Dear friends and valued partners,
It’s hard to believe 2018 is coming to a close. As I have gotten older I think time moves faster than ever before. The more I think about it, the world has truly accelerated. With the advent of instant communication and social media, the global economy and the Amazon effect, everyone expects and even demands that products and services be available around the clock and delivery be near instant. This dynamic is placing demands on supply chains like never before. If we at MD Logistics are going to continue to enjoy the success and growth we have come to expect, we must evolve with the demands this new economy is placing on us.
How do we do that in 2019 and beyond? We must maintain a very open and dynamic dialog with our clients and stay hyper focused on their immediate and long term goals. We have to be a seamless extension of their value chain and assure we are fully versed in their sales channels and product offerings at the earliest possible point. This is the only way we can be prepared to meet the needs of the demand chain and perform to customer and consumer expectations. We also need to be creative and consult with our clients on the best opportunities to bring efficiency to the end to end process. In most cases, we cannot do this alone. We must have open and honest collaboration to succeed.
We must embrace technology and the information we have available to us. We no longer manage supply chains, we now manage demand chains. We must use all the intelligence at our disposal to predict demand and execute to that level. We must continue to invest in the best in class technology at our disposal to maintain our customer focused perspective and advantage.
We must advance automation whenever possible and assure we are bringing all the efficiency we can. In today’s economy, we can no longer rely on an endless supply of ready labor. We must look to supplement our processes with best in class automation where it brings efficiency and return on investment. Our customers and their customers expect this in order for us to compete in this new, instant economy.
Last and more important we must invest in our people. They are still the most important asset we have. We must invest in their training and provide them with the tools they need to flourish in this new high demand environment. We cannot just teach them what to do. We must also teach them why. We need our team to embrace critical thinking and to be the change agents that our business will demand both now and well into the future. At the same time, we must execute flawlessly every day. As we change we must always be in control of the day to day demands of our customers. Fortunately, we are blessed with a great team of people who can rise to this challenge.
2018 has been another great year for MD Logistics. We continue to experience double digit growth while maintaining a quality of service our customers have come to expect from us. We are currently at peak capacity, therefore we will be adding 180,000 square feet of capacity at the first of the year, by opening our fourth facility here in Plainfield. This expansion, along with the focus on customers, technology, automation and people, has us well positioned to continue to evolve and be prepared to meet the challenges our new world poses. We are thankful for all of the opportunities our customers have provided us and look forward to the new year to come.
-Mark Sell, President & CEO, MD Logistics
