Capacity reposted this
We’re back from Promat. Here are my notes. 1. This was the biggest Promat we’ve ever seen. It occupied three halls at McCormick Place. 2. Plenty of humanoid robots. They look cool, but they’re not there yet. See video below. 3. Automatic bagging solutions. This is something we were looking for going into Promat. We found five companies doing it. Excited to dig into them. 4. Really cool: IMA Group. They’re an Italian company. Their automated packaging station, E-CO Flex (see photo in comments), can automatically create different boxes sizes at the same time. Most automated box builders allow you to do runs of one size at a time. When you want to run a different size, you have to adjust change parts. This requires millimeter accuracy and… time. It seems the E-CO Flex could unlock some significant efficiencies. 5. Words of wisdom: avoid the convention center food. 6. Quick shoutouts: Peter Gerbitz from Matthews Automation - Thank you for letting me stow my backpack in his corporate booth when I was too exhausted to carry it any further! Erhan Musaoglu - Thank you for the hospitality at the awesome Field Museum reception. Jon Donchey – Great to see you after all of these years. 7. I brought along my son, Tufts freshman, Henry Kaiden, and we encountered other father-son teams: Zsigmond Balla and his two sons along with Ken Beckerman and his. 8. Our team dinner at Il Porcellino was great. It felt like just the place Governor Pritzker would hang out at. And guess who was exiting with a security detail as we were taking our seats? You guessed it! Were you at Promat? What else would you add?
Zsigmond Balla, David Balla, and myself appreciated you and your son taking the time to stop by the Ziglift Material Handling booth. We love working with other family businesses! There was lots of great technology and innovation showcased at ProMat this year. It will be interesting to see the conversations we have in a few years and how Humanoid Robots have evolved from their slow pace.
Great insights here — thanks for letting me tag along!
Great notes here. I do think there were a lot of things that were in the building but are not quite there yet for the masses. It'll be interesting to see how they evolve and reach that point (if they can). The other thing that surprised me and I was not expecting to see or hear about was how the forklift will be evolving. It seems that we will see the forklift become much more than just a means to move material in the next two years. With Gather AI's MHE Vision and some of the things that others are working on like ArcBest with Vaux, I believe the forklift will become a very smart machine whether it is manually operated or automated. I believe this will prove to be fruitful for many as most warehouses have some type of MHE in place that can get these features bolted on at a minimal investment.
Is anyone going to guess who was exiting dinner with a security detail? Was it a Youtuber?
Love this recap, Jeff! I can practically see the wheels turning as you are already thinking about how to bring more automation into your DCs and drive even greater efficiency. That E-CO Flex station sounds like a game-changer—excited to see what innovations you run with next! Keep us posted!
I like how you are always keep up with new ways to support your clients even more effectively!
It was an amazing trip and I’m so happy I was able to attend. Dinner was great with the capacity family. 😊
Hi Jeff... Sounds like you had a good time. Sorry, I miss you there, but... there's always Modex, or I may stop by your office. See you soon.
Automated packaging station, E-CO Flex: