Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:03 Hello everyone. And welcome to the robot industry podcast. My name is Jim Beretta, and I am your host. And I'm thrilled today to tell you that we have two people on the podcast today, and I've asked them both to be together because they do a lot of work together. And the companies are rail from Switzerland and Mecca DEMEC from Montreal. So I'd like to introduce our two guests. The first guest is Lloyd Arnold, and he's the product marketing manager, uh, based out of Switzerland. He's had 15 years working with automation products, across many industries. He's a product specialist in machine vision and 3d bin picking. And he's got a strong passion for application solving, born out of his, uh, beginning of his career as an application engineering. And he's just recently relocated his family from the UK to Switzerland in the past year during the pandemic. So, uh, good for you. Uh, uh, Lloyd and that's Lloyd Arnold. I'd also like to introduce Stan Glazer. He's the director of applications and support at Mecca DEMEC. He's got a background in mechatronics. He's worked with industrial robots for over the past eight years, and he's focused on high precision applications. He's always wanted to work for a robot. Well, we M so when he heard about <inaudible> starting up in Montreal, he was very excited. There's not very many industrial robot manufacturers in Montreal. So Lloyd and Stan, welcome to the podcast today.
Speaker 1 00:01:30 Thanks, Jim. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm Lloyd and I love automation and technology. I like process improvement and my passion is making things better and more efficient. The last 18 months, things have changed. I missed that, that smell of oil. As you walk across the factory floor. I never thought I worked in it. I never thought I would say that either, but it's one thing I love about manufacturing and our industry, and it's getting to the frontline, talking with the real superstars, those engineers maintaining and keeping our factories running. I think we all miss that interaction at machine level. And I certainly can't wait to get back out there.
Speaker 2 00:02:11 Well, thank you, Jim. Um, yeah, so my name is Stan and I love robots. I've, I've always known that I wanted to go into robotics. Um, and like you mentioned, I was very happy when there was a company, uh, that opened up here in north America that produces industrial robots, because that means I didn't have to move to Japan or to, um, or to, to Germany. I could literally walk down the street and, uh, work for a company that makes small robots, uh, just to put in perspective. My academic robots are very, very small. So they're the smallest and most precise robots in the industry right now. Uh, when they're folded down to give you an idea, they're about the size of a sheet of paper, uh, the controllers embedded in the base of the robot. And
Speaker 0 00:02:55 W we're happy to have you both here, and we're recording from Villa here in Switzerland, as well as Montreal and London, Ontario. So we're kind of all around the world today. Lloyd, can you take a minute and introduce Israel and what products and services that you're doing?
Speaker 1 00:03:10 Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks Jim. So I represent as a real, we are a Swiss company based in our modern technology park in Villa, Cynthia, which is in Canton Freeburg. We were born out of the watch industry, providing a solution for feeding, very fragile parts. Our product is something called a flexible feeder. Now, when I say flexible feeder, some people might think of that all you can eat buffet or a vending machine, but I can assure you our type of flexible fee to has nothing to do with this. A flexible feeder is about being flexible enough to feed. And when I say feed, we mean separate and cingulate from bulk, any type of parts, manipulating the orientation, ready for a robot to pick them. Our products are called asset cubes. They are vibratory platforms that allow you to delicately move parts from sizes of a hundred micron, up to 150 millimeters. And through the vibration sequence, they can change the part position and orientation for a robot to pick just like the robot that academic supply, the control of par quantity and how to vibrate the parts is managed by something called I plus. So
Speaker 0 00:04:29 Let's talk a little bit about the world of miniature automation as I don't think it's well understood. And that's one of the reasons I asked you both to be on the podcast today. And thank you both for, uh, coming on, um, from your perspective, Stan, what, what are some of the things that you're seeing in miniature automation? And I just want to tell the audience that I know my academic real well. Uh, I see you at trade shows and I actually see that you can carry a robot around a trade show. So that's how small it is.
Speaker 2 00:04:57 Yeah. Uh, well, for, for a long time there hasn't been, uh, any robots let's say that are smaller than the standard three kg payload, industrial robots. So if you had to manipulate parts, you know, that were a hundred grams, 200 grams, five grams, or, you know, even, even half a kilo, um, you had to still purchase a robot that would take, you know, uh, quite a lot of space. It'll have a huge control. You'll have big bulky cables around it. Uh, you'll have a, you'll have the teach pendant has to connect to it. So even if you had to manipulate small parts over small distances, you don't really have many options except going through customized systems of Cartesian systems or, or, uh, you know, like smaller Delta robots, but there hasn't really been before a six axis robot, um, made for the industrial market because yes, uh, uh, there has been, uh, let's say hobby robots for educational purposes before.
