Our Blog

September 8th, 2025

The Questions Almost Everyone Asks - Part 1

By Gary Stokes

Let me start with a brief story. Pendant debuted Revolution Street WXS version 2.0 at ProMat 2022. One of my favorite modules is the sortation module in...

July 3rd, 2025

Revolution Street WXS – Here’s Why We Call it By That Name

By Gary Stokes

Until now, most of our Revolution Street WXS content focused on the WCS layer. In the meantime, the development team worked on adding WES functionality to the...

June 6th, 2025

Revolution Street WXS – Project Execution

By Gary Stokes

The execution of a Revolution Street WXS warehouse automation project has a huge effect on your return on investment. Whenever Pendant works on a project with...

April 29th, 2025

Automating the Automation Part 2

By Gary Stokes

In our last post, we discussed Pendant’s use of a software application we developed called PRO17. We use PRO17 to more create BOMs, spare parts list, FLA...

April 11th, 2025

Automating the Automation

By Gary Stokes

Several years back, Pendant took big steps towards adding software development to our core competencies (that will be the last of the consultant speak for...

December 6th, 2024

Product, Experience, or Both?

By Gary Stokes

We frequently engage new prospects with a bit of Pendant history, followed by a brief discussion of how we intend to be different and worth working with...

November 27th, 2024

Thanksgiving Unblocks Writer’s Block

By Gary Stokes

I mean, you have to be able to come up with something to say at Thanksgiving, right? So I’m thankful for that. We all know the origin story, and we all know...

April 10th, 2024

The Concrete, Every Day Value of Warehouse Software: Part 1

By Gary Stokes

As a company that created and continues to develop, market, and sell warehouse software, Pendant is always working on ways to attract new clients to our...

May 5th, 2023

Taking Time to Speed Up a Project

By Gary Stokes

Today I have a jumble of ideas in my head that I’m going to attempt to congeal into a coherent post. You’ll notice from the Featured Image that I’ve settled on...

April 11th, 2023

Revolution Street WXS and “DIY Configuration” – Can You Do It?

By Gary Stokes

Let’s keep it simple today. Of the countless conversations we’ve had over the years about warehouse software, the overwhelming majority included a user talking...

March 14th, 2023

Pendant Automation Diary: Sciurus-cide in the Panel Shop

By Gary Stokes

Okay, I know that’s a confusing title at best, and a crazy one at worst. But I wanted to lighten it up a bit this week because so far this year, we’ve been all...

March 7th, 2023

ProMat 2023 Teaser – Revolution Street WXS

By Gary Stokes

Warehouse eXcellence, simplified. Pretty clever tag line, right? Well, maybe not. But which would you rather have, a more clever tag line that is, as they say...

February 19th, 2023

What Do You Get from Revolution Street WXS? Part 3

By Gary Stokes

At a very high level, there is only one goal when you choose to invest in warehouse automation, or more specifically warehouse software, and that is to improve...

February 13th, 2023

What Do You Get from Revolution Street WXS? Part 2

By Gary Stokes

In the previous post in this series, we discussed some of the ways we put into practice one of our design principles for the Revolution Street WXS, which is...

January 30th, 2023

What Do You Get from Revolution Street WXS? Part 1

By Gary Stokes

This post is the first in a series in which we will explore the Revolution Street WXS, Version 2.0, in more detail. Before getting into the specifics, an...

January 17th, 2023

Why Use Warehouse Control Software?

By Gary Stokes

We’re getting closer to the big reveal of version 2.0 of the Revolution Street WXS (Warehouse eXcellence System) at ProMat in March. If you haven’t already...

January 8th, 2023

2023 – Here’s How We’re Going to Help You

By Gary Stokes

As I write this we’re already into our 8th day of the new year. If you’re like me, every year time seems to pass faster than ever before. A simple Google...

December 18th, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary – The Week That Was

By Gary Stokes

Pete K. and I made a visit to Dallas this week for his first ever business trip. We arrived at BWI Airport and learned that the departure for our non-stop...

December 11th, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary – Communication Matters

By Gary Stokes

I’m writing this post with NFL football pregame stuff on in the background. One video sequence focused on the importance of communication between players for...

December 4th, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary – Tuesday “Level 10s”

By Gary Stokes

Pendant decided to implement EOS earlier this year. It’s an entire management system that helps your team constructively address all of the critical areas of...

