Thank you to Erie News Now reporter Lisa Adams for covering Logistics Plus and our expanding business segments. You can watch a replay of the news segment here or read the online recap on erienewsnow.com.
Thank you to the folks at Camcode for including Logistics Plus in their recent warehouse layout, design, and efficiency blog post by Angela Stringfellow. As part of the post, 23 industry experts were asked the question “What’s the single biggest mistake made when designing a warehouse layout (and how can you avoid it)?” The full article can be viewed online, and the excerpt that includes comments from Patrick Randolph, fulfillment director for Logistics Plus, can be viewed below. Founded in 1979, Camcode® designs and manufactures durable pre-printed bar code labels and customized services for asset tracking applications utilizing automatic identification and data capture.
Through its partnership with Erie Times-News and GoErie.com, Logistics Plus is being featured, once again, in the current issue of the publisher’s Lake Erie Lifestyles magazine. This new segment discusses why it’s important for northwestern PA businesses to sell globally, but buy locally. A reprint of the feature, which is shown below, is also available online at www.goerie.com/lifestyle/lake-erie-lifestyle. You can click the image below to see the larger, online version.
Thank you to the folks at Wonolo (stands for Work. Now. Locally.) for including Logistics Plus in their “Best Ways to Boost Warehouse Productivity” blog post. The most productive warehouses have systems and processes that enable their operations to run like well-oiled machines. But with so many moving parts, fluctuations in demand, increased customer expectations, and other shifting dynamics, boosting productivity in the warehouse setting is often easier said than done. To gain some insight into the productivity-boosting tactics and strategies today’s warehouse operators find most effective, the folks at Wonolo reached out to a panel of warehouse professionals, including LP’s own Patrick Randolph, to ask the question: “What’s the single best way for warehouses to improve productivity?” You can read Patrick’s reply below; or read the full online article here: https://www.wonolo.com/blog/improve-warehouse-productivity/
(Editorial piece published December 7, 2017)
Bold Union Station gamble pays off for Erie
Erie Times News Editorial Board
Erie Insurance, UPMC Hamot, Saint Vincent Hospital and Scott Enterprises have put in motion downtown Erie development plans worth hundreds of millions of dollars, all of it progress to be celebrated.
Not be lost amid that near embarrassment of riches is the foresight and courage of earlier, stalwart pioneers of downtown Erie’s recovery like Logistics Plus founder and CEO Jim Berlin.
As detailed by Erie Times-News reporter Jim Martin, Erie-based Logistics Plus is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the 1927 dedication of Union Station, an Erie landmark and architectural gem that owes its survival in large part to Berlin’s vision.
Berlin in 2003 took a gamble on the once-crumbling property facing Griswold Park at a time when little portended good for that part of downtown.
Amtrak and the YWCA then occupied the historic structure, recognized as the nation’s first art deco rail station. Porter’s Restaurant & Tap Room and Sabella’s operated in an area that had been refurbished.
The rest of the 100,000-square-foot building, though? “A dump,” Berlin told Martin. Animals had taken up residence, as had homeless people.
Berlin saw all that and wanted to buy the rail station anyway and make it home to his own transit-oriented company, which provides transportation and logistics services around the world.
Logistics Plus at that time employed about 30 people in Erie. Its Union Station headquarters now houses 115 workers.
Erie’s original microbrewery, The Brewerie at Union Station, fills the former rail station’s rotunda. Vitality has flowed into the neighborhood as well.
Griswold Park has been spruced up and graced with a new fountain and plantings. Another grand building, the former Griswold Plaza post office that sits across from Union Station, was purchased by Erie lawyer Andrew Sisinni in 2010 and houses tenants.
The Erie Redevelopment Authority’s ambitious plans for the Union Square area, bound by West 12th and West 14th streets, between State and Peach streets, faltered. But market-rate development there may yet be realized by Erie developer Rick Griffith.
Development of Union Station is ongoing. Berlin and Gov. Tom Wolf announced in August that the company plans to expand into a never-used part of Union Station and add 44 new jobs in the process.
Soon, the renewal emanating from Union Station might be answered with new development in the nearby 12th Street corridor, where Erie businessman Peter Zaphiris recently purchased a number of parcels that he said he aims to develop “for the betterment of Erie.”
Berlin’s decision to invest in Union Station exhibited both respect and dedication to Erie’s proud past and abiding faith in its future. And it’s become an anchor of its present.
It figures as an enduring lead for others to follow.