Speaker 2 00:05:48 Uh, but we're really talking about industrial robots, which means that are meant for, you know, 24 seven production that they're reliable, that they could work in, in manufacturing and testing. Um, exactly the same way as the bigger industrial robots, but on a much on a much smaller scale. Uh, so this is where a mechanic found a niche, but it turned out to be quite a, quite a large niche. So, um, he found a lot of different applications. Uh, we started in electronics and then we moved into medical device and actually where we worked a lot with, uh, um, with AZA realism, the watchmaking space in Switzerland. Um, and to be honest, at first though, when we went to a lot of the, the German trade shows, people kept thinking that our robot was a, it was a Swiss made robot, but it's actually here made in a made in Canada
Speaker 3 00:06:34 And, and,
Speaker 0 00:06:35 Uh, Lloyd from your perspective, when you're making sorting equipment and feeding equipment for very small parts, and these are small gears and pins and this types of things, uh, you're finding yourself doing like a, uh, like a desktop factory.
Speaker 1 00:06:52 Yeah. I mean, um, yeah, as RL was born out of the watch industry where high quality high changeover was a demand on small parts. If you look at the size of your wristwatch, there can be hundreds of different, small parts used in the mechanism, including gemstones used as bearings in the watch movement, often watchmakers work at a desk. So presenting a small desktop machine that has a small footprint was very appealing. One of the very first applications was to reengage reorientate gemstones for the polishing process. And these stones can be less than half a millimeter in size. And in my opinion, the evolution of factories is similar to the evolution of mobile phones. 25 years ago, you had this product besides have a housebreak today. You have an entire computer in the Palm of your hand. That is a much more efficient plus no one wants a factory in front of their house. Space has become a premium, our products, space savers, and we are changing the field in automation. And that old style twenty-five year old phone is no longer accepted. Engineers are seeking new efficient methods to bring product into the assembly process.
Speaker 0 00:08:16 And Stan, one of the advantages of having a small robot, whether your piece is smaller or whether the component is small, you can put it in places where traditional robots can't live. Correct.
Speaker 2 00:08:27 Yeah, exactly. So, uh, I mean, our robot is, is the most precise robot on the market, but to be honest, the majority of people who are clients who, who get the robot is because of the small size and that, and that's, again, it's not just the robot body itself, but it's, it's the controller which we've managed to really modernize. We've managed to integrate very well into the base of the robot. So you can imagine when, when a customer gets this robot, they're a bit surprised it doesn't come on a pallet, right? It comes in a, you know, a small Amazon box, um, that makes logistics a lot easier. Um, this obviously the space saving. So if we work in, you know, we work in such a clean room types of environments, um, you know, that are very expensive on space and you, and what's interesting with desktop factories is that you could add, add them to existing, I guess, architecture or, um, existing desks. So you already have an employee doing something you could add a small factory next to them that does another part of the process. And you don't necessarily have to start from scratch and start building warehouses to get these automation systems, uh, into the company. And
Speaker 0 00:09:31 What, uh, I just want to continue on that, uh, conversation span per moment. What makes the robot so precise? I understand it's the drives you use?
Speaker 2 00:09:40 Uh, well, yes, it's the drive. So, uh, to be honest, uh, the major thing that makes it so precise is the size. So we've made a very rigid, very small robot. So if we made this, uh, robot, you know, 10 times the size, it'll be more than 10 times less precise. It's a, it's the way it works in robotics. Uh, but we also, uh, we're also using very high quality components. Uh, so we're using harmonic drives, uh, from harmonic drive in Japan. We're using Macs on motors, uh, from Switzerland, uh, and the rest is actually made here in house. So we CNC machine or own aluminum. We have our own electronics production, our whole R and D team is in house. Uh, so we have a very tight quality control over the whole assembly process of the robot. Um, and it also helps that, uh, so we, our founder is Eliane Burnett. Uh, who's out of a test university here and he was the Canadian research Chen precision robotics. So a lot of what he knew came into, uh, into the product itself.
Speaker 0 00:10:37 So this is a great example of commercialization coming out of academia and actually working. Right.