November 27th, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary – Gratitude

By Gary Stokes

“It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” – David Steindl-Rast “Some people are always grumbling because roses have...

November 13th, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary – Hiring Mode and Core Values

By Gary Stokes

Our team interviewed candidates for several positions over the past few weeks, and it got me thinking about core values. Terms like core values, core purpose,...

November 6th, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary – Flat bellies and Round bellies

By Gary Stokes

Chalk it up as an experience from which to learn. Michael and I discovered Friday that wisdom, animal magnetism, boyish good looks, and an abundance of charm...

October 31st, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary: Costume Season

By Gary Stokes

As you can see in the main photo, Pendant celebrated Halloween on Friday with a pot-luck lunch where participants dressed as a bunch of hard-to-decipher...

September 5th, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary – Summer’s End

By Gary Stokes

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date” – W. Shakespeare I write this on Labor Day, 2022. Whether you think of Labor Day as the end of summer, or go by the...

June 26th, 2022

Pendant Automation Diary – Pendant Day

By Gary Stokes

“We enjoy making each other laugh and creating a fun working environment. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We believe that a team that has fun together...

May 30th, 2022

What Can We Learn from Sisyphus and His Task?

By Gary Stokes

Greek myth is rich with tales of how things came to be, and out of these tales come myriad lessons for humankind. Lessons usually illustrate consequences of...

May 5th, 2022

Not What I Used to Be

By Gary Stokes

Mother’s Day 2022 is a few days from now. I was recently thinking about my Mom, who passed about four years ago just shy of 91, after a couple of years of...

September 2nd, 2021

A Different Kind of Challenge

By Gary Stokes

If your office is like ours, every so often someone cooks up a challenge that other team members eagerly take on, only to experience “buyer’s remorse”...

May 31st, 2021

Don’t Mind the Details – At Your Peril

By Gary Stokes

“So I knew something was wrong, ugh. Yeah those brackets that Pendant provided are not for receptacles. They are meant for the field devices that Pendant...

March 20th, 2021

Spring “Blackout” Weekend

By Gary Stokes

This “live” post starts with me eavesdropping on a debate in our Zion Conference Room about who is the best PLC programmer at Pendant, James or Rob. For the...

March 7th, 2021

Where’s James? Episode 13 – Channeling Andre Romelle Young

By Gary Stokes

Ok, we’ll admit right up front that we were reaching for something to blog about this week when James, just by being James, and in this case channeling Andre...

February 28th, 2021

Breakthrough at Egg

By Gary Stokes

“Picture an egg. Day after day, it sits there. No one pays attention to it. No one notices it. Certainly no one takes a picture of it or puts it on the cover...

February 12th, 2021

Here’s a Hedgehog for You

By Gary Stokes

That’s a cute critter in the header photo. But it also represents a powerful business concept, developed by Jim Collins in his classic book, “Good to Great”....

August 20th, 2020

Software That Delivers

By Gary Stokes

WXS stands for “Warehouse Xperience System”. Aptly named for a system designed for user experience. The current capabilities of Pendant Automation’s WXS...

June 19th, 2020

Pendant Automation Diary – What’s in a Team?

By Gary Stokes

In a former life as an executive in the industrial chemical industry, as with any team, our team had a group of leaders with very different personality styles...

January 25th, 2020

We’re On a Mission (and it’s not B2B)

By Gary Stokes

Years ago, in a former life, a relatively new team member tentatively approached me to ask a question about our company mission statement. He shared with me...

January 19th, 2020

The Importance of Milestones

By Gary Stokes

Did you make a New Year’s resolution? It’s the beginning of the third full week in January and chances are you might have already given up your resolution....

January 12th, 2020

Pendant Automation Diary – James Gets a Visitor

By Gary Stokes

Our Business Development Manager, Brittany, sent in a description of a recent visit she made to a job site where James was responsible for the startup and...

December 15th, 2019

A Message for the Season

By Gary Stokes

Most weeks when I sit down to write a new post, the most time-consuming part of the process is choosing a topic. I often spend time browsing for potential...

December 8th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – It’s the Most Ugliest Time of the Year

By Gary Stokes

Last year around this time, Jason hit us with a Griswoldian gem of an ugly Christmas sweater that had its own kind of charm. The Griswold sweater Even if...

