Project management is more or less the art of making things happen, or moving a project forward to completion. Sounds simple enough, right? We all wish that were the case anyway! Even simple projects can quickly turn complex with delays in supplier shipments, installing a system during a customer’s operating hours, sourcing miscellaneous hardware in an unfamiliar area, handling issues with working dynamics between multiple sub-contractors, etc.

I have been involved in multiple projects, which I felt would go smoothly, only to quickly find out that the proverbial “Murphy” decided to step in, mix things up, and make things more interesting. It’s during times like these that one’s project management skills are put to the test.

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I often joke with my wife about what it would look like if I took my two passions in life–designing and building warehouse automation systems and cooking–and combined them into one enterprise, an automation café. All the food would be delivered automatically, and the wait staff would be in the form of some fun type of HMI (Human Machine Interface) screen.

Over the years, I have had fun dreaming of how something like this might look and function. Would the conveyors used to deliver the food be placed over top of the tables or come up from under the floor? I like to envision the waiter on the HMI screen being a Max Headroom-like character, but perhaps the entire restaurant would be run by robots delivering food like Rosie in the Jetsons.

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End users… can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. We love our customers. They keep us in business. More importantly, they make the world go round. BUT, we do need to talk.

In this day and age, it’s absolutely crucial to develop a sound request for proposal, or RFP. There are several key advantages to taking the time and effort to do so, but this isn’t a how-to on on RFPs. Instead, it is key information that you should think about as it relates to your projects.

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Your website is your company’s face. It is most likely the first place a new customer will learn about you. It represents who you are, what you do, where you are located, when you were founded and why you are better than everyone else. You need to feed it with content.

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Imagine a warehouse in which rows of full pallets could be stacked up to 165 feet in the air, one on top of another, on top of another. Then, with the ease and grace of a high quality machine, one of those pallets–weighing as much as 6,600 lbs–is gently lifted from its storage space and quickly brought to a worker at ground level.

This is the amazing world of automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS). These automated systems have been perfected through the use of Swisslog stacker cranes. These cranes swiftly transfer pallets, containers, and even cars from storage slots within the ASRS to a pickup station outside the system…

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