Speaker 0 00:04 Welcome to the robot nation podcast. I'd like to introduce our guest, Joe Gemma. Joe's had an illustrious career in the robot industry. He's been a leader, an innovator. He's been a friend and literally be in a fixture in the industry. Joe's worked for Stoli corporation. He's been the past president there, president at KUKA robotics. He's been involved with the association at advancing automation and specifically the robot industry association and has been the president of IFR, the international Federation of robotics. Currently Joe works as the global VP of sales and marketing for Calibri robotics in Rochester, New York. Welcome to the webinar, Joe,
Speaker 1 00:42 Do you maybe start a little bit smarter and better than I am, but that looks for me. That's fine.
Speaker 0 00:50 Hey, Joe, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about innovation in the robotics industry and, and kind of get some of your views and your thoughts on some of those companies and some of the technologies that seem to be very innovative to you. You've seen a lot in the robot industry, and it didn't seem that long ago that all the players made a robot arm and maybe one single player adept was making some controllers for some of the big leaders. So private labeling used to be a thing. What are your thoughts on some of that?
Speaker 1 01:20 So that's a really good point and I think it should be discussed. One of the reasons why back then that the control was driven around a single are very few suppliers, is that technology was pretty immature. In fact, from the mechanical side, while the mechanics have gotten better through the years, it was a pretty mature technology, you know, gear boxes, things like that. Even the, even the castings that the robots were that the structural integrity was pretty well known technology and understood. It was really the, the controls architecture was quite complex at that point and difficult for people to enter into that market. Certainly that's evolved over over these years. And in fact, just like everything else in our lives, you think about your smartphone. It can do things today that you know, that the Apollo mission would have loved to have capable, uh, on a, on a small device.
Speaker 1 02:12 So the software and controls architectures really come a long way and it's had a huge impact. And as you probably have seen in some of the IFR statistics, RAA statistics, the market's really seen a tremendous growth over the last five years or so. And continuing to grow the last year was a little bit flatter in terms of that rapid growth, but it's just a small, I'll say slow down. And it hasn't decreased just slow down a little bit, um, because of some changes in, in the Mar the one of the biggest markets and that's the automotive market. And because that's going more to an electric vehicle evolution, they're still working on how to utilize the technologies in some of those areas. So if we believe in fact, we're quite sure it says, it's going to add a new inflection point going forward. So it's still growing.
Speaker 1 03:02 It's maybe even as a matter of indication, China, certainly the largest market. In fact, we take the next two largest markets in the world and add them together. They utilize less robust per year and in terms of wiring and robots and China does by itself. But you can see because of that, even the domestic manufacturers evolved and grown quite a bit, there's over 50 domestic manufacturers or robots in China today. And it went from only three or four years ago, maybe five at most to having less than 5% of the market to over 30% of the, the market is absorbed by the local manufacturers or the domestic manufacturers. So they can see that's a, that's a big shift. And that number is, as I said, indicating the largest by far in the world in terms of what they're acquiring per year. So we, we see, we think that's going to continue to grow, and there's some other things that are driving some of that. And we'll talk more about it as we go forward.
Speaker 0 04:02 Joe, can you explain for the audience out there today who may not have heard, can you explain what a collaborative robot is?
Speaker 1 04:10 Yeah, I, in fact, um, and I'm very comfortable in saying this, there is no such thing as a collaborative robot. Now we do use that term in the industry, uh, companies that I ran, we use that term, but literally there's no such thing as a collaborative robot. It's really a collaborative application and illustrating that for you. If you think about what we call a collaborative robot, if I put a feather at the end of the tooling and I rub it along your wrist, Jim, you'd probably let me do it a few times. Maybe even juggle a little bit, but if I put a razorblade at the end of that arm, I'm sure you wouldn't even let me do it once yet. It's the same exact hardware. So it's how it's applied. That makes a collaborative. And the reason I say that is there's different levels of what collaboration looks like.