December 1st, 2019

A Time to Be Grateful

By Gary Stokes

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero I’m big into gratitude. So big into it, that sometimes I...

November 17th, 2019

Where’s James? Episode 12 – A Little Chilly in the Office

By Gary Stokes

It’s a gamble using an overused pun in your blog post title. In this case we couldn’t resist. If you have ever been to our office, you know that James, when he...

November 3rd, 2019

Automata and Robots – Writer’s Block Musings

By Gary Stokes

automaton noun, plural au·tom·a·tons, au·tom·a·ta [aw-tom–uh-tuh] . Stuck for something to write about today, and thinking about where our business is headed,...

October 18th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – ‘Tis the Season for Rampant Toadyism

By Gary Stokes

The third quarter ended at the end of September. At Pendant, that means it’s time for the quarterly conversation with each team member. The quarterly...

October 13th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – Our Hometown

By Gary Stokes

Yesterday our neighborhood held a community yard sale during the day, followed by a block party and bonfire in the evening. The yard sale experience, as my...

October 6th, 2019

Control System Quotes for Conveyor Handling – 10 Things to Include in Your RFQ Process

By Gary Stokes

Occasionally we like to refresh your memory on how to get timely and accurate conveyor handling control system quotes. Today we present you with a list of 10...

September 29th, 2019

Timpson Training Panels

By Gary Stokes

We’re switching focus for this post away from our usual conveyor handling controls content for a brief overview of Timpson Training Panels. Timpson...

September 20th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – The “Quotidian”

By Gary Stokes

“Quotidian – occurring every day; daily” Each morning, Jason leads our team through a meeting we call “The Quotidian”. It’s a word Rob introduced to us earlier...

September 14th, 2019

24VDC Controls vs 120VAC

By Gary Stokes

Most of the projects we design rely on 24VDC controls. Occasionally our client requests a 120VAC installation. Understanding the pros and cons of each approach...

September 7th, 2019

Conveyor Controls – How It’s Done

By Gary Stokes

You get to the startup phase of your project, and now you’re leaning heavily on the conveyor controls to make it all work. Done well, startup goes quickly and...

September 1st, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – Summer’s End

By Gary Stokes

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date” – William Shakespeare “Summer should get a speeding ticket” – Somebody else Tomorrow is Labor Day, marking the...

August 24th, 2019

Control Panels and Why We Build Them

By Gary Stokes

The title of this post may seem odd. After all, some people may think of Pendant as a control panel shop, as if the control panels are the only product....

August 18th, 2019

Inc 5000 Part 2 – No Cure for Curiosity

By Gary Stokes

Pendant learned this week that we achieved inclusion on Inc magazine’s Inc 5000 list for the second time. See Last Year’s Post We checked in this year at...

August 10th, 2019

Automation Parts Shipping Done Right

By Gary Stokes

We ship automation parts frequently from our panel shop in Havre de Grace, MD, to warehouses, manufacturing facilities, food processors, and more. Some...

July 24th, 2019

How to Think About Contract Change Orders

By Gary Stokes

In Pendant’s first Vlog post, Pendant Founder Rob Ward gives his light-hearted take on the serious business of contract change orders. Enjoy!

July 19th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – Beautiful Swimmers

By Gary Stokes

Like many companies, occasionally we push the stop button and turn off the business to have a little fun. Today is one of those days. Not long after we publish...

July 15th, 2019

Pendant Warehouse Control System Teaser

By Gary Stokes

In a post earlier this year, we gave you a very preliminary peek at the Pendant Warehouse Control System currently under development. Earlier WCS Update It’s...

July 4th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – Yes We Are “Working”

By Gary Stokes

Happy Independence Day to you and yours. We decided this year to celebrate on the 5th to turn it into a 3-day weekend. We are working today. As you can see in...

June 28th, 2019

Where’s James? Episode 11 – Take Your Brother to Work Day

By Gary Stokes

There is a lot going on in our panel shop. Brad and team are hard at work cranking out Timpson Training Unit panels to fulfill orders for multiple clients. TTU...

June 14th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – Rodney or Colleen?

By Gary Stokes

Because we reside in Havre de Grace, Maryland, we are fortunate enough to be surrounded by a lot of wildlife. Our weekly activity includes several “walkabouts”...

