other industrial organizations to give people a better understanding of what material handling is all about.

He’s a man of his word. He joined Triad Packaging’s President Lee Shillito and our staff for dinner after his long day of running around the I-X Center visiting exhibitors and hosting conferences. As last year’s chairman of the AICC, Lee was open to finding ways these two associations could work together to bring additional value to their members. John also believes this is important.

“We have to be more involved with other industries and groups for our processes to work well,” he says. “It can’t be just corrugated folks making corrugated and just us behind the [bar code or RFID] tag, we need to understand the unique needs of each other.”

Judging by the NA2006 exhibits I saw, I think corrugated and folding carton converters have a lot to contribute to the material handling world, not just as customers. You and your products help solve logistics challenges too.

Tell me if you agree. Should paperboard packaging converters play a more direct role in the growth and evolution of the material handling industry? Would you be interested in offering John Nofsinger a piece of your mind about your piece of his pie? Blog us your thoughts and we’ll make sure he hears you.