Speaker 0 00:00:00 At universal robots, we are selling collaborative technology, collaborative robots, to all manner of companies, big and small. What's exciting for me particularly is our ability to reach into small and medium enterprise and show them how they can automate in a very cost effective time, efficient manner, and really transform their business operations.
Speaker 1 00:00:27 Hello everyone. And welcome to the <inaudible> the robot industry podcast. I'd like to welcome the listeners from all over the world from Helsinki to Dallas, Sioux St. Marie and Toronto Ontario. I'm thrilled to have Joe Campbell from universal robots. Join us today. And let me tell you a little bit about Joe. Joe is a 40 year veteran of the robotics industry after executive assignments in sales, marketing, customer service and operations. Joe is now head of America's marketing and applications development for universal robots. He regularly speaks to industry groups, associations, conferences, and state, and local governments on the benefits of robotic automation. And Joe, I would say that you're the unofficial spokes person for the collaborative robots movement in North America. Would you,
Speaker 0 00:01:13 Um, I would be proud to have that title. I would absolutely be proud today.
Speaker 1 00:01:18 Podcast is all about small medium enterprises. So what is happening with collaborative robots for SMEs?
Speaker 0 00:01:26 Well, it's, it's an explosive market and I think it's a, it really indicative of the transition of the whole industry. Jim is, you know, I came from the traditional side of automation and that's where I spent the bulk of my career by far. But when I joined you are, I started to see a very, very different side of the industry. And in our case, we've been successful at bringing collaborative automation into small and medium manufacturing. It's this. And by the way, this is a segment that's historically been underserved by the traditional, uh, automation providers. It's a, it's really untapped market and they're really businesses and individuals that are changing the way they live with the new breed of automation.
Speaker 1 00:02:13 I meant to ask you this just at the start, but you've actually just had a pretty big milestone. Can you tell the audience at home what's your celebrating it?
Speaker 0 00:02:23 Well, this has been a year of celebrations. Uh, earlier in the fall, we actually had our 15th anniversary of the founding of the company. And we, uh, just this past couple of weeks, we have shipped our 50 thousands collaborative robot to a customer in Germany.
Speaker 1 00:02:41 That is a lot of robots. And, you know, you think of all the things that go around a robot, but wow, what a exciting time for the cooperative industry, what an exciting time for you are.
Speaker 0 00:02:51 It has been. Um, and I think the other thing to remember is we really didn't come out with a heavy commercial offering until 10 years ago. So this has really been, uh, unprecedented growth. And it's, uh, in spite of this year, which has been painful for the whole industry, uh, it has just been, uh, a great ride.
Speaker 2 00:03:11 So where are you seeing some of the biggest growth in collaborative robot use? I mean, you're everywhere, but you must be seeing some trends.
Speaker 0 00:03:19 Well, I think from an application standpoint, we look like the traditional robot companies and we sell a lot of machine tending machine load and unload. Uh, we love the small footprint machine tools. Um, we do a lot in injection molding and plastics. We're doing more and more in assembly last year, actually, late 2019. We, with a couple of our partners, we started to introduce arc welding solutions. Uh, that's been a rapidly growing segment. So from an application standpoint, we look like everybody else in the industry from an industry standpoint, uh, we mirror the rest of the industry and that we sell to, you know, large companies that have historically used automation for decades. They're finding different niches for the collaborative solutions. But as I mentioned before, what's totally exciting to me is bringing automation to small and medium companies that have no automation. They've never automated. They never been able to find the formula to make an investment work and their particular operation
Speaker 2 00:04:27 It's, it is a very exciting time. And one of the interesting things behind you are, has been the approach, uh, and this is with distributors and with some of the partners. And can you tell our audience a little bit about how that all works for you are?
Speaker 0 00:04:41 Yeah, happy to. I think first of all, it goes back to the founders who, uh, who were not robotic veterans and they took a very different view of the product and the technology and the market. And what came out of that is, um, a very successful program called <inaudible> plus. And the best way to describe it is, uh, it's like the app store for your phone. It is an app store for universal robots, peripherals and accessories that are engineered, designed, tested, and validated to behave well and operate properly with our robots. And it's not just a matter of plugging them in, but it's a, it's actually a deep integration with software all the way into our operating system and up onto our teach pendant. And so this, we now have over 280 products in this ecosystem, very simple things, the grippers, right, kind of a fundamental building block all the way up to the most complicated 3d vision systems. And what it's enabled our users to do is just strip out the time and cost and engineering load required to use peripheral with a robot it's really simplified the application development.
