WHOOOSH! A fighter jet flies overhead and the noise nearly knocks me into a pallet of exhibition stand kit. It roars to the end of a runaway at FIVE, the venue for Farnborough Air Show, and taxis into a holding position. Compliance manager for transport and logistics company Ceva Showfreight, Ray Myles, leans over and softly states: "Don’t worry, there will be another one along in a minute if you missed that."
Ceva is the official logistic and traffic control providers for the event, and it has decided to use the show as a final challenging test to its ShowPad technology. ShowPad is designed to speed up the processes involved in unloading, installing and confirming exhibition stand build.
For a show that features hundreds of exhibitors over a huge expanse of land, with deliveries arriving at almost every hour of the day, I’d say anything that speeds up the build up process would be most welcome by everyone involved.
The ShowPad removes the need for physical documents to change hands, as the exhibitor or contractor signs for a delivery on an electronic pad. That information is relayed back to a central computer hub and can be instantly e-mail ready. It speeds up the process, removes the need for paper and provides accurate product tracking.
When you are constructing an exhibition stand that weighs 500 tonnes (of which the roof makes up a buckling 53 tonnes) and requires four cranes to erect, the last thing you are going to need is a lost piece of paper that might require the whole thing to be taken down again!