Speaker 2 00:10:43 Exactly. So the F the first robot, the mechanism actually we used was a, was a dual alarm scanner. It was more on the educational side. Um, but then we had a very big demand coming from the electronics and district because they also work with very tiny parts. Um, but what's interesting is we kept some of that, you know, the ease of programming that was developed for the academic market, and we just, uh, implanted into, into an industrial robot basically. So you have, you have the ease of use from academia, but you have the reliability and, uh, you know, the hardware from industrial robots,
Speaker 0 00:11:16 What are some of the challenges and opportunities Lloyd that you see?
Speaker 1 00:11:19 Sure. I mean, challenges, we see, uh, aesthetic quality for sure, in the watch industry, a small scratch or imperfection on the inner workings would certainly affect the performance. This level of aesthetic quality is transferable into other industries like automotive, the controls. So the switches and Biles, they have to look perfect, no cosmetic floors. So this is an opportunity for our products to gently handle those parts and feed them for the assembly process. I, another case often when we speak of vibrators platforms and feeding people think of vibratory bowls, you know, bull feeders, and this is a mature technology. I really like it. They work for many applications and it's the right technology to use sometimes, but some applications specifically those with high part changeover or variability, then this is an opportunity to use flexible feeders, Stan,
Speaker 0 00:12:21 What are some of the challenges and opportunities that you see at Mecca DEMEC?
Speaker 2 00:12:26 Um, so I would say one of the challenges that we've had since we've started, uh, with our small six axis robot is just finding compatible, uh, tooling compatible equipment, because everything so far that we've seen on the market has been big. Uh, so that means, you know, we have big grippers, uh, big four sensors, uh, screwdrivers and nothing that our robot could really handle, uh, to begin with. Um, and that's why we've launched our Mecca network to try to introduce people to, you know, the smaller components that are on the market and this sort of, um, sort of broadened on other companies that started developing products that are, that are a better fit for robots or smaller force sensors against smaller grippers, uh, and other kinds of tooling. Um, and in terms of opportunities, I would say we could now work with very, very small parts.
Speaker 2 00:13:12 So, um, our robot just to give an idea is under five microns of repeatability, and that's what the 500 grand payload, uh, but we could actually do, you know, increments of one to two microns. So this is where we were able to do things, um, that, that you can't really do well, a human can do, but, you know, you have to work under a microscope. It's very tiring, um, and in very difficult tasks that can now start to be automated. Um, for instance, even in the watchmaking space, there's never been a huge use of robotics, uh, and in jewelry, for instance, either, and this is something that we're starting to enter. So there's, there's new markets that are opening up, um, just because of the size of the robot because of its precision as well.
Speaker 0 00:13:54 Thank you, Lloyd, we'll switch to you for this, uh, for the question about the sectors we've already mentioned like watchmaking and medical device, what are some of the other sectors that you're servicing?
Speaker 1 00:14:05 Yeah, I mean, I don't know about your listeners, Jim, but, but I get excited when I see automation and robots moving anywhere. I mean, probably the first robot I saw in real life was the automated carwash, the gantry coming overhead, the brushes spinning, I guess it wasn't a factory and it probably doesn't count as a robot by some people's standards. But to me it was magical and I still love going through it today, especially as my kids love it too. So this passion for automation, I would love to find solutions for our technology everywhere, but I guess being more specific, we're building on our experience from the watch industry and facing the same challenges in other sectors, such as automotive, medical, and electronics, and that is high flexibility with frequent changeover. And when I talk about flexibility, I think of it like customization of our cars.
Speaker 1 00:15:02 You might have the same model car as someone in your neighborhood, but you won't have exactly the same specification, the same color, the same options. There will be differences. In fact, you probably won't see another car that is exactly like your car. So this level of customization applies across many industries and using equipment like the asset cube allows you to change quickly and efficiently. Another example, take windshield wipers, for example, globally, there's thousands of variants. So the fixing clips used can be different. A manufacturer of the wipers needs to adapt the sell quickly for different fixings for different vehicle manufacturers in cosmetics, our customers might be producing a kit that contains some kind of applicator accessory, but the day after the accessory is some kind of eye makeup pencil, or a lipstick in a different housing, they need to adapt the work cell. And the common theme is efficiency, flexibility, and of course being easy to use.
