MODEX 2018: The Post-Show Post (i.e. Recap)
By Alex Batty, MHI Marketing Communications Coordinator |@mhi_alex
All right y’all.
We’re now officially one week past the end of MODEX 2018, so it’s time for the big daddy recap. ‘Twil be a long post, but a lot happened!
So.
We saw lots and lots of movement toward fully embracing digital supply chain. Many exhibitors were featuring solutions like automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, augmented reality, the Internet of Things and data analytics.
The digital trend was also very evident in the seminars and keynotes. Monday’s keynote, Juan Perez, spoke on UPS’s efforts to anticipate tomorrow’s supply chain challenges by embracing disruptive, digital innovation.
Then on Tuesday Andrew McAfee echoed those sentiments in his keynote on harnessing our digital future. McAfee also spoke on hippos and nerds.
Not those kind of hippos. HPPO stands for highest paid person’s opinion, and McAfee cautioned against using the HPPO’s “gut feeling” as the overriding factor in making business decisions. HPPOs need to trust the ”nerds,” the folks who have data to back up their plans, or it can cause serious problems for the company.
On Wednesday morning, we got all in with NextGen digital supply chain with the keynote on the 2018 Annual Industry Report. George Prest, MHI CEO, and Scott Sopher, principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP’s Supply Chain practice, released the findings of The 2018 MHI Annual Industry Report: Overcoming Barriers to NextGen Supply Chain Innovation during a panel discussion with 10 industry thought leaders. You can actually get the report now at mhi.org/publications/report (shameless self-plug: I also made some pretty sweet graphics for the report, if I do say so myself, so you should definitely go look at them.)
The Monday afternoon keynote featured Mike Rowe who delighted the audience with a funny and poignant account of dirty jobs and why they matter to our industry and to the overall economy. There… may or may not have been a joke about AI being artificial insemination, not intelligence… okay, there 100% was. It was a funny joke 🙂
MODEX Industry Night with comedian Jim Gaffigan was an exciting and entertaining networking event with over 1,500 attendees and exhibitors in attendance. $45,000 in proceeds from this event was donated to the Material Handling Education Foundation. Gaffigan was really funny and had a couple of us who are colonoscopy veterans in tears (… the truth hurts, but is so funny).
During Industry Night, we also announced the winners of several awards, including the 2018 MHI Innovation Awards. The MHI Innovation Awards serve to educate and provide valuable insights on the latest manufacturing and supply chain innovative products and services. The winners were:
Best New Product
The Raymond Corp. for Raymond Virtual Reality Simulator
Best Innovation of an Existing Product
ELOKON GmbH for ELOshield – Proximity Detection System
Best IT Innovation
Yard Management Solutions for Eagle Eye Yard Management Software
In addition to the MHI Innovation Awards, the MHI Young Professionals Network (YPN) honored recipients with its annual awards. James J. Radous III from UniCarriers Americas was awarded the 2018 MHI YPN Mentor Award and Brian C. Neuwirth from UNEX Manufacturing was awarded the 2018 MHI YPN Outstanding Young Professionals Award.
On top of all that, we had over 30,000 attendees (!!!) and our super mega awesome exhibitors were killing it. There were food trucks, and a baseball truck, and giveaways, and chainsaws, and superheroes, and SO MUCH!
Phew.
We’re still recovering from the awesome. MODEX hangover is real, y’all. But always worth it.
