It’s been two weeks since we attended IFMA’s World Workplace, and everyone is STILL talking about how great this show was. This was our third World Workplace Conference, having attended shows in Houston and Charlotte in previous years. This space never ceases to amaze, the conversations that take place on the showroom floor are unlike any other conference. Last year we learned that our logistics background and chain of custody expertise are valuable to the Facilities Managers that attend this show, and that was reaffirmed yet again this year.

To mix things up, we decided to double down and bring a few friends to the show this year. We invited John and Jonah from Marble.io and their friend, Burrata, who completely stole the show. Everywhere she went, people were stopping and staring. We can’t even begin to count the number of photos taken on the show floor. For those that missed her, Burrata is a fully autonomous delivery robot that can navigate a city, campus, warehouse, building, or convention center all on her own, once you map the environment.

Now, you might be wondering, “how can this help my facility and me.” You aren’t alone, that was quickly the most common question we received at the show, and after giving it a lot of thought, the possibilities are honestly quite endless. The real value comes with integrating it with an in-building logistics platform, such as Intra. The autonomous technology behind the robot applies to any “vehicle,” such as a forklift, car, van, or truck. In a facility setting, this is particularly useful when transporting items – such as food orders, pallets, packages, assets, documents, lab samples – from one location to another. When paired with Intra, you have a complete trackable history of every touchpoint, with signature confirmation via a unique pin-code on the robot.

With every show, we make it our goal to educate attendees on current technology trends that we see within the industry. We hope that learning about real-life use cases utilizing IoT or robots will make new technology less intimidating. The future is here, and technology is knocking on the facility door. The exciting part? Facilities managers are welcoming technology into their facility with open arms.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below or visit our website.