Speaker 0 00:00:00 What we found universally is that good welders don't like to weld the dirt. Simple, high volume parts, right? It's just not satisfying to them. What they want to weld is more complex. Weldments, the focus on a lot of the cobot automation is on those simple piece parts, freeing up the skilled welders to work more on the complex weldments.
Speaker 2 00:00:29 Hello everyone and welcome to the Robot Industry Podcast. My name's Jim Beretta, and thank you for subscribing. And I'm here with an old friend and I'm a big fan of Joe Campbell, and I've been watching Joe Campbell for most of my almost 30 years in the industry. And he actually is a little bit senior to me. He's got 40 years of robot experience, and Joe is the senior manager of strategic marketing and applications development for Universal Robots. Welcome to the podcast, Joe.
Speaker 0 00:00:54 Thank you, Jim. And isn't that title a mouthful?
Speaker 2 00:00:57 The title is a big method. It is a big one, literally is three wines on my, uh, notebook here. Joe just gave a presentation here at the Assembly Show and, uh, very excited to have him on the podcast. And you've now been at UR for four years.
Speaker 0 00:01:11 I have, in fact, I am right at my four year anniversary. Mark. I joined at the, uh, end of October. And interestingly enough, the week that I joined was the week of the assembly show, 2018, and I met most of my team at this show.
Speaker 2 00:01:27 And it's just kind of an exciting, like, here we are back again.
Speaker 0 00:01:30 Right? So like deja vu all over again,
Speaker 2 00:01:33 <laugh>. So Joe, I wanted to kind of, uh, welcome you to the podcast and kind of get maybe an update from you a little bit on what's happening in collaborative robots. But I want, before we start that question, I wanted to give our audience who might not know much about universal Robots, you know, who is ur?
Speaker 0 00:01:49 Well, I mean, the quick story about UR is, uh, we, we actually pioneered the collaborative robot industry. Uh, our first products were developed, uh, almost 15 years ago, and we took 'em to market about, uh, 11 years ago. And, um, it was really the outcome from some really radical thinking by our founders. Uh, UR is a, a Danish company, a headquartered in Denmark. And, um, you know, our founders just took a completely different look at the robotics and automation industry. They, they did not come from the industry. Uh, they were actually students at a university in southern Denmark and, uh, kind of took a different look at how cobots, well now cobots than robots should interact with, with personnel, um, out on the factory floor. So that was the genesis of it. And since then, we've, uh, we've exploded where we've shipped well over 50,000 cobots now, uh, all around the world. And we're in just about every application and industry segment that you can imagine.
Speaker 2 00:02:51 And one of the interesting things about universal robots that I like, and of course I do some work with you up in Canada, is kind of the way, the approach that has been very, very different to make robots easier, to make them more accessible. But tell us a little bit our, our audience, uh, some of the things that is happening at ur, but I'd like you to start off with the UR app store.
Speaker 0 00:03:11 Well, it's, uh, I think all these, all these things that we'll talk about or we can talk about, uh, they we're all outcome from our founders trying to take a look at how to simplify the deployment of robots, right? And, and so the app store is a great example. We concluded early on that we were not gonna be a vision company. Uh, we were not gonna be a gripper company. We were not gonna be all things to all people. In fact, if you still look at our product line today, it's five models. It's very streamlined. And so the app store came out of, of that thinking is, is how do we, how do we focus on what we do best and then how do we enlist the rest of the industry to develop products for our cobots? But more importantly, how do we do that in at the same time strip out the risk and the cost and the complexity that's typically associated with adding peripherals to a, to a robot system.
Speaker 0 00:04:05 So, you know, UR Plus was born, it is the app store for Universal Robots. Um, what's really interesting about it is it's, it's, it's not just third party companies designing a product that can fit on our end of arm tool, although that is a component to it. It's all about electrical compatibility and software compatibility. So all Urus products that are appropriate, for example, grippers or machine vision systems, they're all programmed and operated directly from the UR teach pendant. Basically, they're operating instructions are embedded inside our poly scope environment. And that is what really strips out the cost and complexity in deploying these peripherals.
