With the announcement this week that Reed Business Information is pulling the plug on
Modern Materials Handling, we are given pause to reflect on the powerful role that
Modern has had over the decades in promoting the use of reusable packaging and pallets.
Modern began back in 1944 as
The Palletizer, a U.S. Navy publication to help educate naval contractors and improve the efficiency of military supply shipments. The magazine was generated by the Navy Materials Handling Materials Handling Laboratory in Hingham, Mass., south of Boston. It was instrumental in some of the earliest promotion of pallets and palletization.
After World War 2,
The Palletizerwas taken to the private sector by Norman Cahners, formally a track star at Harvard and a naval officer at the Laboratory. Read more
here.
