For businesses in every industry, 2020 was a complicated period of unpredictability and adjustment. For the Canadian netting company, this time was used to analyze its processes and methods of interacting with its customers. Traditionally, most of its processes had a hands-on approach, based on in-person meetings that included a heavy paper trail. In the last year, the pandemic has been a springboard for Badinotti to pivot its strategy and adopt its own digital platform to improve its cloud based network.

“This past year was extremely challenging, but it created internal pressures on us, and pressure produces growth. It made us look at everything in a new light, and it allowed us to consider these other strategies that we may not have otherwise prioritized. We developed tools to interface with our own employees first, and then, based on that success, we’ve been able to develop external, client-facing digital tools for reporting, client interactions, and so on in a quick turnaround time,” says Badinotti Net Services Canada Director of Sea Operations Trevor Schiele.

Having worked in aquaculture since graduating high school, Trevor has always been interested in continuing the industry. He grew up on the coast of British Columbia, in a community heavily based in the resource sectors with primary industries in forestry, mining, and fishing. His first post-secondary education path led him to a company that provided service support to the local aquaculture firms, and this is where he discovered his passion for the industry. With the opportunity to experience the innovative and robust nature of aquaculture, Trevor found his calling.

For twelve years, he stuck with the steady, meaningful, year-round work in the aquaculture processing division. “The reliability and the continuity that came from aquaculture was second-to-none, and because of that, it also provided the most opportunity for growth, innovation, and change. Growing up in BC, we have our options, but aquaculture has always been the best choice for me because of that continuity and the ability to stay in the coastal areas,” says Trevor.

As life moved forward and Trevor became a parent, he decided to go back to school. At the age of twenty-seven, he completed a distance education program though the B.C. Institute of Technology in Occupational Health Sciences. The degree helped to open his mind to industrial processes and risk management in aquaculture, which eventually led him to the Badinotti team where he has now been for five years. “I was born in Campbell River, and I’m very proud to be a part of aquaculture and raise my family in close proximity to where I grew up.”

As a result of its connection to its parent company, Badinotti Canada has access to highly innovative technology for netting products and services. In the last two years, it has implemented more environmentally-friendly equipment for its subsea operations. Across its marine fleet, the company has introduced electric net washing remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

“These ROVs use twenty percent of the previous energy output to operate. They’ve eliminated environmental risks for operating, lowered our carbon footprint, and increased the fish health quality,” explains Trevor. “The adoption of this technology has revolutionized our ability to serve our clients, which has also opened up many other opportunities for us; for example, environmental monitoring, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.”

In collaboration with its clients, Badinotti is currently working on a few image recognition software projects. It collects subsea environmental risk data and operational data to streamline the processes and make data-driven decisions much faster. The company has also implemented in situ equipment on a new level, further separating it from the competition. The in situ washing process makes it possible for large nets to be washed without having to be moved. Badinotti only continues to increase and improve its offerings to its clients.

The parent company has also developed an innovative platform called EasyTrack to help clients keep track of operations. Since the nets are owned by the clients and serviced by Badinotti, it is important for the client to be able to check on their assets. EasyTrack is an external portal from the company website that allows clients to look at net servicing or repairs throughout the process, and at the end, it also consolidates their billing. Clients can log on to see where their nets are before making informed, data-driven decisions, and this allows them to create efficiencies within their own business. Worldwide, all of Badinotti’s operations are moving towards including EasyTrack.

As mentioned earlier, the other most recent technological advancement for Badinotti is the adoption of its own internal digital platform. Partially motivated by the pandemic, the company established a cloud-based intranet to communicate more efficiently with its employees. It initially focused on the sea operations team, a group of workers based on remote vessels serving the aquaculture industry. After gaining the necessary experience, Badinotti has now brought four mobile apps to market for various uses including operations production, loss control, environmental health and safety, and quality control. It has also developed its external tools to improve communication with clients.

Despite any struggles in aquaculture, those within the industry are dedicated to helping it grow sustainably, innovating and maintaining the industry’s integrity as it progresses. “One of the things we see in aquaculture, at least in the contact we have with our clients, is their great commitment to improve the environmental footprint they leave,” says Badinotti Net Services Canada Marketing Coordinator Miriam Salmeron.

Both the east and west coasts of Canada are ideal for year-round aquaculture production, and this reliability serves the marketplace very well. As a key part of the supply chain, aquaculture provides a consistent healthy product twelve months a year, and the science-based evidence backing aquaculture is very strong compared to other types of agrifoods.

The industry is working towards more investment in organized marketing efforts at the national and provincial levels to combat the lack of awareness about the strides aquaculture has made. In the last two decades, the industry has improved tremendously with regard to its environmental footprint, sustainability, and fish health, and the public must be made aware of these changes for aquaculture to continue to grow and innovate.

With no real way to control misinformation, the focus has been on providing informative data that is verifiable and comes from a credible source. This can be particularly challenging in Canada where eighty percent of the population lives in non-maritime provinces, and people are far removed from the aquaculture industry.

The rate of innovation and change in the industry is significant, and Canada needs a national strategy to educate the layperson about how far aquaculture has come in such a short time. “We need key communications of the positive benefits of aquaculture as a piece in the global agrifood supply chain. And a second part of that is the adoption of the industrial internet of things and A.I. to make it the most efficient source of protein in the world,” says Trevor.

Hopefully, the industry will become a more stable environment that will allow aquaculture to continue to grow across Canada in a way that it remains competitive in the world production scene. There are very few places left on earth that are ideal for cultivating salmon, and Canada has many of those untapped resources. “We need some stability, and in order to get that stability, we need the support from the Canadian people.”

The aquaculture industry is always changing, innovating, and adopting new technologies to improve its processes. Badinotti and other organizations that recognize social license and environmental impact are very attractive career opportunities for young professionals entering the workplace. Despite any roadblocks that get in the way, the future of the industry looks bright for Canada, and sustainable aquaculture will prevail.

The post Improving Aquaculture with Innovation and Technology<p class="company">Badinotti Net Services Canada</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

DAP America’s parent company is in Bielefeld, Germany and has three primary manufacturing plants in the Czech Republic, Romania, and China, alongside subsidiaries in Southern and Central Europe trading as DAP Italy, DAP France, and DAP Poland, all handling distribution. DAP America trades throughout Canada, the United States, and Mexico, as far south as Argentina, providing sales, field service, applications consulting and technical support.

Brands represented include Dürkopp Adler, Pfaff, and KSL, while its variety of technologies accounts for industrial processes such as automated sewing stations, sophisticated software, and robotic systems. These offerings ensure flow improvement and allow for generous margins resulting from the quality stitching needed to make products with the luxury edge that discerning users demand.

In 2018, we reported on how our world is held together by DAP America’s renowned sewing technology. Little did anyone know then that the industrial sewing giant’s innovation would soon also be responsible for holding together the personal protective equipment (PPE) that would ultimately save the lives of many Americans.

There is hardly an aspect of its business that did not see an epic 2019–2020 thanks to the leap that COVID-19 spurred in the firm’s capabilities. As fate and fortune would have it, this company held the key to what has arguably become the hottest mask manufacturing technology in the world. Creating this unique machinery has changed how masks are made.

“Given our technologies, we were able to make a couple of plays that helped us to stay financially viable and healthy in that sense and, more importantly, being able to safeguard citizens against the public health challenge of COVID-19,” says DAP America President Mariano Amezcua.

