Speaker 0 00:00:00 We keep adding all of those innovation always with the same thought process. We need to make the life of the user easier. We need to make him better. We need to make the tools have more synergies on the task, and we are gonna keep on that path of innovation for another 16 years. That for sure.
Speaker 2 00:00:24 Hello everyone and welcome to the Robot Industry podcast. We're here live at the Automate 2023 show in Detroit, and I've got a special guest today and he is the president of Canova out of Montreal. His name is Charles de Geier. And um, welcome to the podcast, Charles.
Speaker 0 00:00:40 Thank you very much, Jim. Happy to be here. Hey,
Speaker 2 00:00:42 Listen, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, about how you got interested in robotics and, uh, and kind of why we're all here?
Speaker 0 00:00:48 Thank you. So I started canova 16 years ago, really out of passion of robots. And also I really wanted to help my uncles that were power wheelchair users, uh, with muscular dystrophy, losing capacity. And we were working on space robotic, you know, super amazing technology sending robot in space. But at the same time, my uncles in the wheelchair could not grab a glass of water. So we put the two together and say, you know, if we can send robot to space, let's have a robot to help people here down on earth. And this is how we started Key novo, having a robot to be mounted in a wheelchair needed to be super safe, super agile, portable and easy to use. Uh, so, so we started and we became a manufacturer of robot and 16 years later we never stopped.
Speaker 2 00:01:35 Well, that's a great backstory and it's one of the things that attracts me to the Canova brand as well, is knowing that you've come from a place of, uh, purpose and love and all those kinds of things. So I think it's very, very, uh, exciting. So some other people haven't heard about Canova and you're located in Montreal. Uh, it's a bit of a robot innovation and automation hotspot.
Speaker 0 00:01:54 Yes, definitely. Montreal's been, uh, art for robotic and even when we started Canova, we, we have all of that great, uh, pool of talent that was there, many university in Montreal, but again, it is, it's the combination of ai, the combination of, you know, advanced industries like aerospace industries and the pharma and the healthcare. And now we have robotic and you mix all of that together and you generate companies like Ken Nova, you know, we, we do half of our business in healthcare, uh, robotic surgical robot, assistive robot. And now we also have professional and industrial application and it's all powered by this tremendous ecosystem. And we export 96% of our revenues outside of Canada. So really, it's like a launchpad for us. Montreal,
Speaker 2 00:02:40 Yes, it'd be great. Maybe you have on another podcast to talk about how we in Canada can start using more automation in our own factories and such. So innovation is very important to you.
Speaker 0 00:02:50 De definitely it's been, uh, core, uh, to our company since the beginning. And you know, when we started working with people with severe disability, robots are a tool for them. You know, we don't replace my uncle, we don't replace our users that are in the wheelchair. They use a robot as an extension of their body to be able to open door, grab a glass of water, serve themself a meal. So it's all centered around a human using this amazing tool that is a robot now to be efficient with the robot. No typical controller will do it. You need to constantly evolve, innovate, find new ways of controlling it, simplifying the life of the users. And when we got with surgeon using robots was the same think thinking process. You know, how can we make their life better? How can the less efforts do more? And this is where you get more ai, this is where you get more sensors.
Speaker 0 00:03:42 This is where you, you get more of the robot connecting with everything surrounded. So there's a lot of field of innovation, not just in the robot like carbon fiber, robotic arms to be super lightweight, but in embedded controllers, in the type of sensors we're using in the vision system that is, uh, embedded in our system. We keep adding all of those innovation always with the same thought process. You know, we need to make the life of the user easier, we need to make them better, we need to make the tools have more synergies on the task and we are gonna keep on that path of innovation for another 16 years. That's for sure.
Speaker 2 00:04:18 And you must be getting a lot of, uh, feedback from your users, of course, who are using it every single day for their personal lives. And I'm, I assuming a lot of that comes into the industrial side of your business. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:04:28 Definitely. You know, we, we've built our industrial portfolio of solution on the back of everything we've learned in the medical and the assistive and the surgical. So, you know, we, we had to be safe from the get-go. We have six years old kids using our robots every day going to schools. Uh, so safety for us always been, you know, number one priority, but then it need to be reliable in, in surgical and operating room. People rely on it to do diagnostic of lung cancer. So reliability got got there over the years. And now with the industrial, you know, we, we got more of a punch in our system. You know, you got a payload, you got the speed to really be efficient in the factory. You add to that the safety, the reliability we've been building over the years and we really have a made in Canada robot that is outstanding today.