Speaker 2 00:04:49 So plug and play is really plug and play. When you're at the UR app start,
Speaker 0 00:04:53 It is no different than plug and play on your, your iPhone or your, your Google phone. If you download an app, the expectation is it will behave well, it will operate well, and it's gonna, it's gonna do as intended on the, on the, you know, the home device.
Speaker 2 00:05:09 And can you tell our audience a little bit about UR Academy? This is one of the most impressive things I've seen for a robot company to actually take this technology and, um, apply to it.
Speaker 0 00:05:20 Well, so as, as the, we built the company out, right? We had very easy to use software, but the traditional model of getting operators and programmers and engineers up the curve was very expensive. And if you look at the overall project, budget training can be a really significant part of the project budget. So consequently, the UR Academy was born, it was an, it's an online academy. Uh, it's it's built by educators and it's got 13 or 14 core modules that are, you know, building blocks. And literally in a couple three hours you can learn the fundamentals of programming and operating a universal cobot. And that alone just stripped out a ton of cost out of the projects. It really simplified the whole deployment process and it, it gave perspective customers confidence that they can actually make this technology work.
Speaker 2 00:06:14 And you've got 17 training sessions, so I, I agree with you. I I, in the old days, right, you would buy a robot, then you'd go off for a week and you'd send your team and it'd be thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Now they can go online, but you also have localized, uh, training centers that are approved by ur
Speaker 0 00:06:31 Well, that's true. We have over a hundred around the world and, uh, more coming online every month. Some customers want to go faster, right? Yep. And some customers want to go deeper, and some customers want their engineers to be able to work closely hand in hand with a UR application engineer, uh, on their project. And those, those, those physical training sessions are perfect for that. Some are run by UR and our facilities and some are run by our partners and their facilities.
Speaker 2 00:06:58 And what's the application builder?
Speaker 0 00:07:00 Yeah, so the, the application builder was another effort on our part to try to, you know, shortcut the development time for a project. And, you know, quite often people, particularly people that are new to automation, they really not necessarily know where to start. And so the application builder allows you to answer very few questions about the project in front of you, the application that you wanna, uh, you know, accomplish, whether it's palletizing or machine tending or some other material handling. And then it will actually generate a program framework, uh, out of that, uh, that you can actually load into the system. It also gives you tips and recommendations on areas to pay attention to, problem areas to avoid, uh, and it really gives you a whole roadmap on how to develop that project specifically.
Speaker 2 00:07:48 Thank you for that, Joe. Can you also tell our audience what a UR kit is?
Speaker 0 00:07:53 Well, so in the UR plus world, there are components and then there are kids. And then we're, um, actually have a new category that's emerging called solutions. So components, a good example is a gripper, uh, grippers, not a solution to anything. A grippers, a gripper, it's part of a bigger, uh, you know, a bigger piece. Uh, an application kit might take, take the, the solution to the 90% level. Uh, a good example of an application kit could be, for example, a sanding kit. So it's a, it's a sander, it's software, it's a sensor, uh, to help, you know, get the cobot ready to sand a solution kit is a final solution, right? It doesn't leave any of the development, any of the deployment questions on the end user. Um, a good example of that would be in the arc welding, uh, realm. We've got, we've got two great, uh, arc welding solutions, one from Fetus and one from hbos. And so these are, these are really standard product turnkey, uh, that gets delivered to the end user and they're ready to execute the process.
Speaker 2 00:09:02 And you've seen some, uh, real interest in welding for collaborative robots, and I think it's, it's like, it's kind of like the perfect world, right? Collaborative robots have come on on mass to the market, and welders are leaving the industry in droves. Yeah. So how does that look
Speaker 0 00:09:19 For you? Well, it's a, it's a phenomenal space for us. Um, and it, it's interesting because it's, it's, in most cases it's a classic case of the high mix, low volume shop that's struggling. And I mean, labor in manufacturing is tight every place in welding, it's doubly tight, right? I mean, it, it can be the, the perfect storm of dull, dirty and dangerous. Uh, in, in the worst case, um, welding is now our fastest growing segment application segment. Uh, and we believe this year that we're gonna be over 1,200 cobots deployed into a welding applications. And that was just came out on our earnings release today.
