Speaker 0 00:00:00 For hundreds of years, technology has helped us get out of repetitive work today. Robots in the supply chain, get us out of the monotony so we can focus on flow.
Speaker 1 00:00:13 Hello, and welcome to the eighty-three the robot industry podcast. Thanks for joining us today. We welcome our listeners from Omaha, Farmington, Rochester, and Detroit. And thank you for subscribing today. We're joined by Jeff Christianson from siegrid a perceptive strategist, Jeff oversees secrets, product development efforts. His career spans technology, design information delivery solutions, business intelligence, and analytics software. His expertise is in growing startups into multi national corporations from Risa labs may have designed an medius. Jeff studied human computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon university and holds a bachelor of arts degree from hope college. Jeff, welcome, and thank you for joining us.
Speaker 0 00:00:58 Thanks Jim. Pleasure to be here. Hey,
Speaker 1 00:01:01 Uh, Jeff, why don't we start off with who is secret?
Speaker 0 00:01:05 Of course. Well secret we automate material flow, uh, with software and mobile robots and, and the reason we do that is we see a future where all the stuff that we as a society make buy and ship in the economy should move fluidly and autonomously with robots. We see it as a, as a way to elevate the human potential beyond moving stuff around to create safer workplaces, provide goods without disruption, and frankly make better jobs.
Speaker 1 00:01:41 Let's talk a little bit for our audience about mobile automation. And can you also tell us what an a M R is?
Speaker 0 00:01:48 Yeah, there's a lot of, uh, terminology out there in this space right now. So an AMR is an autonomous mobile robot. There are other terms like an AGV, um, which means an automated guided vehicle. And, uh, and sometimes there's some, uh, confusion about those two things. So I'll, I'll quickly, uh, explain the difference between them. So an AMR, um, navigates entirely on its own. So it has sensors on board. It picks up the environment through those sensors and then makes all of its navigation decisions entirely onboard the robot, uh, an automated guided vehicle and AGV is sort of the older school technology where there is something off the vehicle, like a track to follow or aligned to follow or reflectors in known places to bounce, uh, lasers off of or things like that. So what that means is that it's just sort of following that track in the building. And so that's kind of a, a difference, but what they do, especially in the AMR space is they move material in the supply chain. So think warehouses factories, logistics centers, fulfillment centers for e-commerce, all of there's an enormous amount of stuff that gets moved all the way through the supply chain and AMRs are moving those things autonomously.
Speaker 1 00:03:07 And what is some of the competition to AMRs?
Speaker 0 00:03:09 Well, there's obviously lots of, um, uh, vendors in this space. There's lots of companies making these robots, but really the competition for the robots themselves is the status quo of moving things manually, right? There's lots of these, uh, factories and warehouses that have all of these people doing these repetitive monotonous tasks of, of moving pallets of goods around to and fro just in order to make the thing or deliver the thing that their business does. So I think that the key competition right now for, for robots in the supply chain is that status quo of getting out of the process of doing these things manually and, and kind of taking a step into the future.
Speaker 1 00:03:50 And of course, I remember I used to work in a big factory and it would take you 20 minutes to go see if your package was at the back in shipping. Right. So I totally understand.
Speaker 0 00:04:00 Yeah, absolutely. Right. That all of that wasted time, right? If you think about the principles of lean, lean manufacturing, you want to remove all of that waste in your processes and exactly what you just described, right. Walking across the building for 20 minutes, and then 20 minutes on the way back, just to see if something was there that was all waste, that that business was incurring. And so we want to really move toward a much, much more efficient operation.
Speaker 1 00:04:26 And so that's a good segue into the next question I have for you. What, what are some of the economic motivations for companies to consider mobile?
Speaker 0 00:04:33 There's so many economic pressures right now there's increasing demand. There's higher complexity companies have to do more custom products because that's what the market is demanding, which means that they have to have more base materials, which means they have bigger warehouses that are now farther away and more skews. And all of this all within faster expectations in the market, the market is expecting them to do all of these far more complex things, um, both cheaper and faster than they did before. So the, those sort of motivations and the, and the pressures that are on all of these industries are just enormous and growing. Uh, and then you combine that with a labor shortage, right? We just said that the, the real competition there is, um, moving things manually, but, um, there aren't enough people to take these, you know, these sort of low repetitive jobs. And, uh, and even if you do, then you have high turnover, right. We know companies that have 300, 400% turnover in these material handling jobs. So it's, um, it's just, it's a really tough nut for them to crack with all of this kind of pressure. They need to reevaluate how their operations move and, and fortunately automation through mobile robots is, um, is here right now to try to, uh, save.
