I am fresh back from Tucson, AZ and the MHI Annual Conference 2025, an outstanding event with a bit of a twist. It was held at the JW Marriott Tucson.
Don’t know the MHI Annual Conference? That’s not surprising, as I will explain in a moment. However, you are likely familiar with the major materials handling-oriented trade shows produced by MHI, ProMat in Chicago in odd numbered years, and MODEX in Atlanta in even years.
MHI, once known as the Material Handling Institute of America, is a trade association representing material handling companies of all sorts, from conveyor companies to fork truck providers to software firms and everything in between.
Gilmore Says.... |
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| I will just say this: the conference was very well run with (mostly) good content, with more than adequate staff support, and high attendance at the sessions. |
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So membership in MHI is at a company level, not at an individual basis, as is the case with say the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP). For the most case, nearly all these companies are vendors of some materials handling-related product or service, not so called “end users” or what MHI increasingly refers to as “practitioners.” More on that in a moment.
So the 800 or so attendees to the annual conference were dominated by representatives of these member companies. And alongside the general keynote and breakout sessions are meetings of MHI’s industry groups, which are special interest groups largely organized by solution/technology type (e.g. robotics, ASRS, and many more), interspersed with general content for all.
These interest groups get much of the work of MHI done.
A few years ago, MHI made a concerted effort to attract more practitioners to this event, through adding more general content and more marketing outreach to non-vendor
audiences.
That strategy didn’t deliver as strongly as hoped, and MHI seemed to pull back a bit on the effort.
But more recently MHI came up with a better plan: get practitioners involved in the industry groups and other MHI activities in an advisory or even participatory capacity. Once you get that, conference attendance will often follow, as was clearly the case this year.
Well played, MHI, well played.
I got back very late Wednesday night and do not have enough time to do my usual full trip report summarizing interesting presentations, but I will have that for you next Friday.
 I will just say this: the conference was very well run with (mostly) good content, with more than adequate staff support, and high attendance at the sessions, capped off on the awards night Wednesday by an illusionist who boggled the mind with his tricks.
And as an aside, the food was outstanding.
So good job on many fronts by the MHI team.
I’ll be back with my more detailed review next week.
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