While everyone knows and understands old-fashioned sewing, fabric welding is a new method used on specialized fabrics. “To a certain extent, [fabric welding] has been a bit of a niche technology. For example, the Crew Dragon Demo-2 space mission’s space suits were made with PFAFF Industrial welding equipment. So it’s always been a bit of a high-tech, unique niche application,” says Amezcua. The method is increasingly used on polymer-based personal protection equipment (PPE) to protect the integrity of seams and thus prevent the spread of the virus to healthcare workers and first responders.

The company works with partners that are known for pushing the boundaries of fabric and design. DAP America had collaborated with one of these esteemed partners, The University of Cincinnati College of Design Architecture Art and Planning (DAAP), before COVID-19. As DAAP is one of the twenty best international design schools, DAP America would have been hard-pressed to find a better partner.

“They’re one of the premier institutes when it comes to design in academia. We had partnered with them before, giving them some of our technology that they [then] had on hand. [With the pandemic], they immediately rose to the challenge by experimenting and working with their local community to support initiatives,” says Amezcua. As soon as COVID-19 hit, the University of Cincinnati’s DAAP team got straight to work to design and develop a superior face mask.

The project was led by Professor Ashley Newsome Kubley, head of the Evelyn G. Burgoyne Fashion Technology Center and assistant professor of fashion design at the Myron E. Ullman Jr. School of Design at The University of Cincinnati College of Design Architecture Art and Planning. The Fashion Technology Center started to take shape toward the end of 2018, driven by the globalization and automation of the fashion industry.

“This center was started on the feedback we [received] from our industry partners and the fact that the fashion industry and the design industry were changing and moving toward technology-driven initiatives and integration of automation,” says Kubley. The professor then led an initiative to make the latest equipment and technology available to students, giving them hands-on experience with industry-standard machines and knowledge to empower them in their roles when they enter the apparel job market.

Allowing students to spend time learning contemporary skills brings the college’s curriculum in line with the university’s cooperative education program that expects students to commit to compulsory internships in their field of study spaced over alternate semesters during their undergraduate and graduate courses. “Our university is very connected to industry because students have five internships throughout their undergraduate degree over five years. They go to different companies all around the country and all around the world, actually working and getting paid to be designers before they graduate,” Kubley says.

The Fashion Technology Center is the home of a PFAFF 8312 ultrasonic welding machine and an 8303i that does continuous seam welding. The idea came about when DAP America President Amezcua and The Myron E. Ullman, Jr. School of Design’s Endowed Chair and Director Dr. Gjoko Muratovski agreed that the machines would be a decidedly positive addition to the school’s facilities. “The machines [have given] students a huge opportunity to learn a brand new, specific, useful, and relevant technology. This is of particular interest to students who are interested in designing activewear, outerwear, footwear, and other applications that are PPE-related, so things for workwear,” Kubley says.

By the time the reality of the effects of the COVID-19 virus struck home, the machines had not been onsite long. “All the students were learning, day and night. [Then] everything came to a grinding halt all at once. Although sales and industry felt like it was stopping, education kept on going,” says Kubley. It was time to strategize. Setting up the machines had demanded a significant capital outlay, and now they risked remaining dormant until normalcy returned.

Research and production could go on, however. Kubley joined in a mission to devise a strategy that would see PPE produced and delivered to first responders, medical and healthcare workers, people working in primary care facilities, educators, and other essential service providers serving in the University of Cincinnati’s networks and beyond.

“We [could create] a seamless union [between] two polymers [through] some heat source that prevents the penetration of the COVID virus [to] protect the health and safety of our healthcare workers that were [and still are] fighting the good fight,” Amezcua says.

It was an exhilarating time, although challenges were plenty. Traditional sewing causes perforations that can potentially offer the COVID-19 virus admission to the wearer’s respiratory system. Instead, PFAFF Industrial machines fused fabrics without stitches, and this method was the best way to create large volumes of masks, fast. With very few other materials to work with due to the lockdown and a goal of creating two thousand masks in a month, Kubley and her team had their work cut out. Several partners made valuable donations of fabric and other construction materials for the masks.

“We dialed the process into the ultrasonic sewing machine. Every aspect of the construction of the mask was done with the welding machine. We laser-cut all the pattern shapes for the actual mask design itself, and then we used the ultrasonic welding machine to create this fused seam in the front which makes the mask air-tight and the shape is a lot more comfortable to wear than conventional pleated masks,” Kubley tells us. The team was unable to find elastic, which meant that the bindings were also laser cut while a clever, easy-to-follow guideline gave helpers an intuitive pattern of sorts that they could follow as they fed the masks to the machine.

DAAP reached its goal of delivering two thousand masks in a month: one thousand disposable and one thousand washable. Three thousand more followed, and over forty people were trained to use the equipment. The PFAFF Industrial welding machine is so simple to operate that even those usually reluctant to use industrial machines lost their reserve when they realized how easy it was to use this technology. Not everyone who helped sew masks knew how to sew. Volunteers, engineering students, and industrial design students could pitch in to make masks using the ultrasonic welding machine.

Today, research continues into new fabric welding applications. One example, raised by Amezcua, is the rideshare movement, where fabric contamination from paper cuts to pets or children becoming unwell is a genuine concern, and navigating the often exotic microbiomes of public vehicles is an issue that needs serious consideration. “Due to the social trends where we’re going into this rideshare type of community, I see [the] automotive [industry] looking more and more at how [to] use the fabric welding technology in the production of automotive interiors,” says Amezcua.

The company’s next great achievement of 2020 was the automated face mask making machines it created and delivered to the state of Ohio in record time. The machines were fabricated in Europe and assembled in the U.S. “We went from a napkin sketch to loading a fully automated [ready to assemble] system onto a plane within roughly six weeks,” says Amezcua.

Based in Cleveland, Ohio, the Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network (Magnet) assists small to medium-sized manufacturers in Northern Ohio with varying levels of assistance to help boost their effectiveness and profitability in the state of Ohio. At the start of the pandemic, the group was mandated to act as an intermediary between the governor’s office, hospital system, and the state’s manufacturing industry. The aim was to drive the transition from standard manufacturing to PPE manufacturing. Carla Macklin was a consultant on the Magnet task force that assisted manufacturers in fabricating masks, helping with everything from creating patterns to sharing sewing know-how.

“Through this consulting project, Magnet, along with the state, identified that there was going to be a gap in what the manufacturers could produce in terms of cotton face masks and what the state wanted to buy immediately. Even after [converting] twelve manufacturers to start making masks, [they were] still millions of masks short in meeting Ohio’s demand,” she says. The state of Ohio turned to Dürkopp Adler to help with that. “It truly was incredible to watch a concept of a mask shared via sketches turn into a piece of automated equipment that could produce huge volumes of these masks within about six weeks,” Macklin adds.

The speed at which this project came to life was nothing short of breathtaking. On the day of our interview in May this year, Buckeye Mask Company’s fabrication count stood at 8.14 million masks, and in collaboration with its partner Stitches U.S.A., 65,000 masks are produced by nine automated machines in any given sixteen-hour workday. For machines in the testing phase that landed on 1 August 2020, that is a phenomenal performance by anybody’s standards.