Speaker 0 00:16:04 So it's really like the smart factory. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 00:16:08 Uh, I'd like to elaborate on that as well. So it's, um, everything becomes more flexible if you start to use vision systems, if you use flexible feeders, like from Asrael and if you use, uh, six axis robots, because they are the most flexible in the market. So this is compared to, uh, let's say you're using a vibratory feeder with a standard Cartesian system. You know, you could, uh, you'll do that one part. You'll do it quickly. Uh, but if you have to change it, the whole system has to be reconfigured. Readjusted. You'll have to change pretty much everything in it. But if you're using a flexible feeder, such as, as a real, uh, you're using a vision system and you're using the six axis robot, which could pick up the parts in a variety of different ways, uh, then you could have this kind of, uh, change over between different parts. So this is, uh, this is where we work very closely with Azur and flexible feeders in general, because customers are looking for a very flexible solution because they might run a one type of parts, you know, for a few weeks, and then they have to change over to another type of parts and they don't necessarily want to buy a whole separate machine, uh, to be able to do that.
Speaker 0 00:17:08 Absolutely. Some good points there. So, uh, Stan, I didn't ask you about, uh, some of the sectors that you serve. So you mentioned medical device, uh, obviously watchmaking, uh, is it, are you into pharmaceutical or what are you, what are you kind of looking at or what are, what are companies calling you to do? Well,
Speaker 2 00:17:23 Actually, a lot of what we've done, especially at the beginning was electronics. And a lot of it was electronics testing. So California was one of our biggest markets we work with, uh, with the big players in the software industry there, um, that actually came from the fact that the robot is very easy to use for, uh, software programmers, because we don't have a proprietary programming language. So, you know, you could use Python or lab view or C plus plus directly with the robot without having to do any, um, kind of complicated handshake. So that's where we started off, uh, where we started off and that's where we had a lot of demand. Um, then yes, we went into medical device manufacturing because also, you know, small parts require precision. You don't want the three kg robot to handle parts that are a few grams. Um, uh, then we went into watchmaking with, uh, with our partner, their horses who actually works a lot with, as a real as well.
Speaker 2 00:18:11 Um, I worked on very, very small parts for the watchmaking industry and that sort of expanded. So you wouldn't think that our robots are used in automotive, but they are for instance, uh, it's a lot of testing. So if you could imagine, you know, the buttons that you have, um, for your car windows, for, for the volume controls on your steering wheel, uh, for the touch screen, we do a lot of, uh, we do a lot of, you know, touch, screen testing, uh, turning knobs, pushing buttons with our robot. You know, you could do that 24 seven, uh, and it's very reliable. You could put a force sensor and it's, you could actually measure how much force you're applying. Uh, so that's been popular applications, I'd say it's very wide and that could, you know, that could go into aerospace as well. If you imagine all the paddles and a, and an airplane cockpit that they have to test, it doesn't make sense necessarily to go with a huge robot either. Uh it's uh, uh, so I would say it's a lot of, a lot of testing, a lot of assembly operations. We do, uh, dispensing as well. So applying, uh, applying glue around the perimeter of any kind of, uh, any kind of part, um, uh, school driving applications as well.
Speaker 0 00:19:15 Thank you for that Lloyd. I hear a lot about desktop factories. And so you must be you live in this area. What's your perspective on desktop?
Speaker 1 00:19:24 Yeah, I mean, we strongly believe in space saving my academic offer a small compact robot. And as a REL, we offer the most compact, flexible feeder on the market. So you can create an efficient desktop factory with these products.
Speaker 0 00:19:40 And do you see any trends are in, in this or if any, just general trends? Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:19:45 Absolutely. So space is a premium cost of land is increasing customers want to miniaturize equipment and manufacturing lines. When you have parts below one millimeter who can feed this, we can gently feeding parts as small as a hundred micron on a compact flexible feeder that saves space in the machine that combined with the robot from academic, this offers a great solution for our customers.
Speaker 2 00:20:11 Uh, I just wanted to add to that also there's a lot of other benefits that comes from using small and compact components is sometimes you don't really think about it, but power savings. So for instance, our robot is using under 30 Watts of power in general. So, you know, if you've used big robots, that's usually in the kilowatt range. Um, and if you have 20 of those robots, they take an enormous amount of space. So maybe one robot is not so bad, but as soon as you start to multiply your production, uh, it, apart from taking enormous amounts of space. So you can imagine, uh, you know, you buy 20 robots that make it's 20 big controllers. I mean, it's huge cabling, everywhere, pen teach everywhere. Uh, but for us, you know, you could take a, I'm sitting in a conference room table here. I could take this conference from table and I could make a factory out of this conference room table, and I could plug it into a regular outlet, uh, and it'll pretty much work.