Speaker 1 04:55 You know, one of the companies that I was responsible for made a product 15 years ago, that is that people wrote it kind of a, they call it robo coaster that people were at the end of the arm moving. So there's nothing more collaborative than that. Yet there were some safety management of that structured in integrity in, and also the controls architecture, and then obviously the safety management of it. So that was collaborative and, and in collaboration and the robot is really in touch with a human in that sense. So, so that's a collaborative application. So that's why I'm very sensitive to when people say collaborative robots, it really isn't a term that should be used. And even as an industry, we've talked about how do we clarify that better? That it's really how the application of the, of the equipment is utilized to really make it, whether it's a collaborative, in fact, many cases, a robot that we might call collaborative and again, company they're in made that product we've because of the applications, put it in a cage it's actually enclosed because it proves it potentially could be dangerous to an operator. So again, how it's applied now, having said that that's really been a positive thing that's going on in the marketplace because it's given the many other industries opportunity to take a look at and explore a robotics technology they had in the past. So it, those types of robots and what's evolved from that software sensor technology, et cetera, has given us an opportunity to explore different areas in different markets because of that technology,
Speaker 0 06:27 Joe, thanks for that clarification. I think it's good. And I talk a lot about cloud of robots, but I'm going to change my tune now and talk about collaborative applications for robots.
Speaker 1 06:36 Good disciple of that explanation. I'm do, you'll share it with me.
Speaker 0 06:42 Absolutely. Well, what are some of the big changes in the robot industry that you've kind of seen over the last 20 or 30 years?
Speaker 1 06:50 So, you know, and I'm going to go back to the, uh, one of the first things you mentioned about the controls. What what's probably the biggest change has been the software technology. And in fact, in a gym, you're a young man. So you, you won't remember this, but in the early days of the, of robotics, it was this belief that it was going to be lights out technology that it's going to, you know, change the manufacturing while it has changed. Um, over time it was expected to do everything easily lights out. And the mechanics, as I said earlier, was very mature. So it could live up to maybe expectations what software could and it'd be, it was a disaster and many of the companies. And in fact, particularly in North America, in the U S where we were early adopters, it almost ruined some people's careers because engineers thought, Oh, I'm going to put this in.
Speaker 1 07:41 We're going to make our plants say to the art. And it became really a challenge to get the equipment to operate the way they expected to because the software just wasn't. Um, first of all, it wasn't even, it hasn't evolved enough yet. And as certainly wasn't robust enough. So we came a real challenge, certainly now, as we see today, and as a mentioned earlier, some of the technology where the technology we're on right now has evolved pretty dramatically, and that's had a real, tremendous impact on what's going on in, in robotics and allowing it to be utilized more. And there's a lot of other things that have added to that, that things have CAD to path type of technology, where now you can take information that's in, in a CAD drawing and not have to go through all the, I'll say, challenges of actually programming a robot.
Speaker 1 08:28 If you utilize that information and robot will perform based on that information. So it made it much quicker to use. In fact, easy to use is probably the most current excitement in the industry around that software technology, making it easier and easier to use there's packages that are built around different applications and technologies. So it really is evolved a lot. And again, around what I believe from the ability from the software now, adding to that, of course, as we're going forward, the data collection, the idea of the sensors and embedded sensors, that's all having some, some advantages going forward. As we, as we move into the technology and advancing the technology in another specialization of robots, and what's going on where we see changes there because of a lot of the technology advancements we've had, we're seeing more and more utilization from the defense industry, and that's a growing market opportunity. And also moving outdoors. We're seeing much more of the technology to places in, in an outdoors we couldn't in the past. So when I culture in areas like that, that we didn't have the technology capabilities, this is where hardware's evolved more, but certainly software along with that. But hardware is evolved to be able to do go into those types of markets that we couldn't really apply in the best.
Speaker 0 09:50 Well that's. Thank you, Joe. That's that, that's some really great information there. So that's, and that's a good segue into my next question about the specialization of robots. So we are seeing more and more models of robots. And what are some of your thoughts on, on the specialization? Is this, I'm assuming this is a good thing.
