If you've been keeping up with the remodel of Radwell International's new headquarters building in Willingboro, NJ, then you know about the installation of our Swisslog Autostore. To read more about this revolutionary system, give Todd Radwell's blog post a read here. It was truly fascinating to watch the system being built from the ground up.
In many instances, large companies talk (and talk and talk) about the products and services they can provide for their customers. Millions of dollars are spent each year on marketing efforts designed to tell customers about all the wonderful products and services that are available to them as consumers. Often the talk can be much more appealing than the reality. I’m not going to lie: many times within our marketing at Radwell, we do share our many capabilities with our customers. However, our reality is something we are very focused on every day, in every department within our organization. The best way to discuss what Radwell International is really capable of is by sharing some stories straight from the field. We’ve decided to do just that,
starting with a great hero story straight from Robert Tiedeken, our Branch Manager in Radwell-Indiana. Rob has been with Radwell International for 10 years this April. He was a career IT professional and started with Radwell as a Systems Administrator. He was promoted to IT Operations Manager and in this role, he worked on design and buildouts for Radwell-UK, Radwell-Canada, Radwell-Texas and Radwell-Indiana. An unexpected opportunity arose for him when he was asked to take on the challenge of being a Branch Manager in Franklin, Indiana upon it’s completion. He took on the challenge and has never looked back. Rob is a great leader for Radwell-Indiana and does a great job building his team and creating a sense of community both with his employees as well as his clients.
It’s been 51 years since the birth of the Programmable Logic Controller. We look back at the history of the PLC and how replacing hard wired relay systems changed the world of manufacturing.
Dick Morley, 1968
It was the year 1964 when a young cunning engineer, Dick Morley, was unemployed, had a new baby, a mortgage to pay and only $1,000 in the bank. Morley had previously worked a desk job designing atomic bombs, aeroplanes and communication systems performing the duties he was instructed to do. Morley did not enjoy his job, and, at that time, he had no plans in the pipeline to create such an influential piece of automated equipment. After finding his passion for skiing, Morely quit his job and focused on his hobby which eventually lead him to engineering ideas.
Morley eventually opened up his own professional consulting firm with friend Geogre Schwenk under the name ‘Bedford Associates’’ located in Bedford, Massachusetts, USA. Morley and Schwenk worked with local machine tool firms to help them evolve into the new, solid-state manufacturing sphere. Unfortunately, as his firm progressed, he began to notice that each project he worked on was practically the same; the manufacturing industry was using similar minicomputers and Morley found himself bored.
With his creativity and his engineering motive to ‘make things work’, Morley started to wonder if he could invent a controller which could automate industrial process with multiple input/output arrangements in real time. This would alternately replace the likes of hard wired relay control systems.