June 9th, 2019

Conveyor Merges and Sortation

By Gary Stokes

Rob, James, and I visited a local retail client this week to take a look at their existing slide shoe sorter in operation. The system includes a 7:1 sawtooth...

June 2nd, 2019

How to Win, Repeatedly

By Gary Stokes

A very colorful Baltimore sports commentator, Charlie Eckman, had a favorite phrase he used over and over. After a game won by expert execution of...

May 17th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – The Name Game

By Gary Stokes

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet.” – William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet “Don’t call me Justin!” – Jason...

May 3rd, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – Havre de Grace History

By Gary Stokes

Pendant’s home town, Havre de Grace, Maryland, has an abundance of history for so small a place. Today, May 3, is the anniversary of the attack by British...

April 28th, 2019

Where’s James? Episode 10 – Three Places at Once

By Gary Stokes

We haven’t written about James in a while. This is one of those times where he’s in demand, needing to be in three places at once. Detroit lays claim to him at...

April 13th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – The Promenade

By Gary Stokes

Spring is here and this week it started to prove itself, at least for a few days. The Pendant team took advantage of the fine weather on Wednesday, at Matt’s...

April 6th, 2019

Ecommerce – Are You Keeping Up?

By Gary Stokes

We spend a lot of time in ecommerce fulfillment centers, working on conveyor handling control systems. As a result, we’re interested in observing trends and...

March 31st, 2019

Client Bill of Rights

By Gary Stokes

Yes, the idea of a Client Bill of Rights has been done before. But we think about these kinds of things a lot at Pendant to make sure we are bringing something...

March 22nd, 2019

Pendant Team Member Profile – Brad “Shmedley” Hoffman

By Gary Stokes

Every team needs someone to lighten things up from time to time and be a reliable source of laughs. You have the best of both worlds when you have a team...

March 16th, 2019

Field Device Count Considerations

By Gary Stokes

As a control systems integrator focusing on the conveyor handling segment, every Pendant project requires a cost-effective field device count. In today’s post,...

March 10th, 2019

Focus on Systems

By Gary Stokes

The team at Pendant works constantly on building systems. We know the emphasis is strong enough when team members make jokes about how often we mention systems...

March 3rd, 2019

Electrical Installation and Control System Design

By Gary Stokes

Clients often ask Pendant to quote electrical installation as part of an overall control system proposal. The electrical installation scope usually includes...

February 18th, 2019

Warehouse Control System Update

By Gary Stokes

Sounds exciting, right? Pendant is rolling out a new Warehouse Control System (WCS) later this year. Excitement is what we’re going for. Key Principles We’re...

January 18th, 2019

Automation Projects and Simplicity

By Gary Stokes

Steve Jobs Edsger Dijkstra We recently read Automation World’s “Automation Project Survival Guide”. Find it here One of the tips for project managers reads as...

January 11th, 2019

Pendant Automation Diary – The Year That Was

By Gary Stokes

2018 Look Back – a Year in Industrial Automation What to say about 2018, Pendant’s 13th year in industrial automation? Lots, actually. Here’s a brief summary....

December 17th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Winter Solstice Thoughts

By Gary Stokes

If you’re a meteorologist, it’s already winter in the Northern Hemisphere. But if you’re an astronomer, winter will begin this Friday at exactly 5:23 pm here...

December 7th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – December Musings

By Gary Stokes

It Starts The first week in December is already past. The weirdness of December has begun. December has a unique tension to it. There’s the madness of having a...

November 21st, 2018

Busy Controls Engineers

By Gary Stokes

Controls Engineer Joke A controls engineer crossed a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful...

November 16th, 2018

Thanskgiving Thoughts

By Gary Stokes

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” – Alphonse Karr There is always something you can complain about if...

November 9th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – It’s Friday!

By Gary Stokes

News for this Week We welcomed Brad Hoffman back into the fold this week. It’s Brad’s head that looks like it is growing out of the bride’s left hip in the...

November 8th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Startup and Commissioning Skills

By Gary Stokes

Three Key Startup and Commissioning Skills I visited a project site last week where Pendant is in the startup and commissioning phase. The project is a sizable...

October 26th, 2018

Warehouse Automation Projects

By Gary Stokes

Warehouse Automation What does the term “warehouse automation” mean to you? It can have a lot of meanings, but at the big picture level it means using machines...

