Where we started and where we're going.

I started out working at a company named TOCCO, The Ohoi Crankshaft Co. in the assembly department.

At TOCCO I worked sometimes 60+ hours a week AND was enrolled in two college classes at the same time. It was definitely a great sacrifice, some of which was unrecoverable.

It was at a time when TOCCO's engineering was moving into the digital world, so I quickly moved from Assembly to the Engineering Dept. From TOCCO, I accepted a Controls Engineer position at an integrator in Huntsville, AL., and shortly thereafter moved to Huntsville.

That integrator decided to close a couple years later. Prior to my employer closing, one of the customers I served asked me to take on a project that my employer was not willing to do... SO I DID! Now, going on 30 years ago, Mikewill Automation has been my abode. We now have the most awesome team on the planet. STILL need to grow, but our team has accomplished a multitude of various projects. Here is our team:
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Mike Bearden - President
Barry Handerson - Controls Engineer
Chad Cox - Automation Engineer
John Demedicis - Robotics Engineer
Chris Burns - Atlanta base Controls Engineer and part owner
Jason Harris - Automation Engineer
Chris Gilbert - Electrician
Kim Roose - Robotics Engineer
Kristie Cranmer - Executive Assistant and Accounting
Kathy Barkett - Accounting

YOUR NAME GOES HERE - If you are interested in a position on our TEAM, your name could be here.

1990

Starting Out

The first project as Mikewill Automation was for Americold Compressor, a company in Cullman, AL that made refrigerator compressors. They wanted a system to use barcode readers to route each compressor into a test station, then to a repair station if appropriate.

That was during the time of SLC500 PLC's, Adaptascan barcode readers, DeviceNet Communication, and the old PanelView HMI's.
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I admit, it was a challenge. That was a long time ago, and the technology was bleeding edge, to say the least. It was however a successful project. It lead to more work and thus Mikewill Automation was born.
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That one project also set the pace for Mikewill to be the company to call when a difficult project was at hand. I have adapted a motto: If it were easy, someone easy could do it... We do the projects nobody else wants to do.

2000

First Big Break

I cannot say that Mikewill has had any "big breaks", but rather a consistent flow of successfully projects over a period of years. EVERY project is just as important as any other.
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I do admit that sometimes it is annoying to spend two days "making a formal quote" for a project that takes two hours to complete. I strongly recommend that our customers do the small projects on a TIME and EXPENSE method.

WE THRIVE on Time and Expense projects. That is how we prove to our customers that we are a good solution for their automation projects.

2010

Big Projects

Ameriqual Foods in Evansville, Indiana.
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A production line that packages product like ketchup into rectangular dipping cups that you find in fast food restaurants.

Our job was to
1. provide a FILLER to fill the cups with product. It filled 90 cups per machine cycle.  

2. to provide the packaging, a method to place the cups into boxes. This utilized 4 ABB robots together with a conveyor system.Delta Steel and Tube, Florence, AL.. We've integrated 10+ Robotic Weld Cells for them. Some are ABB and some are Fanuc.

Tucker Milling in Guntersville, AL.

1. We have dedicated staff on site almost most every day of each year.
2. We have "servo-ed up" some of their older equipment to make it run more efficient.
3. We recently integrated an ABB pallet storage and retrieval system.

2020

Who We Are Today

Today: Mikewill Inc. aka Mikewill Automation is a thriving company.

We proclaim "Huntsville. Birmingham, and Atlanta". The truth is, we are all across the US in too many places to list. We are growing because we have to, to meet the needs of our customers.
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We are currently negotiating properties to better accommodate our customers.

We are ALWAYS open to new team members. We DO require our team members to maintain a level of integrity and capability that matches the record we have set for ourselves.

Our team hopes to be in your neighborhood soon. Please reach out to us for any automation needs you may have.