The Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International hosted its Supply Chain Excellence conference in Chicago. This event covered subject matter for individuals with job roles related to operations, supply chain management and purchasing.

The unique aspect of this year's edition of Supply Chain Excellence was the inclusion of three facility tours of non-HVACR industry wholesale distributors located in the Chicago area. These distributors were grocery wholesaler Testa Produce, construction materials wholesaler Parksite and electrical solutions wholesaler ConneXion.

"The tours were an incredibly insightful opportunity to see distribution best practices at distributors from other industries," said HARDI Director of Operations Mike Coughlin. "I got to tag along with the Testa Produce tour group, and it was amazing to see some close similarities – but also vast differences – in the way HARDI members operate as wholesale distributors compared to other industries."

The event speakers gave presentations on a range of warehousing and logistics subjects, such as the American Trucking Association's Bill Sullivan's session on the state of the trucking industry and economist Andrea Duguay's presentation on effective business forecasting.