Speaker 2 00:05:13 That's great, thank you for that. So we're here at an industrial trade show to show your collaborative link six robot. Can you tell the audience a little bit about what Link six is and how it's different? Yeah, it's
Speaker 0 00:05:24 Our first industrial robot that is a cobot, uh, really can interact with people, collaborate, coexist with, with workers. So it stays in this mindset of canova, you know, developing tools. Uh, as I mentioned, it's made in Canada, uh, robots, six kilo payload. The first version can go up to nine kilo, uh, easily and you know, a, a bit more speed than the average, uh, cobot, I would say o of its competitors a bit more, more range in its categories, but more importantly it's really AI ready. You know, we were born and raised in Montreal, so this, this AI community's been driving us. How can we transfer more data and have this arm future approved for the next eight to 10 years? And this is really how we've built it. So this first arms that we're launching in the industrial is our fourth generation of robot and really capture the best of everything we've developed up to now.
Speaker 0 00:06:17 So we're seeing here some application for machine tending for sanding. We're going to launch more of those applications this year in the coming years and really gonna see the engine, the innovation engine of canova pushing in industrial more aggressively every year. It's been, um, increasingly interesting for me to see also the speed at which industries compared to medical can absorb innovation. And this is for us really a new domain, a new sector that is going to be driving a lot of growth. Cuz again, in the medical they love innovation, but through certification, the process and you want to make it good, you know, on human on the first time. So it's a slower process to get to market and industrial. The appetite for innovation is outstanding. We love that, we love that we're getting challenged by our customers every day. We're ge be getting challenged by our partners also to push the boundaries of what's possible with robots. And I think to increase adoption of robots in Canada and in North America, you know, it's not just the, the end users that need to educate themself, it's us, the robotic mission that need to develop easier to adopt solution, easier to deploy solution. And for that, I think Link six is the perfect platform.
Speaker 2 00:07:32 That's great, thank you for that. And your manufacturing in North America, which is very rare for any robot manufacturers despite even a collaborative robot manufacturer, how important is that total support service and manufacturing in North America?
Speaker 0 00:07:45 This is paramount to our offering made in Canada or manufacturing in North America is paramount for us and it's really a key to all of the offerings that we want to, to accelerate the deployment and the adoption of robot in North America and worldwide. So I think it was really necessary in the ecosystem to have more manufacturers that are base here in North America and we play that role. So for medical it was essential to be close of the innovation centers and for industrial I see the same, you know, we we're going to help the partner develop solution that integrates robots in their solution and we're gonna help educate the ecosystem cuz we have a big role to play each robotic company, each robotic we need to build bridge with the users, with different industry segment to allow them to adopt more robots. We all have the same challenge on labor shortage.
Speaker 0 00:08:37 We all have the same challenge on productivity. And you know, one, one good way to go for it is yeah, making more babies and I'm trying the, as best as I can on that, but building more robots here and allowing, uh, you know, users and partners to interact directly with the development team. That's also what we offer. The manufacturing in North America is one big component, but the design and manufacturing in North America, I think those teams that are developing the next generation robots here in Montreal, that you can come and meet them, they can fly to your place, they can drive to your place and meet you. This is an amazing, uh, synergy that we're building with the ecosystem.
Speaker 2 00:09:18 One of the things that I think about manufacturing in North America is all, all about the service and support. Yeah, right. That's to me, I think that's really interesting. And uh, and that's one of the thing, one of the challenges that you'll have to deal with at Canova, correct?
Speaker 0 00:09:29 Yeah. But I I believe for us in our case is it's one of the greatest opportunity, you know, you have, you have the local design team, the local r and d team. We have over a hundred engineers that are designing next generation robots in Montreal. So if you guys have challenge, you know, we have an r and d team specializing in developing the robot. Uh, we did some special configuration for the medical, the surgical industries, and we were able, you know, to start with the companies, uh, and its public with Johnson Johnson from the, from the beginning to certification, FDA process and now deploying those robot in in hospital around the world. So, you know, we're, we're not here for a quick sprint. We're we're here for the long run and if there's complex project, you know, now you have a partner here in North America.
Speaker 2 00:10:15 And speaking of partnerships, and I, that's a good segue into my next question is partnerships are really important to Canova and even here in the booth there's lots of technology partners that you're dealing with. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:10:26 I really believe, uh, for business development is, is developing those partnership relationship on the long term. As I said, uh, we're we're structured for that. We, this is how we, we want great success in the medical space in both assistive and in the surgical, uh, space. It's all through partnership. So coming to the industrial, you know, don't expect something very different from us. Uh, we're going with the deep partnership, long-term partnership and you know, there's no, there's really no limit to how deep we can get in those partnership to create this value. And again, I hope for the ecosystem of robotic, not just in Montreal but in North America, that we, we focus on building more of those partnership.
Speaker 2 00:11:07 Where do you think the future of collaborative technologies will take us?