Speaker 1 00:06:02 And because these are all proven and tested by you are there's very little risk to an end-user.
Speaker 0 00:06:09 No, there is, there's literally no risk and we're our testing is stringent. That's one of the things that's made the program very, very successful. Uh, if a product has the UAR plus certified label on it, you know, that it has been thoroughly validated and tested by universal. And, uh, we're kind of, uh, we're, we're proud of that. We're actually holding a tough line on that.
Speaker 1 00:06:32 And so maybe this is a time to talk a little bit about some of the kits now. So you've got the URL plus store and what is, what is a UAR kit?
Speaker 0 00:06:42 Well, let's look at where it started. We started with, with fundamental components. The grippers are a great example, mounting bases, um, lift mechanisms, um, robot covers for, uh, extra harsh environments. Those are all components. They don't really get you to a solution, but they're part of a solution kits are moving up the food chain much closer to a total solution. Um, I think there are two examples that I've three examples that I really like to talk about. The first is, uh, from our good friends at robo teak and robo teak developed a finishing kit. That's part of the UAR plus program and the kit is hardware. All right. It's a, it's a orbital sander head, uh, that mounts on our robot and it's all the mounting accessories and cables and brackets, but more importantly, there's a software component to it. And the verbal teak kit allows the programming of very complex sanding contours in just a matter of minutes.
Speaker 0 00:07:49 And, you know, historically this is programming that would have taken days and days to complete. And even on a complex contour, you can be up and running in a matter of an hour. That's one good example. Second example is from a company called Vectrus and VEC. This was actually founded by arc welding heavyweights in the industry who had been on the traditional side of automation for decades. And they have actually come out with an arc welding kit and it includes, uh, a base power supply wire feed, torch, cables, hoses, et cetera, and software, a software component that allows a welder with no robot background to very, very quickly program functional welds in production. So those are good examples of kits. The third example I throw out is, um, a product that was actually developed within universal it's called acne nav. And it is a kit that allows structured bin picking for machine tending and machine loading, uh, that has also been very successful. So again, those are, these are examples of solutions that are way up the food chain from a component they're not a full turnkey solution, but they get you very, very close. So
Speaker 2 00:09:14 Really the, the kit is kind of almost a, like a time to market thing where you just shave days, maybe weeks of programming off by giving the algorithms already to the
Speaker 0 00:09:25 Yeah, because that is a, that is always, uh, a major component to project cost. It's also particularly helpful when you look at the small and medium enterprise. Quite often, those companies are high mix and low volume businesses. And one of the barriers for traditional automation has always been that reprogramming relocation costs. That's just a significant challenge, but if you can strip out the engineering and programming costs, it makes it very easy for us to fit into these, these, uh, high mix, low volume operations. No, that's great. So if we go
Speaker 2 00:10:04 Back to like the, the actual current motivations behind purchasing a cobalt, have they changed?
Speaker 0 00:10:12 No, I don't believe so. I think, um, I mean, cobots deliver all the benefits that automation has traditionally delivered. Um, it's, it's increased capacity, it's higher output it's reduced cycle time, uh, more flexibility and all those benefits still accrue with collaborative technology. I think the big win right now is in manufacturing labor. The COVID crisis has obviously been just a disaster for the economy. I don't know. I mean, I can't even keep track of how many tens of millions of unemployed, uh, we have in the, in the country and in Canada. But if you go into any of the job boards, you will find manufacturing jobs, constantly being posted by the hundreds, in any given geographic area. And I'm talking machine operators and assemblers and packaging, Packers, welders. Um, we are still struggling to find labor who will work in manufacturing. And it's, if we've talked about this before, Jim, it's a lot of it is the, the dull, dirty, dangerous mode of operation that is all too prevalent in, uh, in, in manufacturing.