Speaker 1 10:07 Yeah. So there's two things, you're right. There's the specialization and we're seeing more and more robots in more and more types of robots in it. And I think that's a really good point. Um, certainly as I mentioned before, the defense and what's impacted their, some of the things that have all evolved out of, uh, the Dopper, uh, programs that, you know, the government strategic programs to evolve the arm Institute and what they're doing and trying to, um, understand challenges in manufacturing and assembly, where we can bring different technologies. That's kind of brought up different types of robots and I'll say investment in different of merging of technologies to try to utilize, uh, equipment. So I don't think that's going to actually change. I did want to see more and more of that and more specialization around areas again, that we couldn't really evolve in the past at least is something we'll talk about later, maybe with mobility and how that's impacting other thing that, you know, you, one I've talked in the past about different trends in the industry.
Speaker 1 11:07 And as you said, you know, sought out robot companies and that, that is a big buzz for sure. Um, some of those things that are involved from that, or if he's got a better educational programs that you've, you know, that we've talked about in the past sensor technology has made a big thing. I think more educational institutions have programs today. It was not so long ago. There's only a handful of companies or five. I mean, a companies, educational institutions like Carnegie Mellon, or Stanford, that, that had programs that educated people around robotics platforms, and they were doing it around the standard industrial technologies. That's expanded because of those other technologies have become available, the sensing data, et cetera. And because, well, one of the, I think acceptances grown dramatically more and more universities colleges of technical schools are I have an have programs around robotics and maybe it's also a goes official.
Speaker 1 12:07 Biotics has had an impact on that because that generation, those earlier generations of fish robotics, and now in, in universities or in industry. So they utilizing that, that excitement about what they learned earlier on in their education process. So I think that's part of what we're seeing with some of these startups and the opportunity to take advantage of technologies and look at things differently. We hadn't passed from the traditional perspective that I mentioned earlier. I think there's also, we've seen a paradigm shift and that shift really happened. I'd say in the last five years where there's a higher acceptance, I'll call it the consumer, the general market. You know, as you mentioned earlier in the introduction, um, I've spent most of my career in this particular industry and, you know, I traveled a lot and a plane or you're in a restaurant. So we ask, what do you do when you don't robots?
Speaker 1 12:56 For many years, it was like, Ooh, Oh, your interest takes away jobs. And while that has never really been true in the broader sense, it's been kind of a, maybe a misunderstanding, but what people thought, and you see this shift now in the last three to five years where people say, wow, what an exciting industry, Oh, what a lot of great things they're doing. So you really see from the consumer perspective, there's an appreciation of value, what that means. And part of that might be because we are as consumers, more comfortable in our own homes, the I robot, and the little vacuum cleaner running around the house. It's not a scary things to people anymore. Even some of the other technology you could, you could push us, not really, but your dishwasher is a program will device there's multi-axis that, you know, it takes care of, uh, your, your dishes and it's, it almost fits in the realm of technology around automation. So it's really, I think that's had a positive effect. So people are encouraged to explore that more, to, to look at that as programs and not afraid of it in, in their work lives, because they're comfortable in their home lives and their, uh, in their normal life going around in stores, et cetera. So I think that's had a big plus for us going forward in, in, in why there's these startups and why we're seeing more people in, uh, involved in that technology.
Speaker 0 14:15 So thank you, Joe. I seen a lot of innovation centers, a matter of fact, I've, I've got an innovation center, a amazing innovation center right here in Cambridge. So I drive by it all the time. And so we, you know, and you've mentioned that kind of in, in your response to the other question you've worked with at some of these innovation centers. And do you believe that that's something that is going to continue?
Speaker 1 14:36 Yeah, you're right. There's more and more of that coming up. And it's, I think it's a very unique and really nice idea. In fact, one of the early ones like mash robotics in Austin area, I'm kind of an incubator awkward to incubator, sorry, like I said, it's a, it's an opportunity for people to kind of work together, share, inspire each other. There's obviously some advantages of, you know, cost structure. You, you, you, you can share an overhead cost structure. You can share maybe even engineering resource cost structure. Um, but what's, I think different about these is happening today. Then kind of collaboration events and, uh, uh, organization that best is they're looking at real world development. It's not, you know, eight. Yes. Okay. We want to put somebody on Mars some day and maybe there's going to be a robot technology support that, but it's not real world everyday challenge for the companies that we want to help and support.
