Five years inside manufacturing facilities — buying, scoping, and delivering automation projects, and just as often finding the throughput already sitting untapped in equipment that's already running.
Trestle Automation Advisors was built on a straightforward observation: small and mid-size manufacturers are making their biggest capital decisions — and running day-to-day operations — without any independent expertise on their side. They're too lean to justify a full-time automation engineer, but too exposed to go in blind. Integrators are skilled — but they are not your advisor. They are a vendor.
I spent five years inside manufacturing facilities as a controls and integration engineer — programming PLCs, commissioning FANUC robot cells, designing mechanical systems, and watching how automation projects actually get bought, scoped, and delivered. I saw firsthand what happens when a manufacturer doesn't have someone translating between the vendor's world and their own operation.
"I speak the integrator's language and the plant manager's language. That's the whole job."
Trestle is based in Holland, Michigan, serving small and mid-size manufacturers across West Michigan. We are not an integrator. We do not sell equipment. Our only incentive is your outcome.
Every recommendation is made with your outcome in mind first. If we're ever compensated by a third party on a project, we'll tell you before you have to ask.
Every recommendation is sized to what your operation actually needs — not what maximizes the size of the next invoice.
Every retainer can be cancelled with 30 days notice. We earn the relationship every month, not just once at signing.