“This was a unique request. When we got it, we didn’t necessarily have a system in place. We [had] weekly or twice weekly conference calls with Germany and the folks up in Ohio figuring out how to possibly do this. We had never built a system like this. This group wanted North American-based manufacturing with top-quality German manufacturing to support them,” says Amezcua.

The state of Ohio set the bar rather high – they challenged Dürkopp Adler to create a never-before-seen automated fabric mask system that not only would be more cost-effective per use and more sustainable than disposables, but also capable of delivering on a ten-million mask contract. The cotton, reusable masks needed to be washable and durable so that the state’s workforce could get back to their jobs. An all-hands effort included the support of a local senator who requested approval from the state department so that the company’s German technicians could fly to Ohio to assist in initial set-up and machine start-up.

Considering that it took around fifty people to bring this to life across continents brings home the importance of combining technology with teamwork and vision. Once again, DAP America leads the world of sewing into a new epoch with style, determination, and state-of-the-art technology.

The post Defending Public Health with Seaming Technologies<p class="company">DAP America</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Founded by Emil Serafino with an eye toward product quality and safety, The Exp Group has forged an impressive network of production, importation and distribution that meets the company’s high standards and exceeds market requirements. For Emil’s son, Executive Vice President Anthony Serafino, this past year has also been about company growth and the evolving business.

“2020 has been a year about steady and controlled fiscal growth,” he says. “Ownership and all top executives at this company feel that it’s our fiduciary responsibility as a business to position our company for the ever-changing landscape that is the produce and food industry.”

The past year has been an interesting and tumultuous one for a lot of people, he says, but more importantly it’s been a year of uncertainty regarding produce and food trends. One of the biggest changes he’s seen is the consumer’s ever-evolving desire to be more health-conscious.

“Unfortunately this pandemic has affected people of different ethnicities and different economic backgrounds — it doesn’t discriminate,” says Serafino. “People want to have an overall healthier lifestyle. We’ve taken good nutritionists and products and put them at the forefront of the retailer. We’re positioning our businesses to invest in produce that is rich in minerals and nutrients and overall is good for your body.”

The Exp Group’s commitment to staying contemporary means investing in its supply chain to ensure its consumers, customers, and clientele are properly supplied with the best — and healthiest — produce from around the world. And this also means all-natural.

“These are not supplements that are genetically produced, these aren’t GMOs,” says Serafino. “This is traditional produce that we’re distributing.”

The company’s dedication to continually adding SKUs and its business model of reaching different retailers has led to larger wholesalers saying they like The Exp Group’s mission and the culture they’re building around produce, and subsequently want to buy that produce to distribute and sell in their own stores.

“It facilitates our growth to believe in what you sell, and that starts from the top,” Serafino says. “It starts from not only the principals and ownership of this company, but high-level executives and anyone who works for us. We’re a team here and everyone needs to breathe the same brand mission because in this industry it’s not just people that sit behind a desk or people that drive our produce to different clients and customers, or pack our produce. It’s not just here at the facility in North Bergen, New Jersey; it’s all our suppliers around the world.”

That trickle-down mission mentality is how the company has facilitated its growth and upheld its core statement values.

“There are three things we preach at this company: common sense, character, and creativity. Those three Cs embody one big C, and that’s culture,” says Serafino. “That’s so important for us because a produce company is a brand, but more importantly it’s products that everyone can get behind.”

Serafino loves his work in part because of his belief in the knowledge that people around the country of different ethnicities and backgrounds are connected through their need for and love of food. “It doesn’t matter where you’re from, where you live – there’s a very high percentage you consume fruit and you consume vegetables.”

Embracing the culture of the company has also meant protecting employees whenever possible. This past year there were no layoffs, and in fact, new employees have been hired. Despite the uncertainty the pandemic has wrought, The Exp Group has managed to pull together and move steadily forward.

“Everyone is important here,” Serafino says, “not only the ones that sit behind a desk but the ones that are out in the warehouse, the ones delivering our merchandise at 5:30 in the morning, the ones coming back from the port picking up merchandise that we import. In this business you have a slew of different people.”

Continuing to invest in people means the company can also continue to invest in business, and that business means investments, primarily in some different commodities in Mexico. Along with the Mexican Maradol papaya, there is also a focus on avocados and Roma and Plum tomatoes.

“You’re seeing a lot of people come to this country from different parts of the world and Mexico is obviously a country we’re seeing a lot of immigration from,” he says. “As people move, they bring their culture and what they eat with them. That’s very important that we as a company stay contemporary and ahead of the changing climate in the changing demographics of this country.”

Changing demographics means, for example, more Americans consuming food like a yuca instead of a starchy potato. Yuca is a healthier option, says Serafino, and public knowledge and awareness and becoming more health-conscious leads to different, previously unfamiliar food choices.

“When uncertainty really hit early in the second quarter of 2020, I saw a lot of people consuming a lot of ginger. Why is that? It’s very good for your immune system. It’s very good to fight inflammation in your body. Turmeric is another very good source of that. Americans were [becoming] more conscious of what they were putting in their bodies.”

Along with diversifying its investments across the world, The Exp Group has invested in its trucking company, EXP Logistics. The company owns and operates 40 trucks in order to facilitate growth, delivery and access to the supply chain for customers.

“We’re growing, we’re packing, we’re shipping, we’re distributing and we’re delivering your produce on time,” Serafino says. “If we handle all aspects of the supply chain we can control the quality of the produce better.”

It is also the ongoing investment in its employees that Serafino views as one of the company’s biggest accomplishments. The pandemic has been stressful for everyone, but The Exp Group has remained dedicated to ensuring that not only do its workers keep their jobs, but that they feel safe and secure in continuing to work in an essential industry.

“It’s not a nine to five business; it’s not set hours. We’re done when we’re done. When we fulfill today’s duties and orders, we’re done for the day. Holidays and weekends are important: the Fourth of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving. In hospitality, they work holidays, and the produce industry is the same.”

Serafino explains that hiring at The Exp Group means selecting employees who are a fit for the position and a fit for the culture, not simply hiring someone to fill a position for six or seven months. He also stresses that same culture means Exp Group’s produce isn’t necessarily for everyone.

“If you’re looking for price we’re not for you. If you’re looking for quality of a product that your customers and your consumers are going to enjoy, then we’re for you. I’m not the cheapest person on the produce market; I’m a quality person first.”

The company also prides itself on giving back to the community whenever possible, including contributions this past year to City Harvest and other food banks.

“Being kind is free,” says Serafino. “Doing the right thing is free. Unfortunately, we’re in a world where people don’t always share those values. You can’t control other people, you can only control what you can control and that’s yourselves and the workplace you work in. We’re running our own race. We create our own path. It’s the path that my father created when he founded this company, and we have a lot of good people here that work with him. I’m definitely privileged to work my father each and every day,” he shares.

Indeed, the future looks bright for The Exp Group, with expected, continued growth while diversifying and maintaining its exceptional relationships with both employees and clients.

“I’ve always said my plan for this company is to be a multinational produce distribution conglomerate, to have many people work for our company that believe in the same brand and the same values that we do,” says Serafino. “When you can bring more people that work for you along for the ride to share in the growth and the journey together, that is so important.”

Despite the numerous challenges of the past year, Serafino remains proud of the company and its ongoing dedication to providing excellent, healthy produce while maintaining its outstanding culture.

“This past year was about realizing that you do or you don’t know if you have a great culture,” he says. “It was really rewarding when we kept building and branding our messages. We found customers that aligned with us. We found employees that aligned with us. When you see how far this business has come, it’s very rewarding to see.”