Speaker 1 00:05:51 So the companies, when they were determining that, what their return on investment is like, there's some things that are fairly obvious, but there's also some things that are not. And who makes those determinations? Is it plant's manager or is it say the, um, uh, president or is it a, the CFO?
Speaker 0 00:06:07 Well, I think it, it depends on what phase that company is in. Oftentimes they start small, right? You start at one facility and it could be a general manager of one facility. And then you, um, you realize a gain there, and then you start to expand the scope in that facility, and then you expand the scope across a network of facilities. And so there are different decision makers along the way, but I think for all of those layers and phases, there are, um, you know, really three things that they are all looking for. Right. Can I, can I do more? Can I increase my top-line throughput by, by doing something in a newer and better way? Can I do my operation better? Can I be safer? Can I have greater efficiency? Can I have more visibility? Can it be more connected, more reliable, all of those things. Um, and of course, can I do it cheaper? Is there cost savings as a part of this? And, you know, in our experience, moving to mobile robotics, um, for this material handling and material flow, um, actually ticks all three of those boxes and
Speaker 1 00:07:10 Big accompany. Do you have to be, to consider an AMR or is it maybe the size of the building? Like, what are some of the things that you're talking to with your clients?
Speaker 0 00:07:20 A lot of the, the determination of value does come from, you know, the economics. And so, you know, what's the economic payback that you're, that you're going to get for this application versus that. And it's true that, um, where we are right now in sort of the adoption of mobile robotics, bigger buildings, um, have a better payback. And the reason is that there's longer distances to travel. That's more cost savings. That's more efficiency that you're gaining and you're kind of amortizing the use of those robots over a bigger space, um, and preferably more time, right? Uh, robots work 24 seven, right? So you can have a three shift operation, have one robot work, all three shifts, which of course you can't do with people. So the payback tends to be better with bigger buildings and, and more shifts. Uh, and that's just because of the economic drivers. I think that over time that will be more democratized to get out to, to smaller companies and smaller buildings. But right now, I think it's, um, that that's where a lot of the value is being realized today.
Speaker 1 00:08:19 And we, you mentioned about fleets before about, you know, what w because you're obviously talking to people who maybe have multiple facilities around North America around the world, and they're not just buying five robots for one facility. They might be buying five robots for 20 facilities.
Speaker 0 00:08:35 Yeah. Well, actually we have customers that have, you know, 50 or a hundred robots. So it's not just five or 10, but I absolutely agree. We actually encourage our customers to start small and kind of get their, get their feet wet, make sure that they understand the process. And people changes of going from a manual process, an automated process, that they can have confidence in how everything works and things like that. And then it's really easy to add capacity to do more workflows or, or just more throughput or things like that. By adding more robots, you're, you're kind of taking your, your, your very best, you know, that first robot that once you train it in and it's doing all of these processes perfectly every time, you now have your, your very best employee, and now you can copy them as many times as you want in order to increase your capacity. So it's, um, it's very scalable and, and high leverage to, to move to robots like this. But, uh, starting small is, is just fine. And, uh, you know, often we encourage companies to do that, to just to make sure that they are understanding the changes of what they're going to do. Right. Any process change. You want to make sure that you're really perfecting that. And then you can scale,
Speaker 1 00:09:50 And we kind of talked about, you know, how to get started, right? You're you want like an, almost any automation you want to keep it simple.
Speaker 0 00:09:59 Absolutely. Always, always keep it simple. Right? This is that's actually one of the big benefits of AMRs versus the AGVs right? The, the true autonomous mobile robots, where you don't have to change anything about your facility. You don't have to lay down tape on the ground or put reflectors, or do any of those kinds of things. The robot will figure all of that out, right. It will take it's it's pictures in our case, uh, you know, it'll, it'll take the sensor input around it and understand the environment and go do its work. And then you can change what you want it to do, you know, tomorrow or next shift, or next hour, as much as you want. So you get kind of the, you know, the best of both worlds there, but yeah, always, always keep it simple and make sure that, you know, it's doing its job and, you know, it should then do it perfectly. And then eventually it'll do it scalably.
Speaker 1 00:10:50 So let's talk a little bit about data, because this is one of the things that, uh, maybe a big warehouse manager, he, he, or she doesn't have, and now they have it. And how important is that data?