October 19th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary: Writer’s Block Friday – Monkeying Around

By Gary Stokes

I could have used these guys today. If you don’t get the reference, it’s an exercise in probability. Someone once suggested that if you had an infinite number...

October 12th, 2018

Control Systems Projects – Versatility and Agility Pay Off

By Gary Stokes

Control Systems Projects and Versatility In an earlier post, Cross Training, we shared a view of Pendant’s versatility in executing control systems projects....

September 30th, 2018

Meet Our New Project Manager

By Gary Stokes

Since our new Project Manager, Jason Usilton (pronounced with a short “u”), has been with Pendant for a few weeks now without doing any damage, we figure it’s...

September 21st, 2018

Where’s James? Episode 9: Startup

By Gary Stokes

James went somewhere a little while ago. We hear that he is on a startup out West. We hear that he is doing well. But we haven’t seen him for a while, and it...

September 14th, 2018

Startup and Commissioning – What to Expect

By Gary Stokes

Startup and Commissioning – It’s a Process Let’s be honest at the start – we have a vested interest in creating this blog post. The startup and commissioning...

August 31st, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – A Summer in Controls

By Gary Stokes

The dog days of summer are drawing to a close as the controls team at Pendant approaches the Labor Day break. As kids, summer seemed eternal, and Labor Day...

August 24th, 2018

What’s in a Controls Quote?

By Gary Stokes

Here’s How to Get a Useful Controls Quote How often have you accepted a controls quote without a lot of detail because you have major time constraints? How...

August 17th, 2018

Inc 5000 – the First Time

By Gary Stokes

Growing onto the Inc 5000 We learned this week that Pendant Automation made the Inc 5000 list for 2018 for the first time. You can see the Pendant profile...

August 10th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Persistence

By Gary Stokes

“I’ll say this; you are persistent.” “Kudos to Brittany. She’s been very persistent.” “Brittany has been very patient in trying to reach me. Persistence is a...

August 3rd, 2018

Control Panel Shipping the Right Way

By Gary Stokes

Do It Right or Suffer the Consequences Pendant shipped two large control panels yesterday, heading for Las Vegas. The project team worked diligently to create...

July 24th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Why Cross Training?

By Gary Stokes

What is cross training? Google “cross training” and you get about 650 million results, most of them related to exercise activities. Entrepreneur defines cross...

July 13th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Friday Musings

By Gary Stokes

Renovations, Paraskevidekatriaphobia, Pendant Day, and New Additions Some random musings and news from Pendant Automation on a steamy morning in Havre de...

July 6th, 2018

Growth and Its Causes Part 2 – Aiming High

By Gary Stokes

Thoughts on Growth and Its Causes Part 2 – Aiming High Publicly traded companies often face the wrath of Wall Street analysts for two things – aiming too high...

June 29th, 2018

Growth and Its Causes Part 1 – Learning

By Gary Stokes

Thoughts on Growth and Its Causes Part 1 – Learning Pendant Automation is closing an excellent first half of 2018, a period of rapid growth, following several...

June 12th, 2018

Panel Shop Transition Underway

By Gary Stokes

Pendant has outgrown its existing panel shop and is in the process of opening a substantially larger panel shop next door to Pendant’s headquarters in Havre de...

May 11th, 2018

Where’s James? Scan Tunnel Test Video

By Gary Stokes

Freezer Scan Tunnel Test James is in a deep freeze this week. Yesterday he sent us a brief video of a scan tunnel test he performed. When you watch the video,...

May 4th, 2018

Control Panel Shop Expansion and Other Fun Stuff

By Gary Stokes

Pendant control panel shop to expand (and stuff besides the control panel shop) Here’s a summary of some interesting (well, we think they’re interesting)...

May 1st, 2018

More Than Just a Control Panel Builder

By Gary Stokes

Control Panel Builder vs Control Systems Integrator You may be tempted at times to think of a company that produces control systems as a control panel builder....

April 20th, 2018

PLC Control for Manufacturing

By Gary Stokes

The Debate A Google search comparing PLC/SCADA systems to a DCS approach yields over 500,000 results. PLC vs DCS Google search Many of the articles in this...

April 13th, 2018

MODEX 2018 Musings

By Gary Stokes

This year Pendant sent three team members to MODEX, the supply chain conference put on by the Material Handling Institute (MHI) http://www.mhi.org/ in Atlanta....

