elcome to the Membership Directory issue of IAPD’s Performance Plastics magazine. This issue, along with the Source Guide published later in the year, are the two issues that many members keep handy for reference all year.

The Membership Directory has also been valuable for me over the past 14 years with my involvement on the IAPD Membership Committee. It is an excellent resource for the committee to review and become familiar with our member companies, locations and key contacts. We also review it to brainstorm on any companies that are missing who we feel would benefit from being a member of IAPD.

As you review the members listed in the directory, please think about any companies you do business with, or are familiar with, that are missing and you believe would make good members. You can contact Dave Blackhurst, IAPD Director of Membership and Sales at dblackhurst@iapd.org.

Also within this issue is the “Best Practices” Special Focus section. You’ll find articles about best practices in warehouse communications, social media marketing, artificial intelligence, recycling and more. In the spirit of best practices, I would like to share an initiative that our members participated in during 2014-2015. IAPD formed a Distributors Council and a Manufacturers Council, each made up of industry leaders in each segment. The councils initially worked independently discussing the challenges for their group and sharing ideas.

When the two councils were first brought together at a Leadership and Development Conference, we asked each to brainstorm what the other could be doing to improve working together. The results, as you can imagine, were both interesting and a bit humorous. Both groups pointed out all the things they felt the other was not doing well, and neither was very happy about what they heard.

It was then suggested that each council reflect on what their own member group should be doing as “best practices” when doing business with the other. This really shifted the mindset of all involved and became very productive. The Distributor/Manufacturer Sub-Council was formed with leaders from each council. The sub-council was chaired by Bill Barth, Piedmont Plastics (current IAPD Executive Committee member) and Randy Kirkpatrick, Artek, Inc., and they proceeded to take all the ideas from each council’s self-reflection and discuss what the best overall ideas were for our supply chain and IAPD members.

Evolving from the sub-council were the Competencies and Expectations for Distributors and Manufacturers. Here’s a brief outline of both:

1. Stocking Inventory Commitment
2. Staff Skill Level and Development
3. Organizational Standards
4. New Product Development
5. Joint Marketing
6. Industry, Sales and Market Leadership
7. Open Communication
8. Strategic Supplier Relationships

1. Open Communication
2. Strategic Distributor Relationships
3. Organizational Standards
4. Commitment to Staff Skill and Training with Distribution Partners
5. Distribution Channel

You can find copies of the complete documents with more details included on the next page and on the Membership Benefits page of iapd.org. I encourage you to review them both and reflect on how your company performs with the different benchmarks in each.

Having best practices as the Special Focus for the Membership Directory issue of IAPD’s magazine is very fitting. Being a member of IAPD comes with an expectation of how our companies should conduct ourselves and work with each other. Using the competencies and expectations that were outlined by the councils as a benchmark is one way we can work to achieve that.