The post Fruits of Their Labor: Fresh Fare from Exp Group<p class="company">Exp Group</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Especially over the past two years, the company’s sister operation of Fora Logistics has been growing and drawing attention. Xfinity CFO and Fora CFO Kenan Selimagic attributes much of this to the efforts of Fora President Ajia Selimagic, expanding the logistics company into a formidable business, majority-owned and operated by women and a great contributor to Xfinity’s portfolio of services. Kemal Selimagic, Xfinity’s CEO, and Sead Selimagic, Xfinity’s COO, round out the management team.

“The idea is to create an ecosystem by consolidating each company into one large, one-stop shop for all your needs, from parts assembly to warehousing, crossdocking, hauling and delivering freight to our customers in the most effect way possible,” says Kenan Selimagic. “Life after the pandemic is changing fast, and we are adapting to these changes while still having an intimate customer relationship with small or large suppliers, carriers, and manufacturers!”

Vesna Ristovski, head of New Business Development and Customer Relations for Fora Logistics, points out that the company’s biggest source of growth, since Business in Focus magazine’s previous company profile in 2019, is the increase in small business clientele that have established relationships with the company.

Ristovski observes that every small business the company works with has different needs with regard to logistics and Xfinity is eager to help when it comes to transportation. Kenan Selimagic feels that a huge strength of the company, comparing it across the logistics and trucking industries, is its approach to these customer relationships.

Distinguished by its decidedly more personal approach, seen in proactive customer communication and advanced client-facing technological systems (such as automated email and track-and-tracing software), Xfinity constantly aims to treat clientele as “more than just a number,” Selimagic says.

Moving on – and up
In an additional big move, Fora spent time in the last two years relocating itself to a downtown Detroit office in a dedicated hub zone (a historically underutilized business zone and financially disadvantaged area with higher-than-usual unemployment rates).

This has boosted direct contact between Xfinity and Fora, leading to faster response times along with various technological advancements that continue to aid customer service. Selimagic adds that the brokerage division of the company has grown the most since 2019 with the trucking side of the business managing to stay relatively stable in turn, making it even more ready to address customer needs and concerns with the quality of response the company has become known for.

Selimagic uses Xfinity’s focus on customer care to address the business’s strong relationship with its workforce, citing the outstanding work ethic that has been generated among all employees, something that can only exist with a great level of pride in the work being done.

Setting standards
Fora has strict standards for the carrier partners it hires as management searches for people with a similar mindset toward the field, which is why dispatchers and other higher-end workers in the company generally begin their careers at the company as drivers, or have similar experience within the trucking industry, a trait also common to the company’s other non-trucking divisions.

Both management and workers at Fora generally know the ins and outs of working at every level and are eager to help those working below them to improve their effectiveness in whatever way possible. Says Sead Selimagic of the workplace attitude that’s so evident: “We know the issues that arise, and we know how to handle them thanks to our experience. When you have people who are able to recognize a problem and handle it, it makes things so much smoother.”

The trucking and logistics sectors are currently seeing a spike in demand with a lot of work available for those companies willing and ready to go; however, Selimagic has encountered a concurrent and unfortunate shortage of workers, especially truck drivers, in meeting this new demand. Xfinity’s turnover is generally quite low but many of its drivers have been active for decades now and there seems to be less interest from young people entering industry in truck driving specifically.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the industry greatly, leading to the creation of more “remote” jobs but at the cost of a lack of emphasis on non-remote jobs, like driving, that require employees to be away from home and family.

Selimagic sees both the inherent negatives to this problem as well as the unexpected positives, such as enabling more workers, including Ajia Selimagic and Senita Selimagic, a mother of two, to work as effectively from home as they can on-site. Senita is in fact able to manage both companies’ responsibilities just as effectively from home while looking after her children thanks to advancements in remote technology during these times.

On the logistics side, data show that customers are also paying more money per load or shipment lately due to a lack of capacity within the industry. Costs continue to rise across the board as manufacturers add shipping costs to what the customer pays, a phenomenon that Kemal Selimagic feels will show its full effect in coming years.

New focus
After nearly a decade spent establishing the business and its various approaches and offshoots, Kemal Selimagic says that the company’s recent focus has begun to shift toward developing a system for all its divisions, including logistics, transportation, maintenance, and warehousing, and drawing all sections into a single location.

This system has already significantly improved customer service and interface with clients, from brokering loads and assigning the trucking division to a load to overall communication with customers. “Everything is within one building and under one ownership and is all working together simultaneously under one system,” he says.

Indeed, while Xfinity is still focused primarily on transportation and trucking, there is also an additional internal push for warehousing as demand in the sector increases and the company adapts to industry changes. Senita Selimagic, Fora Logistics’ Treasurer, says that having been involved in accounts receivables for so long over the years, “I’ve become accustomed to the issues our suppliers are faced with every day, and we overcome them with a much better understanding.”

A bump in the road toward consolidation has to do with how, as Sead Selimagic sees it, the business of trucking is becoming less acceptable to many cities (and their officials) looking for growth.

Sead Selimagic notes that the company has of late had a hard time finding necessary warehousing (35-plus acres) within nearby cities. Xfinity and similar companies are being forced to search for appropriate space further north, away from cities and residential areas.

“Most cities would rather have a hotel than a trucking company,” Sead Selimagic says, pointing out that attitudes like that place a further strain on workers who mostly prefer to be stationed themselves in cities closer to their families. This is a struggle that continues as Xfinity looks for geographically advantageous sites while contending with city regulations and preferences.

Coming together
Xfinity’s intention beyond 2021 is to continue bringing together, and rationalizing and resourcing, every department of the company despite the challenges that lie ahead on that track. The trucking side of the company is currently over 120 units and still growing, with expanding trailer capacity, but the goal remains to gather it in one location, alongside brokering and maintenance, despite its trailers and equipment scattered throughout the United States and Canadian provinces.

The company will also continue to improve its already outstanding customer service and safety scores. And the continued growth of its sister company, Fora Logistics, will help to bring in additional business and capital, as well as generating more consistent work to further encourage drivers, and potentially attract new ones.

Ristovski adds that Fora is currently in the process of certifying itself as an Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business, which will allow it to acquire business from federal and state governments while also enabling it to hire more women into the logistics industry and contribute even more to today’s society.

Xfinity will celebrate ten years in business in 2022 as it pushes toward bigger and better goals and its next career highlight.

The post How Fora Logistics is Driving Xfinity’s Customer-First Approach<p class="company">Xfinity Freight</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

First founded in May of 1990, the company was established in the small community of Ayr in the municipality of Waterloo, Ontario. Starting small, as a three-truck transportation service, by 1993 the team had begun to see success. That year, the company moved its headquarters to Woodstock, New Brunswick, close to the hometown where Joe Keenan, Founder and President, was born.

Today, the company has dedicated terminals in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Brampton, Ontario, and at its headquarters location in Woodstock, New Brunswick. Across these locations they employ long-haul truck drivers, city, and day-cab drivers, operations and administrative staff, finance and sales teams. Ayr employs just over 500 people in total and is the parent company to Keenan Truck Repair in Woodstock – the maintenance facility for all company equipment.