Speaker 0 00:11:11 Very interesting. Uh, every year we get surprised by new application, new new indication of using the cobots. We, we see a lot of potential also on things that are not robotized yet. Like cobots been entering in field like welding, there's been robotic in welding for over 50 years. Cobots still managed to find niche and segment and high grow potential, uh, segment, uh, in welding. So we get surprised in traditionally robotized field and we get surprised in in, in non robotized field, like in agri food, uh, industries. It's amazing what we're seeing every year in, in the machine tending robot's been able to, to do machine tending for CNC for decades, but deploying them to less than a hundred K per application. This is new and this is thanks to cobot. So it's not making it more accessible on the expertise level, not needing barriers and things like that. But on the price point per deployment, this is opening wide new industries that were not touched by robotic before and it's much needed.
Speaker 2 00:12:19 One of the uh, interesting things about Canova and being in Montreal especially is talent attraction. And so you've got, uh, just a lot of automation and robots company. So talent is not a problem because I think everybody wants to work for a robot company. Is that a challenge for you at all?
Speaker 0 00:12:34 We, we've been blessed in Montreal cuz there's a lot of, uh, research center, uh, around robotic. Many universities have specific robotic, uh, curses and we add for many years more labs about robotics than we actually add robotic company. Uh, so we have a very healthy funnel of talents. Uh, now I I can understand that I'm telling everybody <laugh> and I I might lose this advantage, but no, we have a very healthy pool of talent in robotic, not just in Montreal. We, we talk about, you know, around Waterloo, Toronto, even Calgary and Vancouver, very healthy pool of talent in robotic to develop robots. What I think we need more and more also in Canada, in the US is, you know, trade skills around deployment of robot trade skill, around maintenance of robots. Uh, those are going to be very important for the continent to catch back on its, uh, late adoption of robot.
Speaker 2 00:13:28 Yes, I think Charles, that's, uh, a really good point about we need to make manufacturing interesting again for all of our young people. So I always encourage people to get involved in the robots industry in electrical design, mechanical design. What are some of the areas that you're needing at Canova? Is it ai, uh, cameras, what?
Speaker 0 00:13:46 Yeah, so what, what we call, you know, perception. So the cameras, the sensors for torque, the sensors for proximity, uh, 2D and 3D type of cameras. But everything that is going to allow the robot to perceive everything that's around him, there's gonna be a lot of developing in that sector. We're, we're at the infancy on that, uh, on that space. And interestingly enough, the development of sensors for the cars that are driving themself, you know, are lowering the costs of those sensors and of those perception technology. So I expect a lot of development in the coming years into perception around robots and robot that have enough computing power and it can manage a lot of data. Like the link six will be able to benefit from those, uh, those AVI trends that are being having, you know, billions of dollar being invested, uh, to them.
Speaker 0 00:14:37 So perception's going to be important. Uh, sensor fusion is going to be very important. And again, on the other side, very simple. Um, deployment of application as a solution, really we see a lot of a solution, uh, for, for bin picking a lot of solution for Palletization, but our package in a ready to deploy mode, and this is very important. I i I don't <laugh> it's so important to increase the adoption and to accelerate the deployment to really reduce this price point and make it accessible, not just the robot, but the full solution around the robot as a ready to deploy. Uh, kit
Speaker 2 00:15:18 Charles, thank you very much for coming to the podcast. It's great to meet you here in the Canova booth. Um, do you have any, uh, hobbies or anything then you're not, uh, building surgical robots or building industrial robots? Uh, what do you like to do?
Speaker 0 00:15:30 Yeah, I, I play volleyball, uh, for the last, uh, 20 year and I still are able to play almost every week. And I also have four kids, so this is, I don't know if it's counted as a hobby, but <laugh> keep you busy, that's for sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 00:15:43 Well, again, uh, if people wanna find out more about Canova or reach out to you, uh, how can they, uh, do that?
Speaker 0 00:15:49 Yeah, Canova ca has the easiest one or LinkedIn. Uh, we're on LinkedIn very easily. Charles McGuire, uh, on LinkedIn, I'm happy to connect if you're passionate about robots, if you think robots can help your industries or you need a more powerful tools than your and to do something, we can help you.
Speaker 2 00:16:07 Thank you very much.
Speaker 0 00:16:08 My pleasure.
Speaker 2 00:16:09 Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart Automation Systems. Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing, they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing and project management, delivering world class custom automation on time and on budget. Contact one of their sales engineers to see what Earhart can build for you. And Earhart is spelled E H R H A R D T and their email address is info airhart automation.com. And I'd like to acknowledge a three, the Association for Advancing Automation. They are the leading automation trade association for robotics, vision and imaging motion control and motors, and the industrial artificial intelligence technologies. Visit automate.org to learn more. And I'd like to thank Painted Robot. They build and integrate digital solutions. They're a web development firm that offers seo, digital and social marketing, and can connect CRM and other e r p tools to unify marketing, sales, and operations. You can find
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the Robot Industry Podcast, you can find me, Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. And today's podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing, and I'd like to thank Chris Gray for the music, Jeffrey Bremner for audio production. My business partner Janet, and our sponsor, Earhart Automation Systems.