Speaker 2 00:21:00 So, uh, there's a lot of this apart from the, uh, the space savings, there's the power savings. And then you also have to think of the logistics because, uh, you know, a lot of companies, they, sometimes they move their office, their move, their production inside their facility. Uh, if you have, if you have a lot of big robots, it's very difficult, uh, to move it around for us. I mean, you, you pick it up, you could transfer to another location very quickly. So, uh, we've seen sales where you have our robot, you know, the Astro feeder, the smaller assembly process, and it all fits into something that's like a meter cube about, um, just for one robot and we've done applications, Jimmy might've seen it in one of our trade shows, but we had, you know, four robots in a, in a one meter cube cell. So it's, uh, these kinds of these kinds of applications come with a lot of benefits. And how do
Speaker 0 00:21:45 You both work together? Right?
Speaker 1 00:21:48 We share the same customers. It's a bit like my friends, friends are my friends. We had as a real, uh, we're doing a highly compact, flexible feeder. Academic are doing the highly compact robot manipulator. It's a case of how could we not work together? So
Speaker 0 00:22:08 You probably get a call every once in a while, or maybe Stan, you get a call or, or a, uh, you get a call and it's like, Hey, let's do this project together. Or maybe you're working with integrators together.
Speaker 2 00:22:19 Yeah, exactly. So, um, we have a lot of partners that both work with as well and with our robots. Um, and what's interesting is since both of our devices are technically considered safe devices, you could use any type of master. So we, uh, we have integrators, you know, that in the U S versus I would refer to you as Allen Bradley PLCs to control both of them. Um, and then if you go to Germany, we have Siemens and, you know, back-off, which was very popular as well there. Uh, and a lot of them, they, because we offer these kinds of flexible programming options. I know, I know as it offers a lot of plugins and on our side, we also offer, um, we, you could communicate with the robot over TCP IP, ethernet, IP, or either cat, uh, with no proprietary programming language. So it's up to the customer, it's up to the integrator or distributor to really decide, well, you know what, this PLC is the right fit for this application. And it integrates both products. Um, I've also been talking with the, with the technical team of SRL in Switzerland recently. Uh, and with the I plus coming out, we're just going to try to support it a bit more closely together. Uh, we're probably going to go with the Beckoff, uh, solution as well, that integrates, uh, both of them Lloyd.
Speaker 0 00:23:26 I understand that as real was also born out of academia as well.
Speaker 1 00:23:32 Absolutely. Yeah. So our company founder, Alan Cordery, he was teaching at the school of engineering in bill. And, um, the goal was to design a small assembly for feeding small components or micro factory. And as a real was, was born from this research project.
Speaker 0 00:23:53 And that's, uh, very interesting to know that you're both come out of academia and both doing tremendously well. So, um, Lloyd, how do people get ahold of you?
Speaker 1 00:24:02 So, uh, the usual ways we have, uh, the website as a real.com, or we have the, as our old page on LinkedIn, the YouTube channel, I'm also quite traditional. I like to do some things the old fashioned way. So if someone wants to pick up the phone, I would be glad to have a conversation with them.
Speaker 0 00:24:20 And Stan, how do people get ahold of you?
Speaker 2 00:24:22 Um, yeah, the best way is obviously to go through our website. Uh, we have a contact us section. If you fill that out, it goes to our team here. Um, there's also the technical support. So if you have something more technical that you want to discuss, uh, that actually goes to me and, uh, our team of applications, engineers, uh, directly, and then I'm also quite available on LinkedIn. So if you ever find me on LinkedIn and want to talk to me, I'm, I'm, I'm usually available.
Speaker 0 00:24:45 Well, thank you both for taking your time this morning. 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 E H R H a R D T automation.com. You can get them at info at Earhart automation. I'd like to thank and acknowledge our partner. Eight three, the association for advancing automation. The association is the leading trade association for the world of robotics, vision imaging, motion control motors, and artificial intelligence technologies visit automate.org to learn more. And it also thank our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions. They're a web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing, and can set up and connect CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations. And there are painted robot.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us at 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 my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris Colvin for the audio production, my partner, Janet, and our partners, a three hated robot and our sponsor Earhart automation systems.