Ayr Motor has had a presence in western Canada for 28 years. As the company has grown, so have the needs of both its clients and employees. Having reached the limits of what can be done with leased property, Ayr has decided to build its own facility with a full warehouse, cross docking capabilities, and a wide range of employee amenities. It will be larger, modernized, and much more efficient in its operations.

The location of the new facility was strategically chosen, positioned right in the center of the trucking hub of western Canada. A key focus of the building’s design is to accommodate the needs of the company’s workers. It will include lounge areas, a lunchroom, locker rooms, and showers. Designing the new facility with these conveniences is Ayr’s way of giving back to the drivers and staff.

With the understanding that its employees are the backbone of the company, Ayr Motor has many other initiatives to show its appreciation, recognizing drivers with safety and performance bonuses quarterly and million-mile awards that include a bonus, leather jacket, watch and certificate. Office and terminal staff are recognized based on years of service milestones with person gift selections and certificates and celebrations on Employee Appreciation Day. To encourage drivers and staff to be not just great employees, but also great citizens, Ayr also recognizes them through its On the Spot Recognition Program.

One aspect that makes Ayr’s team unique is the dedication they have toward supporting the work-life balance of drivers and ensuring they have the opportunity to schedule their own work hours. “Our driver planners are dedicated to giving our drivers the opportunity to schedule when they’re out and when they’re home,” says Melinda Thornton, Director of Human Resources at Ayr Motor. “We have a whole department based specifically on that for our drivers. That way people have more flexibility; they are at home when they need to be home and out when they need to be working.”

As a family-oriented business, the owners of Ayr Motor are sure to be present and make themselves available to the team every day. Highly community-minded, the company supports local families and businesses through various programs, as well as charities and the local civic center. To express gratitude for the sponsorship, the civic center was renamed to the Ayr Motor Center in 2015. The company is also involved in a number of school programs locally including breakfast programs, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada.

In order to remain successful in the trucking industry, companies must be flexible to the concerns of its drivers – as Ayr Motor has been. “I think as the future goes on, the industry needs to adapt to the driver’s needs,” says Seth Keenan, Director of Operations at Ayr Motor. “What I have seen over the last five years is that drivers want to be home more regularly. We have younger drivers that are coming into the industry and they have families themselves, so we need to be a bit more adaptive to that.”

Exemplifying this employee-first approach, Ayr Motor is proud to have been named “Employer of Choice” by THRSC Atlantic, particularly because it is a designation based directly on the employees’ experience. The Trucking Human Resources Sector Council (THRSC) Atlantic offers employers the opportunity to receive anonymous insight and useful feedback from employees in order to improve the overall workplace environment. Based on completed surveys, the program recognizes companies that score well with their employees and rewards them with the title Employer of Choice. Ayr Motor has now received this recognition in 2019 and 2020.

In a video posted to its website, Ayr Motor drivers praise the company for its commitment to work-life balance. Ayr Motor has built its entire transportation system around maximizing the miles and minimizing turnaround times at customer sites to ensure that drivers can spend as much of their downtime at home with their families as possible. “I can honestly say, in twenty years, that I’ve only slept overnight seven times,” says a driver from the video.

Transporting Purolator freight since 2006, Ayr Motor was named Long-Haul Carrier of the Year by Purolator in 2012, 2014, and 2015. In 2019, the company was named a top carrier with the Purolator Eastern Service Award, and it was also awarded the Purolator Western Safety Award. That same year, Ayr Motor was awarded with Large Asset Carrier of the Year from Crown Metal Packaging Canada, one of the largest manufacturers of beverage packaging in the world. Recently, Ayr Motor was granted a five-year contract with Purolator, one of Canada’s leading package and logistics solutions providers, and for 2020 has been recognized as Purolator’s Eastern Carrier of the Year.

Indeed, the main focus for Ayr Motor is providing efficient and cost-effective solutions to its customers. “We strive to give the best service possible, and many of our customers always tell us that we pay very close attention to detail. [The competition] may do some of the same things, but by us paying attention to detail and ensuring the best service possible, that’s what helps make us successful,” says Keenan.

Another adjustment as trucking advances forward is that the carrier’s performance can be measured by customers much more easily. Customers are able to track and follow a shipment’s progress, and technology in this area will only continue to improve. “I think the industry is held to a higher standard in general now,” explains Joe Keenan, President of the company. “With safety and regulations, we’re held to a higher standard by our customers because there are more tools available to customers to measure your service, so you have to be constantly improving.”

Since Ayr Motor opened its doors in 1990, it has seen consistent success. The company has continued to grow steadily year over year, sometimes in the face of substantial economic challenges. In 2020, as the pandemic caused significant downturns in every industry, Ayr Motor was able to maintain its upward trajectory. In many sectors, as the supply chain broke down, transportation companies faltered as well. With the right business plan and dedicated drivers and staff, as many industries struggled, Ayr Motor continued to grow the size of its fleet. “In my career I have never met such hard-working dedicated employees; they amaze me every day and they are key to our success,” says Thornton.

Last year, as the company celebrated 30 years in business, the team had the opportunity to reflect on how much had changed over three decades and also on how much had stayed the same. Operating in such a competitive industry demands that a company be nimble enough to shift with the changing tides and embrace new tools and technologies. Throughout its tenure, Ayr Motor has always kept pace with industry advancements, but maybe even more important is its commitment to the things that it knows will never change: the virtues of hard work and taking care of the people who do it for you.

Now, as Ayr Motor looks ahead, the company is excited about the opening of its new terminal in Winnipeg and the anticipated overall growth that it hopes will turn into further expansion. After a long year of slow progress, the world is beginning to return to normal. Ayr Motor is ready to continue its climb toward even greater success.

The post A Growing Freight Company Giving Priority to Driver Needs<p class="company">Ayr Motor Express</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Smyrna enjoys an ideal location just ten miles northwest of Atlanta—but without the traffic and headache of its better-known neighbor. The city of 56,000 has become a destination in its own right, with an exciting range of development projects and quality of life enhancements, from walking trails to waterfront dining. No wonder Money magazine named Smyrna one of the ‘Best Places to Live in the United States’ in 2018.

“I think one of the most attractive things about Smyrna is our location,” says Mayor Derek Norton, “our proximity to [Interstate] 75 and [Interstate] 285, to the Battery and Truist Park, to the Atlanta airport and downtown Atlanta. You can pretty much get anywhere from the city of Smyrna. There are not a whole lot of people trying to move out of the city of Smyrna; they’re all trying to move in.”

This influx is demonstrated in the “huge spike in population we’ve had over the last ten years,” Mayor Norton continues. “We offer something for everyone, whether it is recreational amenities and parklands, great restaurants, you name it. It’s a great place to do business, a great place to raise a family.”

Economic Development Director Andrea Worthy reiterates it is all about “location, location, location.” But, she also points out that the community has worked hard to offer as much as possible within its prime location. City leaders have “concentrated on their investments in placemaking and trails and infrastructure,” Worthy says. This effort was undertaken with the larger economic picture in mind. “The reality is large employers, when they’re looking to make location investments, are now looking to where their employees want to be,” she says.

“That is a game changer from twenty years ago when employers were looking to locate somewhere based on a tax incentive. They realized that there is a workers’ shortage in this country in the long term, and if they want to attract talent to their companies, they have to be in a place their employees want to be. And that’s one of the reasons that Smyrna is well poised to continue to move forward,” she adds.

