The state of New Jersey accounts for nearly 7% of the nation’s total shipping in terms of cargo volume. Shipping supports 296,000 jobs and $18.3 billion in personal income in the New York-New Jersey region according to an economic impact study conducted for the New York Shipping Association (see report here).
In other words, jobs in the distribution sector mean a lot to the people of New Jersey. And, you can bet they’re good at it. Just check out the video below…
2015 marks the first year of the LogistXGames, although they have been happening all around the country, not just New Jersey.
The games include stacking pallets, packaging fragile goods, box assembly, and a pallet jack relay. The last part however, did not test their quickness, but their efficiency. To finish, participants had to match SKU labels that they put on their assembled boxes and find the boxes. It would have been a lot faster if they put RFID tags on the boxes and just used an RFID reader. But, maybe that would have been considered cheating!
It’s exciting to see warehouse teams get the recognition they deserve. As omni-channel marketing grows, shipping efficiency is becoming more important than ever. This is, of course, good news for the distribution industry. But, maybe next year they can do an RFID scanning competition.