FACILITY PLANNING
		Selecting a site for your fulfillment or distribution center can be tricky. In addition, facility layout, configuration, and process and equipment selection bring their share of challenges. Take advantage of the expert advice offered in these articles.

Cabin Fever THE WOOLLY SHEEP is no mammoth retailer, but from its little corner of Weed, CA, an historic lumber town (pop. 3,100) on the western slopes of Mt. Shasta,... Keep a Cool Head CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, Walt Disney was not put in deep-freeze postmortem but planted in the soil like nearly everyone else. Disney died in 1966,... Golden Age of Fulfillment DIRECT-TO-CUSTOMER FULFILLMENT has come a long way in the last decade. Or has it? Some of the clearest clues to the history of the industry lie in the... What's the Perfect Warehouse Like? Answers From an Expert Warehouses come in all shapes and sizes, but the best ones have certain factors in common. A new study conducted by logistics guru Dr. Ed Frazelle and... DIS-connected Regardless of how organized you attempt to be, it can still feel as though your inventory moves from one black hole to another because of the difficulty... ‘Sneaker Solution’ IN THE FIERCELY COMPETITIVE, uncertain world of Internet liquidation, Overstock.com uses what COO James Hyde calls the “sneaker solution”... Three Ways to Go From Bricks to Clicks It's the rare merchant these days who doesn't sell through multiple channels, but the process of coordinating those channels — particularly off-line... Cajun Country WHILE ANDOUILLE SAUSAGE, boudin balls, and authentic Zydeco music may be abundantly available in New Orleans, if you Jones for such stuff in Winnipeg... Storehouse: Sears, REI Top List of Multichannel Gurus Two merchants with vastly different products have succeeded remarkably well at multichannel operations because of important attributes they have in common,... 5 foolproof Security Steps How much do you care about your company? You may reflexively search for the most diplomatic answer to that question. But when security issues are involved,... Good Move EVERY NOW AND THEN something goes really right, as it did recently when a client of ours performed a highly... Tour de Force Whether your taste runs to scarves based on Frank Lloyd Wright's designs or to Peter Hewitt's ribbon vases,... Whole Nine Yards FANBUZZ INC. WORKS HARD for its money. No mere fulfillment house, the company provides a range of turnkey... IT Budgets to Stay Flat This Year THE UPCOMING YEAR will be far from stellar for IT vendors, according to an AMR Research survey on technology... Sign Language: 6 ways to create effective signage When was the last time you were in a distribution facility that posted attractive and effective signs?... Natural SELECTION The science of site selection is all about making sure you're in the right place at the right time. Selecting...

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March 2004 Editor's Page Keep in Touch The marketing agency Jack Morton Worldwide rather hysterically defines the ideal shopping transaction as a heart-thudding emotional experience for the... Rama Ramaswami, Editorial Director Cover Story Another Roadside Attraction Once upon a time, in the early sixties of the last century, a young fighter pilot named Sam Cutting III came home to Vermont from the U.S. Air Force... BY STEPHEN HARRIS Departments “E” Is for Easy The e-tailing group has published the results of its 6th Annual Mystery Shopping Survey, conducted in the fourth quarter of 2003. Using ten must-have... Barbara Arnn Be Still, My Heart What's a product without passion? If you love it, you'll buy it. At least, that's what marketers would have us believe. The agency Jack Morton Worldwide... Brave New Supermarket THE LAST TIME I SAW something called a Future Store, it was an A&P that had been renovated into what was supposed to be a prototype for A&Ps to come... Jeff Morris Clocking Output THE KEY TO IMPROVING distribution center productivity is to trim the “fat” — too much time spent on each step, excess shipping charges,... Sabrina Horne Del Franco Mailbox I was surprised that everything measured [in a recent study of online retailing] took place on the “buy” and “outbound” side... Jonathan Dampier Newgistics Inc. Merchandise Handling TOM GUTSCHKEPrincipal, Keogh Consulting Indeed, T-shirts don't store or handle like CDs! There are two answers to your question — a short one and... Productivity Measures RICHARD A. ANDREWSPresident, Efulfillmentcanada.com The key in measuring productivity is... Season's Greetings BY ANY STANDARDS, 2003 was a banner year for online retailers. At a time when the rest of the retail business was in a deep funk, holiday e-commerce... Rama Ramaswami Service and Style COMMON WISDOM HAS IT that the 55-plus age group and the Internet are like apples and oranges — they don't mix well. But it's not necessarily so.... D. Douglas Graham Virtual Realpolitik For all the talk about the importance of the Internet in this year's elections, there's been precious little research on just how much influence the... Jeff Morris What's New Where's my Wireless? For an in-depth look at who's buying what gadget, check out “The Technological Elite and Other Users,” a report from... Features Dear Miss Lonelycarts It's not always easy to communicate with your third-party logistics providers. Most of them are more comfortable in front of their computer screens or... BY BENNETT VOYLES Six Steps to Savvy Project Planning I confess to struggling a bit with the best way to make this material useful. Budgeting for material handling equipment is so intimately tied to the... By Ron Hounsell General Use the Circular File! DID YOU KNOW that 80% of papers that are filed are never looked at again? So don't be afraid to trash those memos you've been hoarding. A national Harris... cellpadding=0>