Speaker 2 00:09:57 That's just crazy. And it's really successful for you and for your partners and some of these partners like, hi Botics, like they're coming out and really helping the end manufacturer. They're helping you are, they're, they're pushing the industry forward and they're, these are very important people to you. Absolutely.
Speaker 0 00:10:14 And it's, again, to put it in perspective, I've been here four years, four years ago, zero arc welding, none. And today it is, uh, it is just a, a booming segment. And in fact, I mean, we're here at the assembly show today. We're talking about assembly applications, screw driving, nut running dispensing, et cetera. Fab Tech is coming up here in a couple weeks and we're gonna be focused on metal fab and a heavy welding concentration.
Speaker 2 00:10:39 And what is, uh, poly scope? You've had it in your presentation today.
Speaker 0 00:10:43 So poly scope is our programming environment. It's actually our software environment. Um, and it's, what's interesting to me about poly scope coming from the industry is poly scope is really kind of a, a dualhead animal. On one hand, it is incredibly easy to use for fundamental straightforward applications. Uh, one of the things that we love to do is we love to take editors from trade publications and teach 'em how to program, right? <laugh>. Um, and, and so it is, it has excelled at this ease of use paradigm. But the other side of poly scope is a very, very sophisticated open architecture development platform. And that's how companies like Hier, botics and vectors in the welding world, for example, can actually develop very, very deep rich process driven applications, uh, on the UR platform. And, and when you're working in their environment, uh, you're thinking and talking and programming like a welder, not like a robot programmer. And the poly scope, uh, platform and API environment is the key
Speaker 2 00:11:49 To that. And so one of the things that I've been excited about for the, for the company, for your applications is that, um, welders in companies, and there's maybe not that many welders can actually take ownership of programming a robot. They can learn how to use their skill. And can you tell our audience a little bit about what, what that looks like? So now, as a welder, I don't have to weld 200 units a day.
Speaker 0 00:12:12 Yeah. Well, well there's a couple comments in there that are worthwhile. Um, the, the first thing that we, we started to understand very quickly is, um, you know, good welders are about a half artisans, right? It is a, it is an artistic craft, uh, and it's, you know, it's, it's, it's very physical in nature. Um, what we found universally is that good welders don't like to weld the dirt. Simple high volume parts, right? It's just not satisfying to them. It doesn't, it doesn't touch any part of their imagination. What they want to weld is more complex weldments. And so the focus on a lot of the cobot automation is on those simple piece parts, freeing up the skilled welders to work more on the complex weldments, which by the way, benefits the shop owners cuz they're the higher margin products. I think the other thing that we see is, uh, it's, it's with the right environment, it is, it is very easy for a skilled welder to adapt very, very quickly to setting up a robot program, speaking in weld language, right? Yep. Not robot language. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and, and the good installations, you'll see one skilled operator who maybe was under the hood right, for the last 10 or 20 years, and he is now the keeper and owner and operator of three or four arc welding cobots. And it's a very different world for that welder at that point. Much better.
Speaker 2 00:13:41 Um, and today in your presentation at the Assembly show, uh, you talked about paths to success, and this was really about how kind of you get there in using collaborative technologies, especially robots in your facilities.
Speaker 0 00:13:54 Yeah, I mean, I think the, the thing that we counsel, I, I particularly spend a lot of time on it is, is helping companies understand what the best deployment models are. Um, and I think, you know, the good news is if you have the right resources and you have the, the, the time and the project scope is appropriate, you can do it yourself.
Speaker 2 00:14:15 Yes.
Speaker 0 00:14:15 However, that may not be the best business decision. So what I try to do is work with business owners and operators and general managers to help them understand the drivers, uh, the business decisions behind that choice to go do it yourself or work with a evaluated distributor or work with a traditional or lean integrator as appropriate.
