Ian Hobkirk returns for a second year to speak to Dematic’s 2013 Material Handling and Logistics Conference attendees on distribution center design. He will discuss how to design a distribution center with an unclear picture of future. Many companies are reluctant to invest in complex automation if they feel that it may not be flexible enough to adapt to their changing business needs such as rapid volume growth, SKU proliferation, multi-channel commerce, and rising numbers of non-conveyable SKUs. His tutorial will offer a new generation of tools which have been developed to help address this common predicament with distribution center design.