Speaker 0 00:11:28 But a lot of it's demographic, uh, in fact, the COVID crisis has exacerbated it, you know, I'm a boomer proud of it. There's a 27% of the manufacturing workforce. Today is 55 years or older. It's a lot of turnover here coming at us. Uh, baby boomers are retiring at the rate of about 10,000 per day. And what we're hearing from plant managers is COVID crisis has actually exacerbated that challenge because a lot of the older workers and typically the most skilled workers in a factory, as they're starting to approach retirement age, they took a look at the COVID crisis and just decided not to come back. Yep, absolutely. They want to protect themselves and their family and they were in a position that they could retire and they did. Uh, so manufacturing, labor is, is still an ongoing, active problem.
Speaker 2 00:12:23 And what are the things that I'm actually very excited about the whole collaborative movement, especially with universal robots, is that there's been a lot of innovation being created with people coming in with kits. I mean, I can remember when you had 50 kits and now you write 200, I'm sorry, not kits, uh, 50
Speaker 0 00:12:41 Components just to components. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:44 And so that's kind of an exciting part of the whole movement where you can go out there to, with all these different partners and they can come up with creative and innovative solutions.
Speaker 0 00:12:53 Yeah. I think, I mean, I like to, I like to look at a couple of different examples there. Um, it is, you know, way back in, uh, back in the day, I spent a lot of time in the vision side of the industry. Um, and we probably have, I want to say 15 or 16, uh, very, very capable vision systems as part of the UAR plus program. I don't care what your vision application is. We can find a product that'll fill it and you don't have to develop software to build an interface. The interface is done. It's completely done. And that's the whole beauty of the UAR plus program.
Speaker 2 00:13:31 Yeah. It's, it's a, it must be very exciting for you like to work. Now, we, you did mention earlier that there's a lot of these niche applications like sanding. So if you go to a woodworking show now you've got people who are like, I need this today. I don't have any workers. I'm I I'm desperate to automation.
Speaker 0 00:13:51 Well, it's very true. And it's, it's, um, it took me personally, it took me a while to kind of reset. And as you know, I love trade shows. Um, that's been a big part of my DNA for my career, but w we went to a number of these woodworking shows, for example, and the conversation was very different because the, the people who were attending and were looking for solutions, didn't have an automation base. They didn't have an automation background. So the first step was to really help them understand what they've ever seen and then recognize how it could be deployed. Um, the thing that we did here and which talk about woodworking, and in particular, you don't want to talk about a dull, dirty, dangerous job go to a cabinet manufacturing facility and sand cabinet doors for a day or a week or a month.
Speaker 0 00:14:45 Yep. It's just screens for automation. And again, the, the leap we had to, to help these customers through is to understand that they were actually looking at a piece of automation that could fit into their plant, uh, very, very quickly like tomorrow, like tomorrow and with, with, uh, with, without a big challenge of trying to hire a robot expert, uh, I think that's been another key to our success in SMEs is you don't have to have automation department and you don't have to have a robot programmer. You know, you've got probably pretty skilled people out in the line that can figure out how to get a collaborative product from you are up and running. And that's been a key, it's been a big key for us.
Speaker 2 00:15:33 So in the, you know, in five years ago, one of the big things with co with collaborative robots is educating manufacturing about collaborative robots, but that doesn't seem to end. It seems you always have to be educating. Is that still a true statement?
Speaker 0 00:15:47 Well, I think it's still the case because they're the size of the small and medium manufacturing market is so big. Uh, there are still many people who we haven't gotten to, or nobody else has gotten to there's about a quarter million manufacturing facilities in North America. And 90% of them have less than a hundred employees. Right. Which is just a staggering number. When you think about all the automation that we've sold over the decades, right. It's only been to maybe 10% of the manufacturing businesses in the country.
Speaker 2 00:16:27 That's a crazy number when you start thinking about all the, we both sold automation. So yeah, it is, it is a very big, big number. Um, what you are, is making an impact during this pandemic, from delivering robots quickly from material handling to point of care, to enabling social distancing in factories, what else is happening from that perspective?