Speaker 2 00:14:37 And we talked about lean, you talked about lean integrators today, and it was really interesting that, uh, that approach where they are just a very certain type of integrator that that really follows the model quite accurately.
Speaker 0 00:14:48 Yeah. They, you know, the, the, and I coined the phrase, I'll be proud to say that <laugh>, um, but, but it was, it was after meeting a number of these guys and really understanding that they were different than the traditional integrators, right? Yep. Uh, Jim, the traditional integrators that you and I have known for a very long time, right? They want to be big, they need to be big, uh, they want to be able to do big projects, and consequently they carry big overheads. But there's a whole different class of a, of automation out there. And, and that is where the lean integrators fit their low overhead, uh, they focus on being very nimble. Uh, time is their enemy. They want projects to go very, very quickly. Uh, and they're not likely to take a complex project that'll take four to six months. Uh, they want projects in application space that they know very well that they can turn very quickly. And it's not uncommon to see, uh, from purchase order to production three or four weeks when a lean integrator is involved.
Speaker 2 00:15:50 Yeah, it's a, it is very exciting part, I think for the, uh, for the market to, to look at this, this new paradigm of, uh, of integrators and integration. Uh, and one of the things that you had mentioned, uh, in your presentation today are some worksheets. Can you tell our audience about that? And I'm gonna put your email in our show notes so that people can find it, but that'd
Speaker 0 00:16:09 Be great. Yeah. So we've got, we've got a couple tools that we've found have really started to resonate with, uh, with customers. Um, one is a justification worksheet and an accompanying white paper. And what I try to do there is just capture all the areas that automation, and not just cobot automation, right? But any automation can actually benefit a company. Um, you know, when you and I started in the business back in the dark ages, it was all about labor savings. It was about taking labor content out of products. Yes. Well, today it's not about taking labor out, it's about attracting labor and making labor more efficient. And so that's the starting point. But behind that, there's multiple other areas that automation benefits the business. Um, and the point I try to make is these are business drivers. They're not automation drivers. They're not engineering drivers.
Speaker 0 00:17:00 They really change the shape of a business. So I'm happy to share the white paper and the worksheet with anybody who would like it. Um, you know, I'll give it to you verbally, jo, j o c
[email protected] and I'll be happy to send it to you. The, the second piece is the application evaluation scorecard. Particularly if you're new to automation, you may not have a big deep skill set or experience base to evaluate applications. And this is a tool that will help you, uh, really look at multiple applications and determine how risky they each are. And it's, it's based on the environment and based on the technology and based on interfaces to other items in the factory, et cetera. Uh, and again, I'd be happy to share that with you too.
Speaker 2 00:17:45 One of the big things that I, I kind of heard today, uh, a lot was time to market. And it seems that that's one of the beautiful things about collaborative automation is I don't need the big, um, uh, guarding and I you might, but oftentimes you don't. But you can get these robots very quickly.
Speaker 0 00:18:03 Yeah. I mean, the, the, the, the manufacturers that I talked to today, they may have long term problems, but what is keeping them up at night is a today problem, right? They, they have a production challenge, they have a quality issue, they have an irate customer, um, you know, they're trying to solve a problem today. Um, and so either from value added distributors or lean integrators, um, or do it yourselfers, we're AP able to deploy automation very quickly. Right now, our lead times out of our factories, uh, on our product line is two weeks, uh, wheel ship and two weeks or less. And so we're, we're seeing people, this would be the, the key you can, you can have a, a cobot in production in less than a month.
Speaker 2 00:18:47 And we've, uh, one of the things that, uh, I also like about collaborative robots and when I talk about them, is the fact that you can use collaborative robots in a couple different places in your f facility. You can mount collaborative robots on special wheeled machines, and it can be doing one thing in the morning, one thing in the afternoon.
