Industrial Automation and Motion Control Blog | The Knotts Company

This month our employee spotlight turns to Stephen Rabideau, Lead Automation Application Engineer. Stephen has been part of the Knotts team for 5 years and has held several roles. In his current role, he leads a team of sharp minds to help resolve our customers' unique automation issues. 

Name: Stephen Rabideau
Department: Automation
Title: Lead Automation Application Engineer
Years at Knotts: 5

Topics: The Knotts Company, The Knotts Co

This month we're spotlighting Strategic Account Manager Jerry Ferrante. Jerry has an interesting history with Knotts. After originally joining us in January 1990, he left the company a couple times, finally rejoining the team for third time in 2011. As a valued member of our outside sales team, Jerry takes great care of our existing customers and is passionate about bringing our products and solutions to new clients in his region. We're so pleased to have him back as part of the Knotts family.

Name: Jerry Ferrante
Department: Outside Sales
Title: Strategic Account Manager
Years at Knotts: 30 years since original start date

Topics: The Knotts Company, The Knotts Co

We're excited to share our new partnership with the robotics software company Micropsi Industries. Its MIRAI technology, a vision-based robot control system that, through artificial intelligence, enables robots to learn, to perform a wide range of complex tasks, and to handle variance in workspaces.

MIRAI is an AI-driven, fully productized system that anyone can use, not least workers at small- and medium-sized enterprises. Robots with MIRAI are trained through human demonstration in only days. No knowledge of programming or AI is necessary. To train a robot, a human repeatedly performs demonstrations of a task by manually guiding the robot by the robot's wrist. During the demonstrations, the MIRAI-powered robot takes in information through sensors, using the gathered data to learn how to do the task on its own. Robots with MIRAI can be retrained for different tasks.

Topics: Machine Vision, Micropsi, MIRAI

This month we're celebrating Production Coordinator Heather McNall-Lang! A core member of our production team, Heather keeps all of our orders running smoothly and ensures the team and our clients have what they need, when they need it. She's a team player, often pitching in to help in other departments as needed. Heather is used to the spotlight, and can often be found on stage singing, acting, or directing in her spare time! 

Name: Heather McNall-Lang
Department: Production
Title: Production Coordinator
Years at Knotts: 13

Topics: The Knotts Company, The Knotts Co

There's no doubt that video, coupled with music, draws attention. 69% of marketers planned to increase their use of YouTube video in 2020 according to the annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report (Social Media Examiner). Is this a marketing strategy you've had in mind to try? We'll share a list of youtube channels from our Partners in the manufacturing and automation sector below. Hope they inspire some ideas for you.

Topics: marketing tool

Walter (Wally) Valentin is celebrating 21 years in our Production/Assembly department! Wally is a master at bringing our customer's visions to life and he loves what he does. A true problem-solver, Wally is a valuable asset to the team. Congratulations on 21 years, Wally!

Name: Walter Valentin (aka Wally)
Department: Production/Assembly 
Title: Technician
Years at Knotts: 21 

Topics: The Knotts Company, The Knotts Co

Celebrating 22 years with The Knott's Company, today we're celebrating Customer Service Manager, Ivette Sanchez! Ivette plays a key role in answering customer questions and keeping operations running smoothly. Congratulations on this milestone, Ivette! We're so happy to have you as part of the Knotts family.

Name: Ivette Sanchez
Title: Customer Service Manager
Years at Knotts: 22

Topics: The Knotts Company, The Knotts Co

After starting out many years ago in Customer Service and becoming an expert on Knott's wide variety of products, Christopher Logie transitioned into his current Business Development role and is now celebrating his 24th year with us! Congratulations to Chris on this milestone.

Name: Christopher Logie
Department: Business Development
Years at Knotts: 24

Tell us about what you do:  
My main responsibility is to provide product information and advice of The Knotts Company capabilities to potential customer from leads received direct from manufacturers or from our website. I also manage the needs of established customers to ensure that their required applications are met. Part of my responsibilities involve on-site visits at customer locations to understand their  application/equipment needs and consulting with colleagues to develop solutions utilizing the materials that The Knotts Company sells. I also provide expert technical assistance to our Customer Service Representatives when a customer inquiries or requests additional information and I provide assistance to walk-in customers looking for products, system development, etc. I specialize in compressor and vacuum pumps.

Topics: The Knotts Company, The Knotts Co

We don't see Steve as often as we'd like as he's often out on site with clients in New York. 30 years of service is a great reason to celebrate someone who has dedicated so much to our company and its customers over the years! Congratulations to Steve on this milestone.

Name: Steve Harrold
Department: Sales
Title: Strategic Account Manager, Long Island/NYC
Years at Knotts: 30

Tell us about what you do:  
I sell to OEMs ( original equipment manufacturers) and users on LI and in NYC helping to make their businesses more profitable.

Topics: The Knotts Company, The Knotts Co

We have expanded our product line by partnering with Inspekto to offer the world’s first ever autonomous machine vision system for quality assurance. Inspekto, a German industrial company with Israeli DNA, created the Autonomous Machine Vision system to offer an unprecedented ease and speed of set-up, encouraging the installation of quality assurance stations at every step of the production line. 

Topics: vision, industrial vision, quality assurance, Inspekto