Speaker 1 15:34 And even if you were us for us as consumers, and this is where I think it's different, it is different than it had been in the past. These innovation centers are really looking at challenges we have in, in a mass situation. And some of that is driven by, you know, mass customization. How do we address that? I want a different cover on my phone. You want, but we've gotta get it off the same line. And how do we deal with that? How do we manage that, that ability to have that adaptability, if a mass customization, and then they're addressing those? I think that's a real advantage of these types of things. But again, I, part of the reason it's growing is because there's opportunities to share, inspire each other and share, um, cost structure, but the concept of real world development and real world application, um, support is, is real plus for, for us as a, as a human race, but also as an industry that we're in
Speaker 0 16:26 One of the big challenges that, or one of the big changes, I think, think we've seen in the last, let's say even five years is universal robots coming on board and changing the distribution model of how you actually sell and get a robot installed. And one of the really interesting pieces is the robot plus store. And we're kind of talking about the amplification of automation, um, and, and about keeping things simple and keeping robots prices competitive. What are some of your thoughts on the robot plus store and their approach to that?
Speaker 1 16:58 Yeah. Okay. So generally I think what they've done and certainly they were a leader there and some other stride that weren't as successful, but it's actually been better for the industry. I kind of alluded that to earlier that it is, it has opened doors to people to look at the technology that would not have exploded in the past. Um, it's easier to use in just a couple of hours. You can start to utilize equipment it's, uh, it's not as analogous and not just to the, um, the iPhone as I'd like it to be, but that type of thing, where it's making it easier and easier to adopt. And then, um, again, because of capabilities of, of technology and energy 4.0 and communicating across different things, um, it's, it's made it from a utilization perspective, more valuable because now I can capture the information I can talk to other devices I can share.
Speaker 1 17:53 So all of those technologies merging together has been a positive. And as far as going to market it's with the traditional model, you typically try to sell big volume each. So you're trying to go after bigger companies and try to kind of invest in that relationship with this model, you can actually spread out much wider and you can work with the smaller companies and you can support them from a local perspective. So you can kind of spread that out. I get that ripple effect, so to speak in terms of getting out to the market. So I think it's a positive, it's open a lot of doors, even for the more traditional companies, because people now have less of a fear having a little bit more recognition of what the technology is in is pull them into that market and taking a look at those models. So it's really shifted the whole market in terms of how it's been approached and how we could continue to expand by changing even the traditional companies. I really think it's positive development for the industry.
Speaker 0 18:57 One of the things Joe, that I I've kind of, we kind of are seeing a little bit in the industry, which is totally nontraditional, is kind of what I call the Amazon effect, right? So what's this time to market. So I think that, um, now, especially with the <inaudible> app store, they're called plus we're getting the Amazon effect. I can get my robot in in a week. I can get my end effector in, in a, in a week. I can start next week. Like you see a lot of that happening in the industry.
Speaker 1 19:27 Yes. And I can tell you even, uh, again, cause I came from more of the traditional manufacturers, even the, the company that, uh, that I ran, uh, most recently they are doing the same thing. So that, that is going to be something, uh, if you think about the population that we will be serving going now in forward, that is the way they were raised. That's the world they live in. So in order to, to really support that market, that you will have to have that kind of model to the, to the industry, uh, to, to a market that is the way they understand this, the way they work. It's the same as, as you and I, I don't know how to wash clothes in the sink on a washboard, but I know how to use a washing machine. And it's a technology I grew up with.
Speaker 1 20:13 So it's the same thing that they've grown up with that ease technology get onto the internet, to what I want, pick it and go and make it easy to identify what I need. So I'll tell you the larger digital companies recognize that is the world moving in that direction. And in fact, the is, as you mentioned, I worked there. They just, we usually introduce that same concept as part of their platform to the market. And I'm sure the others will follow suit. That will be part of the way we will do business as an industry going forward. And again, I think then pulling it toward has been a plus because now you can reach out to so many different people. You didn't have the opportunity to in the past and that, and that generation will absolutely utilize that technology that way through identify what they need, how they pick it. It's really at a paradigm shift for even trade shows and other activities because there's this, you have to kind of appeal to that market completely different way.