Speaker 0 00:19:03 Well, and that's, uh, that's been a key to, uh, really this, this heavy growth in both welding and machine tending in other areas. Uh, it's a concept we call as robot as a tool. In traditional automation, you're usually matched one robot to one machine, right? Yes. Because it's hard mounted. And, you know, you have to ensure that you have enough volume of parts on that machine robot pair to justify the investment. Uh, but with the collaborative technology, they can be redeployed very quickly. And we have customers that actually have fleets of cobots in their machine shop, for example, and they move them from station to station, machine to machine, depending on their production plan for that day or week.
Speaker 2 00:19:44 So, Joe, I'm thinking that maybe there's some manufacturers or or so listening to this podcast going, okay, so what, what do I do? What's, what's the first thing I do? Like, what would you suggest
Speaker 0 00:19:52 Call us? Well, that's rather gratuitous, but Yes. Um, one of the things that we really are quite good at, I believe is, is taking that call from a manufacturer who does not have automation or has traditional automation, uh, but hasn't gone down to collaborative path and demystifying collaborative technology and helping the, the, not just the engineers but the production team understand the benefits and the safety protocols involved. Um, and we can, we can definitely help spot those low hanging fruit applications. That's something that we do really well.
Speaker 2 00:20:27 And you can direct them to either a distributor or a value added integrator or whatever so that they can work together with them.
Speaker 0 00:20:33 Absolutely. I mean, if you've got a, if you've got a welding application, we've got a, a ready group of welding professionals that we can connect you with, depending on the process that you're looking at in your location and the scope. Uh, but the same for, for machine tending and packaging palletizing, really any of the application segments.
Speaker 2 00:20:51 And where do you see industry going? Like, it's been so exciting. Like this is crazy that the robot industry, um, in four years has absolutely collaborative robots have changed it maybe forever.
Speaker 0 00:21:02 I think it has changed forever. Just to be clear, there's definitely gonna be a spot for traditional automation. Yes. Right? If you're, if you're high volume, low mix, you are probably gonna deploy traditional automation, right? It's the best fit. Um, but the untapped market potential is all around the small and medium enterprise, um, and the large enterprise who are kinda rethinking how they're deploying automation and where it can fit in their, in their businesses. And so I think, I think the collaborative market is gonna continue to explode. We're barely scratching the surface at this
Speaker 2 00:21:38 Point. No, it's very exciting. And I'm, uh, interested to watch you and watch, uh, what happens at Universal Robots. And so again, can you give people, uh, if they want to get in touch with ur, uh, is there a general email box or, or is it, or should they get just call you?
Speaker 0 00:21:52 Well, they can, they can certainly call me. They can certainly email me. I'm happy to do that. I would, I would actually recommend that you hit the website. It is one of the richest websites in the industry. For example, we have over 150 application case studies, uh, and where this is from manufacturers telling their story about how they deploy cobots and what it's done for their business, a great educational tool that's also where you get access to the academy, uh, and to the application builder and really everything else we have to offer. And on the website you can actually schedule a visit mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, from one of our distributors or our team itself. And, uh, it's an easy, easy way to
Speaker 2 00:22:32 Engage. And what's the website, Joe?
Speaker 0 00:22:33 It's www.universalrobots.com.
Speaker 2 00:22:38 Thanks very much for, uh, coming out and, uh, chatting with me here at the Assembly Show.
Speaker 0 00:22:42 Take care, Jim. Talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 00:22:44 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 their
[email protected]. And Earhart is spelled E H R H A R D T. I'd also like to thank and acknowledge a three, the Association for Advancing Automation. They're the leading association, uh, trade show for robotics, vision imaging, motion control, and motors in the industrial artificial intelligence technologies. Visit automate.org to learn more. And I'd like to thank and recognize our partner Painted Robot. They are, uh, they at Painted Robot. They build and integrate digital solutions. They're a web firm that offers seo, social and digital marketing, and can set up and connect CRM and E R P tools to unify marketing, sales, and operations. And you can find
[email protected]. If you'd like to get in touch with the Robot Industry Podcast, you can find me, Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing, and I'd like to thank and recognize my nephew, Chris Gray, for the music. Our, uh, Jeffrey, our audio partner, uh, my partner Janet, and a three painted robot and Earhart Automation Systems.