Speaker 0 00:16:51 Well, I think social distancing has been, uh, has been a real key and that's kind of the first and obvious place that, uh, manufacturers, uh, look for help. We both spent enough time in factories. We know it's, it's not easy to relay out a factory to get distance between operations right now, particularly if you're a small and medium enterprise, because you are, you're more likely to be in a very tight building without a lot of square foot, right. Cause you're controlling your costs. So we've been very, very successful with helping companies achieve social distancing. Part of it is the, you know, the time we can be, uh, shipped in, in an up and running in really short order. And part of it is just the very collaborative nature or traditional automation. You can't work side by side, which means getting social distancing with traditional automation is extremely difficult because you're still looking at full sets of safety barriers, and really challenged for floor space. But the collaborative technology fits in, I won't say seamlessly in all cases, but it's far, far easier. Um, and so that's been a, that's been a, a big part of what we've done this year.
Speaker 2 00:18:07 What are the other things that maybe we haven't talked about yet in the podcast is the flexibility, right? When you can be using a collaborative robot in the morning shift online a but then take it over to the other side of the factory and use it somewhere else on, on shift B.
Speaker 0 00:18:22 Well, that's, that's been a, that's been a real key driver in the small and medium enterprise. They don't make a million widgets in a year, right there they're by definition, their business is usually a higher mix and lower volume. And so this whole concept of robot as a tool has evolved out of that. They have other tools. Uh, if you look at, uh, a flexible packaging line, that packaging line gets reconfigured for every new product that they're going to, they're going to contract package the same with, with our, our cobots. You know, we have a number of partners who built, who have built and are successfully selling very sophisticated carts that not just hold the robot, but also hold magazines of finished and unfinished parts after machining or processing. And that has been, that has been really successful. I think flexibility is, was really driven home last spring, uh, when the COVID crisis really took hold product mix changed overnight, right.
Speaker 0 00:19:26 And people struggled with it because they didn't have flexible manufacturing systems. And so we've, we've seen a real, tremendous interest in investment in systems that actually help provide that flexibility, the ability to quickly reconfigure, uh, change product mix, uh, certainly change product volumes on the fly. I think the third area that we've we've seen activity in is reassuring and it's either all or partial. I think a lot of companies were very much surprised last spring when their supply chains were completely cut. Cause they they'd, offshored all their production into areas that either were shut down or couldn't get transport out of. So we see a lot of companies that are bringing parts of their manufacturing operation back, not a hundred percent of the volume, but some of the volume. So they'll never be stuck the way they were last spring with a completely severed supply chain.
Speaker 2 00:20:26 Yes. I think that's going to be exciting for North America to watch as we bulk up our automation systems and collaborative automation to make what we sell here in North America. <inaudible>,
Speaker 0 00:20:37 We're actually seeing companies that are building their, uh, their whole business strategy around that. Um, they're recognizing that there's a, there's a need for like a rapid response, uh, manufacturing operation that frankly may cost a little bit more than some of the offshore production, but if it can be delivered quickly, it's got a real value and we're watching companies actually build their whole business strategy around that.
Speaker 2 00:21:05 Yeah. That's very, very, very interesting. One of the things that I've talked to other people about in, um, in manufacturing and automation is the whole fact that, you know, if I'm a young person, I want to go into manufacturing, which is hard, I'm more apt to join a company that's using automation. And do you see that being important to universal?
Speaker 0 00:21:26 I absolutely do. I am dying to find a way to get some statistics around it, some data, and I haven't been successful there yet, but I can tell you, anecdotally, I've talked to plant managers and production managers who say, uh, the implementation of collaborative robots into their business has made it easier for them to hire. And if you think about these small companies, they're really at a disadvantage in hiring, right? If they're, if they're competing for a, for a resource with one of the larger companies, it's very difficult for them to match the benefits structure and the pay scales that you would find in a bigger business. And so for them, if they can be an attractive place to work because of the technology that's available and it's on the manufacturing floor, it changes the whole image, uh, for the younger generations. When they look at manufacturing as a career,
Speaker 2 00:22:20 I bet if I came to, uh, you know, a young person, they said, Oh, and by the way, you're going to be learning how to program a robot. It's like, okay, I'm in, where do I sign?
Speaker 0 00:22:29 Uh, it's we S we hear that all the time. In fact, I think to me, one of the most gratifying stories is when you hear about, uh, uh, uh, an operator, a line operator, who's never done any kind of programming, doesn't have a technical degree, just does not have that in their background, all of a sudden, grab it on to the robot, learning how to program it and really changing their whole role inside the company to that of a technology specialist.