This desirability has attracted a varied population. “We’re one of the most diverse communities in the state, and our strength comes from that diversity,” Mayor Norton says. “We have a great population, and we’re able to do a lot of things coming from that diversity strength that we have.”

The city recently launched a racial trust building initiative to help support its diverse population. “We’re inclusive of everyone here,” Mayor Norton says. “[We are] really focusing, as the mayor and counsel, on making sure that everybody knows they’re appreciated in this community, welcome here, and included in everything that we do.”

Smyrna’s civic-minded community came together during COVID to support one another. “It’s been tough [here] like everywhere, but I’ve never been prouder of a community like I have been of Smyrna, Georgia; for a pretty big city coming together like we have and showing how tight knit we really are,” Mayor Norton says.

A group of citizens launched a program called Support Smyrna to collect donations in order to buy grocery store gift cards for locals negatively affected by the pandemic. “We thought maybe we’d raise five or ten thousand dollars and help a few folks, and we ended up raising over $175,000 and just had a tremendous impact,” Mayor Norton remembers. “The community’s come together and navigated this as well as any community in the country.”

Development opportunities abound throughout Smyrna, despite the pandemic. Riverview Landing, a multiuse, waterfront project, just opened phase one and is about to launch phase two of its development. The project is particularly exciting because it gives residents an opportunity to enjoy the river, which is extremely rare in the Atlanta metro area.

“Smyrna, in the past five years, has really led an effort to provide public access down on the river,” Worthy says. The new development includes housing, a brewery, a coffee shop, a barbecue restaurant, a public park, an amphitheater for outdoor concerts, and a boat launch. “It’s a hidden gem down there,” Mayor Norton says.

International pharmaceutical giant UCB is expanding its United States headquarters, which is located in Smyrna. “It’s going be the greenest corporate building in the state,” Mayor Norton says. “We gave them some incentives to do that because we’re working on our energy efficiency and sustainability efforts in Smyrna, and we welcomed this when they brought is to us.” The expanded, state-of-the-art facility will be both LEED and WELL certified—a first in Georgia. The $47.5 million investment will bring approximately two hundred new jobs to the community.

Truist Park, home to the Atlanta Braves, provides a range of mixed-use opportunities. “It’s just a real game-changer for the entire Smyrna area,” Worthy says of the development potential. New housing, retail, and restaurants are all on the table. “That thing has been an economic engine,” Mayor Norton says of the stadium complex. “They’re packed 365 days a year, twenty-four hours a day.”

The city is in the initial phase of a joint project to build a pedestrian bridge over the busy Cobb Parkway to connect Smyrna to the Battery, a mixed-use development adjacent to Truist Park and just outside the city limits. “That will lead to a lot of walkability around that area,” Mayor Norton says.

Emerson Center, an aging office building located alongside Cobb Parkway, is set for a major refurbishment. “We’re actually receiving plans from developers now on that,” Mayor Norton says, “and there’s wide ranging opportunity there, from hotel to retail units to rooftops.”

Smyrna’s Windy Hill Road is also getting a remodel. The $42 million construction project will separate local traffic from through traffic and add a linear park to the busy thoroughfare. South Cobb Drive, which intersects Windy Hill Road, is due for a makeover. The city has allocated up to $15 million for infrastructure projects along it and is partnering with state agencies and the department of transportation to “really do a massive overhaul of that area which I think will lend itself to business investments and opportunity there,” Mayor Norton says.

Smyrna’s downtown is slated for redevelopment as well. “We’ve got a lot of investment dollars, public dollars slated for additions and improvements to our downtown,” Mayor Norton says. “It’s twenty-five years old it’s in need of a refresh. It’s vibrant right now, but we can always do better.” Previously, Smyrna earned a reputation for its leadership in downtown development during the 1990s, when the mixed-use concept was just starting to gain a foothold. “Smyrna was the starting point for mixed-use redevelopments of downtowns in the metro Atlanta area,” Worthy reports. The city won several awards for its novel efforts.

After leading the charge thirty years ago, the community is still eager to put innovative, transformative redevelopment at the forefront, and one can only imagine where Smyrna will be thirty years from now. “[We have] a lot ahead of us as we tackle other big infrastructure projects here in the city,” Mayor Norton says. “It’s a fun time to be doing what we’re doing in Smyrna.”

The post An Ideal Location Full of Development Opportunities<p class="company">City of Smyrna, GA</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Whether it’s the iconic sliding doors on Star Trek, those self-darkening blinds in Tyrell corporate headquarters in Blade Runner, or the lights coming on automatically to wake people up in Prometheus, the structural features in these movies let you know that things have advanced.

The remarkable thing is that many of those fancy sci-fi features are already a reality. Push your cart through the exit of most large grocery stores and sensors trigger the doors to slide open as you move through. If you are unfortunately working late in an office tower, you can watch the lights switch off around you as the motion detectors sense an absence of activity. There are even windows that use liquid crystal to turn the glass opaque to create privacy, making the buildings that we work in more futuristic all the time.

Silicon Valley firm, View, builds next-generation glass windows that use AI and machine learning to optimize natural light, limit glare and control heat for what it says is a $1 trillion market, CNN reports. The company says that Netflix, Facebook, and FedEx use View glass in their offices.

What is driving a lot of these new technological advances is the next generation of internet, known as the “Internet of Things” or IoT. Forbes summarizes the Internet of Things as “connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet (and/or to each other).”

This is really all about where the internet meets physical object. Devices are connected to the internet (usually through Wi-Fi) and can communicate with each other and their surroundings.

So why do this?

There are a number of significant advantages that come from this technology, such as enhanced efficiency and potentially stretching the lifecycle of an appliance or device by letting owners know what part needs to be replaced when. In fact, many of us are living with the Internet of Things in our homes, with refrigerators that you can have make extra ice for your dinner party or alarm clocks that use radar to monitor your breathing and movement while you sleep to help you figure out the best bedtime and wake-up time, based on your specific data. Basically, your smart alarm clock can now provide you with suggestions to help you get a better rest.

“There’s an evolution from, today we tell computers to do stuff for us, to where computers can actually do stuff for us,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a 2014 interview with Farhad Manjoo. “For example, if I go and pick up my kids, it would be good for my car to be aware that my kids have entered the car and change the music to something that’s appropriate for them.”

While these intelligent gizmos make home life better, it’s the smart office buildings that really take the Internet of Things to another level. From auto-lighting to HVAC, security, data management, and green-oriented innovations, these office buildings bring together all the components needed to push how efficient buildings can be and change the way we think about the environments we work in.

The Building Efficiency Initiative notes, “At the most fundamental level, smart buildings deliver useful building services that make occupants productive at the lowest cost and environmental impact. Smart buildings use information technology during operation to connect a variety of subsystems, which typically operate independently, so that these systems can share information to optimize total building performance.”

That may be a lot to take in, but what’s at the core of these buildings is that by integrating what have been historically separate systems, the dynamics of how a building operates dramatically change.

There are many examples of different buildings that synergize the many systems and leverage the Internet of Things to create a different kind of working experience and building performance. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Duke Energy Center is a 780-foot, 48-floor smart tower that harnesses natural resources to create major savings. The building features water-saving plumbing, a storage system that collects rainwater, treats it and uses it for about 80 percent of the building’s needs, including a condensation HVAC system that cools the building.

Up on the very top is a roof garden that uses plants to capture excess heat emitted by the building to help cool the building and mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.

