Food & Beverage: Automation for a changing landscape
Colman Roche is Vice President, E-Commerce/Retail, Swisslog Americas. He brings more than 20 years of supply chain and material handling industry experience to the role, having served in senior leadership roles for material handling systems suppliers as well as consulting and systems integration firms.
His vast experience includes designing machines, processes and systems and implementing ASRS, order fulfillment and manufacturing systems in retail, hospital, governmental, semi-conductor and pharmaceutical sectors.
Colman earned his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland, his MBA from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey – Newark, and completed the Program for Leadership Development at the Harvard Business School.
There has been quite a lot of talk and plenty written in recent years about urban fulfillment centers and micro fulfillment centers (UFCs and MFCs). That is, small, automated, and customer-proximate inventories that are increasingly located in retail stores and shopping centers–often in cities and areas with relatively high population density and throughput. The aim is to reduce delivery times, take advantage of existing premises and staff, and offer customers an increased level of service and a better shopping experience.