I started working at Plenty in August 2018 as a mechanical design intern. At the time, the company was rounding out the design of its first large-scale automated facility in San Francisco. I contributed to various machine design projects during this time, and continued to work until May 2019 when I switched from a contract basis into full time employment. After another 6 months owning mechanical design projects, I began focusing on processing line scale up and redesign as a manufacturing engineer- eventually playing a large role in launching our next generation facilities in Los Angeles.
My greatest contribution to Plenty was acting as Area Lead for the automated Harvesting, Cleaning, and Transplanting line that we launched in LA. In this role I was the singular owner responsible for successful installation and equipment performance during ramp up, managing a large team including integration partners as well as internal engineers.
I had many roles and functions during my time at Plenty. When I first started, the engineering team fit into one conference room, when I left there were over 100 of us. Below is a shortlist of my experiences and core competencies.
Mechanical
– CNC’d parts, sheet metal, mechanisms
– Sensor and device selection
– FANUC Robot TPP trained
– SolidWorks, CATIA, Revit
– Machine troubleshooting
Manufacturing
– Defining Process Flow and FMEA
– Discrete Event Simulation
– Define/measure OEE & collect machine data
– Authoring specification and scope of work documents
– Integrator management including budget, timeline, SAT/FAT
– Deployment and installation (checklists, test procedures, success criteria)
– Cross functional leadership with Production/Quality/Maintenance teams
I am listed as an inventor on a handful of patents including:
– CA3115140C Grow tower processing for controlled environment agriculture system
– AU2020350507B2 Production facility layouts for automated controlled environment agriculture
– US20220227007A1 Pickup and laydown station systems for grow tower production
We were recently featured on NatGeo’s Instagram, and there are a handful of nifty explainer videos on Plenty’s own YouTube page.
nadav hendel 