April 6th, 2018

Control System Information at Your Fingertips

By PendantAutomation2017

Easy Access to Control System Information This is the second of two posts, this one focusing on the entire control system. This is how Pendant makes your life...

March 29th, 2018

Field Device Information at Your Fingertips

By Gary Stokes

Easy Access to Field Device Information This is the first of two posts, this one focusing on the field device. This is how Pendant makes your life easier when...

March 29th, 2018

Where’s James – Episode 8

By Gary Stokes

Where’s James? At the Shelf o’Tutelage It’s been a while since we wrote a “Where’s James” post. We’re thinking that James was getting impatient, and so he gave...

March 23rd, 2018

Project Management – Because We Can?

By Gary Stokes

We Can – But Should We? Controls and automation “people” are notoriously curious, especially about whizbang new technology. This clip from “The Big Bang...

March 16th, 2018

Thoughts on Control Panel Design

By Gary Stokes

When is the Control Panel Design Complete? We read an article about control panel design the other day in Control Design magazine. You can read it here: We...

March 9th, 2018

How We Do Business – Part 5: Loyalty

By Gary Stokes

How We Do Business – Part 5 We will be loyal This is the last post in a series introducing you to five principles that describe how we do business at Pendant...

March 2nd, 2018

How We Do Business – Part 4: Responsiveness

By Gary Stokes

How We Do Business – Part 4 We will respond This is part of a series introducing you to five principles that describe how we do business at Pendant Automation....

February 28th, 2018

What’s a Timpson?

By Gary Stokes

What’s a Timpson? Train with live voltage We recently shared with a conveyor handling client some details about the industry segments we will be serving in...

February 23rd, 2018

How We Do Business – Part 3: Profitability

By Gary Stokes

How We Do Business – Part 3 We Aim to Be Profitable This is the third in a series introducing you to five principles that describe how we do business at...

February 16th, 2018

How We Do Business – Part 2: Accountability

By Gary Stokes

How We Do Business – Part 2 We Own Our Mistakes This is the second in a series introducing you to five principles that describe how we do business at Pendant....

February 9th, 2018

How We Do Business – Part 1: Fairness and Respect

By Gary Stokes

How We Do Business – Part 1 Fairness and Respect We’re about to launch a revamped website, with a more modern look and feel. One section of the new website is...

February 2nd, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 9

By Gary Stokes

Be the Duck “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” People often misattribute this quote to Mark Twain. Blaise Pascal, a...

January 26th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 8

By Gary Stokes

January Musings It’s our last post for the first month of 2018 (already). It was an interesting January, with plenty of highlights (and lowlights): The month...

January 19th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 7; Project Management Post-Mortems

By Gary Stokes

Your Project Management Post-Mortem Will Be Less Painful If . . . Effective project management processes include an effective “post-mortem” review of the...

January 12th, 2018

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 6: Learn Some More

By Gary Stokes

Starting ’em Young How do you take a company that starts out as a small electrical contracting business and grow it into a substantially larger Control Systems...

December 21st, 2017

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 5: Pendant Team Gearing Up

By Gary Stokes

Winding Down? Nope, We’re Gearing Up. The end of 2017 is approaching fast. A time of year for wrapping things up, winding down, calling it a year, dropping the...

December 8th, 2017

Writer’s Block Friday

By Gary Stokes

Sometimes Automation Works Against You… Automation is wonderful. For example, it’s great that we have things like automated doors which allow us to enter and...

November 21st, 2017

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 4

By Gary Stokes

The Shelf o’Tutelage Mistakes. They’re frustrating, aggravating, and disappointing, right? Especially when someone else is responsible. We live in an imperfect...

November 15th, 2017

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 3

By Gary Stokes

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving, right around the corner. How did it get here so fast? The nature of Pendant’s business is that it’s a little “lumpy”. As a mainly...

November 10th, 2017

Where’s James – Episode 7

By Gary Stokes

Christmas Comes Early for James We are overdue for a check-in with James, Pendant’s versatile and well-traveled controls engineer, who last time we saw him was...

October 27th, 2017

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 2

By Gary Stokes

It’s unusual for the office to be as quiet as it is today. But there is an awful lot going on. One of the nice things about being a small business (as defined...