In Amsterdam, Holland, the Edge building has been called the greenest, most intelligent building in the world. It doesn’t just achieve the highest ecological standards (including harnessing the energy of people who work out in the building’s gym); it knows its occupants very well.

As Bloomberg says of the Edge building capability, “It knows where you live. It knows what car you drive. It knows who you’re meeting with today and how much sugar you take in your coffee.”

Occupants connect with the building through a mobile app which acts as a concierge, guiding them to a parking spot and then their desk for the day. In this building, you don’t go back to the same old spot every day; instead you are assigned one for the day. The concept saves space and also promotes more interaction among employees within a company. Not only that, but the building will also automatically adjust temperature and lighting in your area based on the preferences you set in your app.

And while the Edge building is certainly at the cutting edge, more buildings are integrating their systems to become smarter.

There is also something to be said about efficiently getting people to where they need to be. The RBC Waterpark Place building in Toronto, Ontario has elevators without floor buttons inside them. The idea is that you select the floor you want to go to when you are in the elevator lobby, then the system points you to the elevator that will get you to that floor in the shortest time while maximizing the overall elevator system. The building’s meeting rooms also monitor the number of people in meeting rooms and adjust the temperature accordingly.

Some of the most important integrations are the ones you can’t see or feel directly. Facility Executive Magazine says in one of its case studies, “Many facility managers do not know how much water is being wasted through their buildings’ HVAC systems.”

HVAC optimization can literally mean the difference of saving vast amounts of water – for instance, up to 7,600 tons of water over the course of year for a 2.25 million square foot building. While it may not be the sexiest feature of a smart office building, a smart HVAC system is by far the greatest cash saver for a building’s infrastructure.

And while it is easy to rank cost savings as the largest return on investment in smart office buildings, there are many others that make integrating operating systems through technology so appealing. The data that is collected by building sensors on electricity use, water consumption and actual hourly use of the space by people provide insights into how to adjust the way a building’s systems can be more efficiently managed.

Having smart assets in a building also increases the overall value of the building. Again, it’s all those systems working together to reduce the rate of depreciation of the office tower itself. These buildings can also take care of themselves, alerting management well in advance of potential issues before they become real and costly ones.

The tenants of the buildings also benefit because worker and work space efficiency tend to increase. Whether it’s maximizing the office space like at the Edge building or creating comfortable meeting spaces like those at RBC Water Park place building, these smart advancements create a lot of appeal for the companies that lease space in a building.

These results are pretty hard to ignore. And, as more advances make more things possible, the lines between science fiction and workplace reality may be hard to distinguish. It seems like it will only be a matter of time before the office kitchen can instantly create the Jean-Luc Picard special: Tea, Earl Grey – hot.

The post Super Smart<p class="company">How Tech-Driven is Your Office?</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

“The Internet of Things is a system of interrelated devices connected to a network and/or to one another, exchanging data without necessarily requiring human-to-machine interaction. In other words, IoT is a collection of electronic devices that can share information among themselves,” explains a February 12, 2020 paper by the Congressional Research Service, which provides reports for members of the U.S. Congress. The actual term Internet of Things was coined in 1999 by a technologist named Kevin Ashton.

“IoT devices are often called ‘smart devices’ because they have sensors and can conduct complex data analytics… These smart home IoT devices can be connected to a single network and controlled remotely over the Internet via a mobile device or computer,” adds the paper.

“The IoT is a suite of technologies and applications that equip devices and locations to generate all kinds of information – and to connect those devices and locations for instant data analysis and, ideally ‘smart’ action. Conceptually, the IoT implies physical objects being able to utilize the Internet backbone to communicate data about their condition, position or other attributes,” detailed Surabhi Kejriwal and Saurabh Mahajan in a 2016 Deloitte University Press report titled Smart buildings: How IoT technology aims to add value for real estate companies.

A February 2018 Deloitte Insights article The Internet of Things: A technical primer outlined IoT use in three fields: enterprise/industrial, consumer, and services/public sector. For the industrial sector, some technology pundits prefer to use the term Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to describe online networks linking machines and computers in manufacturing settings.

IoT-linked products for consumers have gone far beyond robotic vacuum and floor cleaners and voice assistants such as Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. Kitchens can now be stocked with smart refrigerators, for example, which, among their many features, may use sensors and image recognition to detect what is in the fridge and, via an app, alert the owner when supplies run low.

There are a wide variety of other smart appliances and household gadgets, like the ConnectSense Smart Outlet 2, a smart plug that powers coffee makers, lamps, televisions, and additional items while providing IoT connectivity. The smart plug can be operated with voice commands through various voice assistant devices and controlled from a mobile app.

Another household device is the SimCAM 1S, a home security camera that is capable of facial recognition and can let homeowners know in advance who is arriving at their domicile.

Barbecue enthusiasts can even buy Wi-Fi-enabled grills; the Traeger Ironwood 650 Pellet Grill, for example, can barbecue food by digital command.

There is an array of other smart home devices and appliances of varying degrees of usefulness. Smart lighting, for example, can be programmed to power on and off or change intensity or hue at prearranged times, while smart doors open only when you enter or leave. There are also smart windows that can automatically open and close shutters as needed and thermostats that can sense if the homeowner is approaching, automatically compare internal home temperature with outside weather then apply the most pleasing setting.

Even flower beds have gone smart. “You will be able to place IoT sensors in the garden. If these sensors detect dryness in the soil, they can trigger the irrigation system. Robotic lawnmowers can be automatically deployed if the grass exceeds a certain height,” states a June 10, 2020 article in IoT Now magazine.

When it comes to cars, GPS units – which rely on satellite data to track locations and offer directions – have been available for years, but these units have been joined by a slew of other smart automotive devices. Navigation tools can be integrated with apps that offer additional features. One such app, GasBuddy, collects user-submitted data to show drivers the fuel prices of nearby gas stations in real-time.

Autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles, which can ‘drive themselves’ or at least perform certain tasks without human assistance such as parallel parking are the next step in ‘smart’ automotive technology.

“Automakers have correctly noticed a growing trend and a significant business opportunity for connecting their cars to the Internet since there are projected to be around 14 million semi-or fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the roads in the U.S. by 2025,” states a March 10, 2020 article in Business Insider.

It is clear that IoT-based consumer goods are here to stay, and their use is forecast to grow, particularly with the advent of fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks. “The global IoT is expected to grow approximately 37 percent from 2017 to $1,567B by 2025,” states the Congressional Research Service report.

Widespread consumer connectivity comes at a price, however. Security and privacy are huge issues since these devices are connected to the internet. Imagine a computer virus infecting all your IoT-enabled smart car and home devices, and you get the idea. Cameras could transmit your comings and goings, providing fodder for stalkers or alerting thieves to when your home might be empty. Alarm systems could be remotely disabled, permitting access to strangers. And all of this can happen without your knowledge.

The problem is compounded by the fact that many smart consumer devices do not have the greatest encryption. “Depending on the function of various IoT devices, weak cybersecurity can lead to serious consequences, including physical damage or injury. Perhaps the most visceral example is the hacking of an automobile by a bad actor, which could lead to vehicular homicide,” writes EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), a public interest research center in Washington D.C.