Speaker 2 00:22:56 One of the interesting things I learned a couple of years ago about you are, is that you have a big online community of people that want to just help each other. Can you talk about that for a moment?
Speaker 0 00:23:07 Well, we've got, uh, we've got, uh, manifest itself a couple of different ways. First of all, we definitely have forums that are, that are very open and people do really contribute to them. It's nice to see. I think the second thing is something that we started some years ago and it's called UAR Academy, and it is a series of online learning modules that anybody can take. And in a matter of about two hours, you can accomplish the core modules, which are the basics of operating and programming a UAR robot, no charge. And at point we've trained over a hundred thousand people to the UAR Academy and to go back to the small and medium company, right? Let's, let's think about the cost for a, you know, a contract weld shop to take five or six of their welders and send them to school on a piece of automation. Sure. Not only it's the cost of getting them to the training and the cost of the training itself, which is, which is expensive, but they effectively shut down production for the week or two while they're getting trained the very different paradigm. If those same operators can spend a couple extra hours a day and pick up this knowledge online, and it has really enabled us in these small companies to rapidly come in with a different technology and have it adopted very, very quickly by the team.
Speaker 2 00:24:39 So education is obviously something that's kind of built into your DNA at universal robots. What about the education market? I mean, there's just a lot of hungry minds out there and what's going on from your perspective there?
Speaker 0 00:24:53 Well, I think, um, I think there's a lot that's going on. So, I mean, we've heard for years and we've watched all manner of education institutions use our robots as part of their curriculum. They're particularly attractive because in the collaborative mode, they're safe. You can, you can put them into a highly compact or dense classroom and still operate them very, very safely. So we've continued to pursue that. And it's been a successful piece of our business. We just received a certification where we're now certified developers for curriculum, and we're going to continue to extend that and we see a great, great future in training. I think it's also interesting to note that we get good reactions from students who don't see the threat, uh, that is sometimes associated with traditional automation. They just don't see it with collaborative automation because the product is very, very approachable. And you can actually, part of your training curriculum can actually be working hand in hand with the robot.
Speaker 2 00:25:59 Yeah. There's nothing like quick wins for students to get really excited and to get really confident in dealing with a new technology such as a robot. And I think kids love,
Speaker 0 00:26:08 Well, kids figure them out faster than I do. That's the, that's the, that's the given truth.
Speaker 2 00:26:16 Uh, uh, have we, have we done everything we have? Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like me to ask?
Speaker 0 00:26:21 No, I think we did a, we did a good topic. I think, uh, I think the real breakthrough again, is the high mix, low volume operations. And if we can bring automation into those businesses, it's, uh, it's going to be fantastic for universal. And more importantly, it's fantastic for the small business. I've met a lot of small business owners who felt that they were trapped in their business, uh, previously, because the only way to earn more money was to put in more hours, right. And the, you know, just the basics, the fundamentals of, of, uh, automation to just to load and unload a machine tool can really change the shape of a business and an owner's lifestyle. Really
Speaker 1 00:27:04 Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. How can people get ahold of you or how can they find out more about you?
Speaker 0 00:27:10 A robots, a universal is easy. Go to the website where, uh, we're really, we housed all manner of information over 140 case studies. You can check out the UAR Academy. Uh, you can check out another product. We didn't talk about the application builder, really good source of information, and that's www.universal-robots.com. If anybody wants to reach out to me personally, I'd be happy to respond. My email address is Joka J O C
[email protected]. Thanks
Speaker 1 00:27:45 Again, Joe. Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart automation systems, Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 18 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
[email protected] and Earhart is E H R H a R D T. I'd like to thank and acknowledge our partner. A three, the association for advancing automation, eight three is the umbrella association for the RIA, the AIA, the MCMA and eighty-three Mexico. These four associations combined represent almost 1300 automation manufacturers, suppliers, systems integrators, and users, research groups, and consulting firms throughout the world that are driving automation forward. I'd also like to thank and recognize our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions.
Speaker 1 00:28:48 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 they're at painted robot.com. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, our email address is the robot industry
[email protected]. Or 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 audio production, my partner, Janet, and our sponsors, a three painted robot and Earhart automation.