October 19th, 2017

Pendant Automation Diary – Part 1

By Gary Stokes

“What are we doing here today?” This question was on the minds of our team members this morning as we began a meeting to discuss Pendant’s core values. Yuck,...

October 6th, 2017

Tried and True? Or Try Something New?

By Gary Stokes

Part of the problem of course is the whole issue of convincing the client that there is a better solution. One thing is for sure – if you’re not convinced that...

September 27th, 2017

James and the Solar Eclipse

By Gary Stokes

James and the Solar Eclipse We’ve sent James on another startup, this time appropriately in the Sunshine State. James got caught up in the solar eclipse...

September 7th, 2017

The Role of the Warehouse Control System – It’s Changing

By Gary Stokes

It’s Changing – And So Are We… We came across an article about the warehouse control system (WCS) the other day that was relevant to where our thoughts are at...

August 22nd, 2017

Where’s Jame’s – Episode 6

By Gary Stokes

At the Beach with James When we last saw James, his head was stuck in a cereal box that had been converted to a solar eclipse viewer while he was on a startup...

July 28th, 2017

Writer’s Block Friday

By Gary Stokes

Writer’s Block Friday – The Robots are Coming! We’re hearing a lot about robots these days. But maybe we’re not quite ready for this…

July 26th, 2017

Death By Change Order – and What You Can Do to Avoid It

By Gary Stokes

Death By Change Order – and What You Can Do to Avoid It New clients of Pendant often express frustration at being nickel and dimed by control systems...

July 19th, 2017

He’s in the HMI Zone Today

By Gary Stokes

He’s in the HMI Zone Today James is showing off his versatility with us today by working on programming of the HMI in a large panel for a Conveyor Handling...

July 14th, 2017

Writer’s Block Friday

By Gary Stokes

For the Road Warriors – Hopefully You’ll Laugh More Than Cry When You See This Many of you (and us too) are road warriors, and it’s Writer’s Block Friday in...

July 12th, 2017

Are You Under Utilizing Your HMI?

By Gary Stokes

Your HMI is Probably Capable of More Than You Use It For There are certain HMI capabilities that are included with just about every panel we produce, such as:...

July 6th, 2017

Is It Really Integration? Here’s How to Make Sure It Is.

By Gary Stokes

Missed Design Opportunities? Integration – An act or instance of combining into an integral whole. Integral – Necessary to the completeness of the whole. You...

July 3rd, 2017

What’s Your Opinion

By Gary Stokes

What’s Your Opinion? We are often asked about our choice of PLC for the control systems we design, program, and build. We are proficient with different PLCs...

June 30th, 2017

Wrapping Up a Great First Half

By Gary Stokes

The Panel Shop is Jumping! Enjoy this shots of a few of our team members working on control panels and bringing a great first half of 2017 to a close for...

June 27th, 2017

Where’s James – Part 3

By Gary Stokes

We Found James… Briefly We had a James sighting today, right here in beautiful Havre de Grace, Maryland. It was brief, but at least we established that James...

June 19th, 2017

James is at it Again

By Gary Stokes

Where’s James? Last week we shared with you a photo of James doing his best Wicked Witch of the West impersonation whilst on a startup in Pennsylvania James as...

June 15th, 2017

You’re Not in Kansas Anymore, James!

By Gary Stokes

You’re Not in Kansas Anymore, James Today we’re just sharing a photo we took of James, one of our designers and programmers, going the extra mile during a...

June 14th, 2017

What Really Matters?

By Gary Stokes

Are you like many of the potential new clients we hear from, or do you do things a little differently? When we are first contacted by a potential new client,...

June 9th, 2017

Systems Integration – Its Complicated, Right?

By Gary Stokes

We all know that life and business can be very, very complicated and fast-paced. We’re in the process of creating a series of videos at Pendant, profiling each...

May 25th, 2017

A Simple Tool to Make Your Projects More Successful

By Gary Stokes

Successful Projects Made Simple Atul Gawande (pictured) is a surgeon, writer, and researcher, who wrote one of our favorite books, The Checklist Manifesto,...

May 22nd, 2017

The Critical Success Factor in Getting Your Projects Done on Time

By Gary Stokes

Let’s say you’re in charge of getting a conveyor handling system installed for an important client at a Distribution Center in California on tight deadlines....