People who use IoT consumer devices need to be wary of more than just online viruses and trolls fooling with their heating vents. Smartphones and computers often contain personal banking, insurance, and credit card information that hackers are eager to access. If your phone and computer are connected to a huge array of smart devices, this broadens the number of entry-points hackers can work with to worm their way into your private digital data. Unfortunately, this scenario also holds true for computer-minded stalkers, voyeurs, and other creeps.

Even if your IoT network remains free of hackers, stalkers, and other bad players, all those online connections can provide corporations with copious amounts of personal data detailing your spending and credit habits.

For all that, it seems that consumers have decided that the benefits of smart devices outweigh the risks. Clearly, such tools can improve people’s quality of life, sometimes in unusual ways.

For example, Samsung subsidiary Harman recently unveiled three new connected ‘experience concepts’ or ExPs as the company calls them, for automobiles. These new networked features allow car users to record, edit, and share videos, remotely experience live concerts, and indulge in mobile games – hopefully, while their vehicle is parked. Harman exhibited these experience concepts at CES 2021 (the Consumer Electronics Show). The major global showcase of the latest and greatest in advanced technological gear, CES was held virtually this year due to COVID.

While such technology toys are intriguing, other smart automotive devices displayed at CES 2021 have the potential to save lives. These included an alarm from Italian company Filo designed to protect kids trapped in overheated cars. Left alone, strapped into children’s seats, kids have suffered injury or death when interior vehicle temperatures rise. Filo’s Tata Band system clips to a seatbelt and uses a sensor to detect the presence of a child in the vehicle. Data is relayed to the driver’s smartphone via Bluetooth. If the alert is ignored, emergency contacts are then notified. While not yet available for sale, the device has the potential to save lives.

The post Wired<p class="company">The Internet of Things and the Connectivity of Modern Life</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

When the world changed in response to COVID-19 in 2020, the Door County Economic Development Organization (EDO) pivoted overnight to remotely work from home, but that did not slow down the team’s activity. In fact, the employees of the organization managed a heavier workload than usual, helping over 230 businesses directly during the pandemic.

To find resources, provide counseling, and offer whatever assistance possible, the economic development organization made over 89,000 telecommunications between March tenth and the end of July. “We were very busy for a small staff,” said Door County Economic Development Organization Executive Director Steve Jenkins. “Our first priority was assisting our existing businesses with tapping into resources to manage through the pandemic and resulting economic impact.”

He explained that, “We typically do one email blast to our constituents once a week, and we were averaging one email a day at that time with critical information on resources and on information that we had vetted to make sure it was true and accurate for our constituents so they knew what to do, where to go, and how to do it.” The EDO is now back in the office but operating much differently than usual.

The county has been relatively fortunate compared to other Wisconsin counties that have been more affected by the pandemic. “We have businesses that are telling us: to date, this is the best year they’ve ever had in their history, which is counterintuitive to what we’ve all been experiencing. I think part of that is we are a manufacturing center as well as a tourist destination,” said Jenkins.

Although most people would guess that hospitality is the largest contributor to the county’s gross domestic product, it is manufacturing that is the largest contributor to the county’s GDP. The manufacturing sector, based primarily in Sturgeon Bay, has continued to thrive as a result of the county’s ability to quickly adapt and put regulations in place that kept operations safe and productive during the prime period of the pandemic. Very few manufacturers had to lay off any employees.

To remind people of the vital impact that manufacturers have on the local economy, the county celebrates Manufacturing Day on October 2.

The tourism sector has also remained active. With cancelled trips abroad, many Americans have taken the opportunity to travel by car to destinations closer to home this summer, and Door County is an ideal vacation spot. The county has also seen a change in the demographic of its typical visitor, as much younger tourists than usual visit the area.

“We see public revenues at or slightly lower than the pre-pandemic period, so we think that we are going to come through this in pretty good shape economically, barring any other disasters that may happen,” said Jenkins.

Last September, Door County launched the website LIVEDoorCounty.org to focus on attracting a younger workforce to the area. “We are on a peninsula, so we are kind of geographically challenged in terms of commuting patterns. We are seeing the Live Door County website have an impact concerning the younger workforce, and we have a lot of inquiries now from young entrepreneurs that are interested in living and working out of Door County, particularly from the Chicago metro area,” Jenkins said.

The website exposed the county’s opportunities and amenities to a wider audience, and Door County has a lot to offer, including a multitude of year-round recreational opportunities that are quite attractive to the younger segment of the population. The economic development team is pleased to see that the Live Door County website is frequently used to make informed decisions about moving to the area.

Other workforce development initiatives have become more challenging, including the EDO’s effort to promote the manufacturing field to schools in the region. All five school districts within the county have taken different approaches to reopen, ranging from socially-distant classrooms to virtual learning. Some programs have been paused, but the Youth Entrepreneurship Program is moving forward in full swing, and employers and the school districts find it to be highly valuable.

The program matches young apprentices with local employers to raise awareness about the local career opportunities and has been such a success that DCEDC, in collaboration with Ahnapee Regional Youth Apprenticeship, is hiring a full-time program coordinator for Door County students. DCEDC wants to have placed 130 students in apprenticeship programs by the end of 2021.

In Door County, 68 percent of businesses have fewer than four employees. The economic development organization quickly discovered during the pandemic that the small business sector of the county needed support that it did not have. Going into 2021, DCEDC will roll out a program for its existing businesses of all sizes.

Recently, the EDO hired a new Director of Business Development whose responsibility will be focused on the current business sector. The goal is to provide educational opportunities and other resources that were revealed to be lacking throughout the pandemic.

Rather than recruiting new businesses from multiple sectors, Door County has narrowed its focus. The community was built on the maritime industry and plans to re-energize it over the coming year. “We are going to relook at the maritime sector and where we can grow that sector both in terms of manufacturing but also in terms of services to the maritime industry,” said Jenkins.

Tired of the term, ‘the new normal,’ he hopes that the nation’s economy will stabilize as it adapts to these different circumstances. “I truly believe this is going to be a two-to-three-year readjustment period, barring any additional explosions of the virus or other natural or manmade disasters.”

The county will continue to foster its businesses and encourage entrepreneurial endeavors. With remote work opportunities growing, the EDO will also be paying attention to opportunities that will permit working from home.

Communities across the country are assessing the future in the wake of such potential volatility and deciding where to put their efforts. Door County is emphasizing infrastructure by expanding broadband services and developing affordable housing units. The EDO is actively involved in these areas because they are necessary to grow the economy in the future. Affordable housing is needed to accommodate its year-round workforce as well as its seasonal workers.

The economic development organization will strive to make sure that each of its sectors has an opportunity to grow and prosper as the country moves forward with an unpredictable economy. These days, strategies and plans can be redirected in a single day and economic organizations must be vigilant and flexible enough to adapt to changing situations.

“You’ve got to be able to pick up on changes before they occur and be willing and able to shift gears to accommodate those changes,” Jenkins said. “I think there are challenges moving forward, but I also look at the future very optimistically, and I think it holds great opportunities. It’s just a matter of being focused on what those opportunities may look like and doing your best in collaboration with others in your community, as we do here to take advantage of the changes that are ahead of us.”

Certainly, the pandemic has changed much of the economic development organization’s approach to the future. But this has been a learning experience that will leave a lasting impact on the county.

“I think we have the best of all worlds here,” said Jenkins. “It’s a beautiful location, it’s a wonderful place to vacation, and we also have a very robust manufacturing sector and agriculture sector. We have a diverse economy as it relates to our county, and I think we’re fortunate.”

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