Speaker 0 21:08 Absolutely. So one of the interesting things, and one of the reasons I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today is I wanted to talk about innovation, the robotics industry, because I feel now that one of the big changes we've had in the last five years, 10 years is that robot companies are now spending a lot more money on innovation. The bars have dropped a little bit. There's so many more innovation coming out of even new robot companies. What are some of the grand innovations that you've seen over the last bunch of years? And do you think, do you agree with me that a robot companies are spending a lot more on innovation than they ever have?
Speaker 1 21:41 I would absolutely agree. Uh, you know, the, the mechanics as they talked about, it's pretty mature the pricing because of that, it's been easier to get, you know, lower price supply product to, to, to make the robots. So the pricing models have really decreased. So in order to have a differentiation, you have to, you have to spend more money on innovation technologies. And I think we will see and we already see it and we'll see more of it will be that I'll say intuitive platforms. And I mentioned earlier, you know, if you have a smartphone and I'm quite sure, in fact, only once if somebody told me they actually did, but I'm quite sure you didn't read the instruction manual for your, your smartphone when you first use it, because it's just so intuitive. I did actually have somebody at Google one time tell me they actually did read it, but generally people don't, it's just so intuitive.
Speaker 1 22:34 And that's where we see the robotics and automation technology moving, where you'll be able to bring up a screen, look at a couple of icons. And then in a few minutes, your, your equipment's up and running, communicating you get the data you want. You can add a new app. As you talked about earlier, though, they'll have different actual app people creating apps that work on the systems, maybe even a universal capability. And I think it'll push does that. That's probably not around the corner. The more intuitive it's probably around the corner, but a universal language, so to speak is probably in our near future also because of connectivity because of capabilities for equipment to talk to each other, the consumer in this case industry, or whatever wants the ability for all of its equipment to talk to each other. And this idea of very unique intellectual property or on a software control architecture is becoming archaic in that regard.
Speaker 1 23:28 So I think you're gonna see more of that and that intuitiveness, where there'll be like picking up your smartphone and utilize that. Another thing I think we're going to see in terms of innovation, you can see a lot of now companies, others have come into the market from this view. And certainly some of the traditional companies have invested is in mobility. And I, and it's really an opportunity to be very disruptive in terms of market opportunity. For example, historically when we put together automation systems, we, it was kind of in a fixed location and you brought parts to it via conveyor, via fork, truck, crane system, whatever, but then the automation was fixed and you brought the parts so that whatever had to be done to it. And even if you think about the painting, even the automotive lines, but welding, you know, those very traditional markets, we always brought the product to it, this case with mobility and because of technology have the mobility to be able to talk to each other, it really opens the door to places that we never could go before.
Speaker 1 24:30 Thinking about a very large product, like, you know, a fuselage or maybe, um, a blade for a wind driven that these are very big, long products that still have to be worked on. And they would have to utilize, you know, many people to be able to do some of these processes, very dangerous work. And in many cases, certainly, uh, ergonomically, not very good for the person to do grinding along, you know, 10 foot long or 20 foot or 50 meter, long blades. So with mobility and robotics combination, the two together we'll be able to attack those markets. And we already are actually, uh, but I think we're at that cusp, that inflection point of that really being a disruptive technology going forward. And there's many other areas around that, that, uh, there areas where we're moving big parts around a plant. And because of that, uh, get navigation capability of slammed as it's called, we can recognize where we are. We can we route where we need to, it really is a technology change that will have a positive impact in a lot of areas that we never were the best.
Speaker 0 25:34 Yeah. I think that that's a, an, uh, very exciting part of the robotics industry as well. Where do you see any changes in the, in the medical device sector and using robots in that very popular sector?
