Moving and Storage Business News

The News Review:

- Kesa is basking in the seasonal twinkle of flat-screen TVs
- Constant quest for productivity.
- New technology can identify an inanimate object’s inherent…
- With Promising Gains Here, Designer Derek Lam Is Thinking Big, Acting…
- GarageTek offers unique proposition to UK building trade
- Material Management & Distribution Profiled Digital Kanban by…

Kesa is basking in the seasonal twinkle of flat-screen TVs
Telegraph.co.uk – Nov 24, 2006
Got a lock-up I could use to store some gear?” No, not the opening line of a gruff 1960s crime novel, but the kind of conversation that was commonplace in yesteryear, when on the lookout for some extra storage space. Today, with property prices continually on the rise, and the majority of houses extended and loft-converted to the hilt, the demand for more storage continues apace. As a result, the demand for self-storage companies is high, as seen in Safestore being put up for sale by owners Bridgepoint, and Shurgard considering selling its European storage business. Big Yellow Group is one of the companies that has benefited from the demand in self-storage, an increasingly lucrative business. So lucrative in fact that the company announced interim adjusted profit before tax of £7m, well ahead of the market consensus, with same store revenue up 10pc. The reason for all this is simple: demand, driven by increased mobility, planning issues and restricted space. On such trends, the company’s shares have to be worth buying.

Constant quest for productivity.
Free with registration – Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta,… – AccessMyLibrary.com – Nov 24, 2006
But, really, should you care? Well, maybe. If you are a working stiff, this is key to your standard of living. If you own a company, it’s the path to higher profits. And if you care about where the American economy is headed, this is the golden highway to higher growth, the route to real improvement. Without productivity growth, profits can stagnate, paychecks can be piddling, inflation can soar and the economy can sputter. After nearly a decade of solid growth, productivity gains began sliding late last year. “What I take more seriously than one quarter [of zero growth] is that for the past four quarters, productivity growth was just 1.

New technology can identify an inanimate object’s inherent…
Engineering News (press release) – Nov 24, 2006
He adds that the accuracy of measurement is often greater than that of DNA with certainty levels in excess of 10 to the power 100. He comments further that LSA offers an advantage in that it does not add to the manufacturing pro- cess in identifying a unique, item-specific code. The codes are privacy neutral as they involve the storage of a number, as opposed to information about an individual or company. In addition, readability of the code is not affected by damage that the item may incur. The code can still be read despite aging, water damage, abrasive scrubbing or ink. Ingenia has received global recog- nition for its LSA technology by winning this year’s Global Security Challenge. “LSA has the potential to completely transform the way we approach security issues internationally,” comments McGlade.

With Promising Gains Here, Designer Derek Lam Is Thinking Big, Acting…
Washington Post – Nov 24, 2006
The relationship also has given him a presence in Europe without his having to spend a dime. When Lam wanted to create his own line of handbags and shoes — essential elements to building a profitable fashion house — he turned to Tod’s for the licensing deal. "To have that kind of industrial tool as a starting company, you can’t really put a number on that," says Schlottmann. Lam’s privately held company reported net sales of $4. 8 million in 2005, the first year it posted a profit. It has since exceeded that sales number — although the company won’t say by how much. Fifty-five percent of the company’s revenue is derived outside the United States, with its strongest markets in France and Italy… "People were not interested in what I was doing. It was dark and sober and stores were not interested in dealing with a dark collection from a new designer. "Lam and Schlottmann didn’t even recoup the cost of producing the samples, which now sit in storage. Foolhardy or fearless, they tried again. On their second attempt, they worked on stirring up buzz. And they got lucky. Bloomingdale’s fashion director, Stephanie Solomon, "happened to be in our building.

GarageTek offers unique proposition to UK building trade
Easier – Easier (press release) – Nov 24, 2006
The principal aim of the system is to remove garage clutter from the floors, and use the walls to hang specially designed cabinets, shelving and activity racks. The result is a brand new room, creating maximum storage which is dust-free and easy to clean. Today, UK homeowners seek to increase their storage space and renovate their properties, before considering the option of moving house. A garage often accounts for 10% of the overall floor space in the home, and so far it has not featured high on the renovation list. GarageTek has launched in the UK, to bring a new frontier in home design. The company hopes to work with builders to put them at the forefront of this booming market. By working with GarageTek, developers will have the opportunity to reach an area of the home, as yet untouched.

Material Management & Distribution Profiled Digital Kanban by…
24-7PressRelease.com – 24-7PressRelease.com (press release) – Nov 24, 2006
A lean and flexible supply chain structure saves a company from the embarrassment of a wildly inaccurate forecast and the potential for huge sales and profit losses- a problem that the electronics industry still experiences despite years of intense focus on accurate demand and supply planning. While forecasts are still necessary for capacity planning, more intelligent, collaborative methods are being employed to increase visibility down the supply chain. Where electronics companies once relied largely on sales goals or hindsight to generate forecasts, they are now moving toward a demand-driven model that uses more immediate data from sales channels to provide a clearer picture of what customers actually want, and an agile supply chain to execute rapidly when inevitable, sometimes daily, changes in demand occur. A piece of lean manufacturing in the supply chain often includes Kanban- which, loosely translated from Japanese, means ‘card’ or ’sign’. It is a method that uses standard units or lot sizes with a single card attached to each during storage. Kanban is a pull system used at a stock point in which a supply batch is ordered only when a previous batch is withdrawn. Kanban manages finished goods and components where the manufacturer keeps safety stock on hand at all times for each stage in the manufacturing process.