Speaker 1 25:47 It is, um, and, and medical devices kind of a broad spectrum. So while I, I, I see that we were seeing more evolution around that large spectrum is in surgical. And, you know, there was the, um, the Vinci, which was really a manipulator, uh, because it was, we didn't really have the capability of a past finite movement, um, and control and feedback and data management that we have today. So we're seeing more and more robotics technology used in surgery. And, and in that's really a big difference because now you are, as we talked about in a collaborative application where you're interfacing with human beings, where you're assisting a surgeon in an application that would not have been thought of in the past. So there's a big shift in that direction. And many companies are investing in that technology, expanding technology. So what I think we'll see a lot more in that area, under the, I'll say the medical arena. And again, with data and sensory capabilities, we'll be able to share information much more quickly. So in a surgical environment, doing a hip replacement, capturing data from that, and that capturing from thousands of patients and be able to adapt accordingly, all of that is playing into each other and it's merging to make that more usable in those applications today and certainly going forward.
Speaker 0 27:10 So you've, uh, you've kind of really set this up. I was going to ask you a crystal ball question about kind of where, where are some of the other big challenges that are still left in innovation in the robotics industry? And you mentioned a lot about mobility, but beyond mobility, where else do you think it's, um, exciting for the industry?
Speaker 1 27:28 I think I'm gonna go back to one of these. I said, I think the biggest challenge we see is that, that intuitive capability and where we have challenges as an industry with college education, we've challenged the, the manufacturers to work together to try to make that much more intuitive. And I can, and I'm quite comfortable in saying the first ones that do will, will not only be elitist, have the potential on the market, kind of like Amazon Dade bike, really looking at that model differently than anybody else had in the past. And they dominate the market today. I think that same opportunity exists today, making it that easy. One of the things that the reasons you are as had some success while they can't do a lot of, you know, many, many, many applications, the applications they can do, it's fairly easy to use. It's really intuitive to use.
Speaker 1 28:18 Even they can see improvement, but it's more intuitive than some of the traditional platforms. So this is where I think it's the biggest challenge to do that. And then also for the companies to recognize that there has to be some commonality across usually the phone technology, again, the early days of the phones, depending on which plan you were on, you could talk to somebody else's phone, or you had to pay extra to do that. And doom the consumer said, no, no, no, that's not gonna work. You guys have to figure out a way to make this better for us, because I don't want to pay extra to talk to my cousin. That was a whole idea of having this activity. And so industry evolved and yet companies still stayed in business. We're still able to find a niche opportunities and grow their business. This is where I think the traditional companies really have to make a paradigm shift themselves and recognize that that is going to be a need of the future.
Speaker 1 29:13 And that capability to communicate across a single platform, whatever that looks like, maybe it all ties into one platform, but be able to communicate across at one platform. It doesn't exist today. So I'd say that's one of the big challenges going forward and innovations that find a way to make that happen and then make the tool very intuitive, very easy for the average consumer to use it. You think about it as you know, so grandchildren, they can get on my iPad, swipe through screens in three or four years, and they know what they don't better than I do or where to go, how to utilize it. But it's, it's certainly an easy technology. That's the type of technology we have to have in this industry going forward.
Speaker 2 29:52 Yeah.
Speaker 0 29:53 Joe, listen, this has been really, really interesting. And thank you for joining us on the podcast. Thank you for your insights and how does anybody get in touch with you? What is the best way?
Speaker 1 30:03 That's true. Only be open to any suborder questions. I can help anybody with a thanks for offering that opportunity. So again, Calvin robotics, we're a dental system integrator. Certainly a lot of capabilities of we can help people through the years. And the best way to reach me is Jay Gemma. So that's J, G E M M
[email protected]. So it's Calvary, just like we come in and save the day, the cavalry robotics.com. So again, Jim, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to have this discussion. Um, certainly it's always a pleasure to talk to you and always enlightening for us to have conversations like this. So thank you for the time and offering me this opportunity.
Speaker 0 30:42 Thanks, Joe. And we'll talk to you soon and thanks everyone for listening to the robot nation podcast. We appreciate your time and hope you'll join us again.
Speaker 1 30:49 Thank you. Have a great day.
Speaker 0 30:51 If you liked this podcast, please rate us wherever you find your podcasts, but more importantly, tell your friends about it, send them an email, tweet us, or hashtag us at robot nation podcast. If you have an idea or an interesting company or technology, or you'd like to be a guest, or maybe nominate someone to be a guest on a podcast, please send me an email again to robot nation
[email protected].
Speaker 3 31:15 <inaudible>.