Speaker 0 00:11:03 Well, data is the lifeblood of any business. You know, the old adage, if you, um, if you don't measure it, you can't manage it. So I think that that applies, um, unquestionably into the supply chain and, and material flow and material handling. And that's actually one of the great, um, uh, maybe hidden benefits of, of moving toward mobile robots is that not only are the robots moving everything, um, very efficiently and effectively and, and, and very, very safely. And that's, and that's great, but it's also collecting information about all of those movements. And so now I can have better visibility into my, my work streams. And, you know, what happens on this shift versus that, is it hitting expectations? I can, I can tweak and tune my, to make sure that I'm maximizing my throughput. So that data is of enormous value. And that's just kind of the, the, the near term data, the longterm data is that, um, you know, AI will take all of that data and decide where all of the robots should go and where, when and why all of them move. And, and suddenly you are, uh, not only automating the physical moves, but you're automating the continuous improvement of the moves. And so that's, that's a really exciting future that, that we certainly can see.
Speaker 1 00:12:25 And I think too with the data has proof, right? So when all of a sudden you have a hundred robots on your, on your, in your distribution center and you really need 105.
Speaker 0 00:12:36 Right. Right. And, and, and it's all right there on a proverbial piece of paper, right? That's, that's actually one of the things that we want to make sure that, you know, the, the champion at that site who is, you know, managing this as a project, their, their transformation to automation and, and things like that, you know, that data is, is their best friend. That is their evidence of what is happening in the plant. And, you know, it's, it's a, uh, an order of magnitude, better visibility into the operations than what they had before. And as you say, it is proof if I have a hundred, but I really need 105. This is why, and the, and the, the business case kind of writes itself.
Speaker 1 00:13:17 And this, we talked about this in our pre-call that you need, or this is kind of a new job, right. That someone is going to take on. And we always talk about robots taking jobs. Well, here's yet another job that's being created as like a traffic flow professional.
Speaker 0 00:13:33 Yeah. You know, the, the robots taking jobs thing, we, um, we all hear it a lot. And I think that it's not a, it's not a new phenomenon just for robots. People have been saying that about different technologies for hundreds of years. Right. If you go back to the, the, the Luddites trying to break up the, the mechanical looms in the 18 hundreds. So, um, I think that all new technological innovations create new opportunities for new jobs. So you're absolutely right. And we see that with customers is that people now have new responsibilities that are a higher order, higher value position, more creative thinking, uh, frankly, better core competency for that person, uh, than it was when they were, you know, driving a fork truck in, you know, in a loop for eight hours a day. So, uh, so yes, there absolutely are new jobs being, being created, and they are, uh, fascinating new jobs because it's, it's cutting edge technology. Um, and it's also much higher value for their employer, which is, you know, good for all of them.
Speaker 1 00:14:34 And we talked as well about safety and, and about the, um, you know, safety is of course is, is big priority for everyone today. And it kind of always has been, but it seems to be more important now, would you agree?
Speaker 0 00:14:47 Well, I'm not sure if it's more important because safety has always been the most. So if it's been the most important all along, um, but I, I agree that it is, uh, it's talked about a lot more, maybe these days, um, certainly safety is, um, you know, as the old saying is job number one, uh, it is absolutely critical. Um, you know, robots have a higher bar to, to reach than human drivers do in terms of a safety record. That's true for kind of any automation is that the, uh, the machine has a, um, uh, a much tighter tolerance for those kinds of safety, um, you know, related to behaviors. And we take that extremely seriously. Um, you know, at, at secret, we have about 5 million miles of, of, uh, autonomous driving in customer production facilities. And we have zero personnel safety incidents, and those two stats always paired together are the thing that we are, you know, the most proud of. Um, and that is something that we take very, very seriously.
Speaker 1 00:15:49 So robots are increasing safety in, uh, distribution centers. True statement. Absolutely. So do you have any real-world applications that you can chat with for our audience?
Speaker 0 00:16:01 Oh, so many. So we, we work in manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution, e-commerce fulfillment and logistics. So you can imagine anything where a pallet is being moved in any of those places, uh, can, and should frankly be moved by a robot. So if you think in manufacturing, you're mentioning that earlier. So, um, parts to line, right? So, uh, there's a, there's a plant that, uh, that makes washing machines and they have, uh, every part that comes to that assembly line is being driven by a robot. And, and that gives them, um, uh, on that sort of all three of the ROI components, they can do more, they have higher throughput because the, because of that, their processes are more efficient, so they're better. Uh, and they have considerable cost savings. So the whole process is cheaper. So it takes all three of those boxes. But, but yeah, so it, um, manufacturing parts to line, uh, replenishment activities end of line put away trash removal. Cross-docking all, all of these workflows that are inside of these, these facilities. Um, yeah, they're, they're being moved by robots today.
Speaker 1 00:17:11 And what were the layers of technology that you consider when you're thinking about AMRs?
Speaker 0 00:17:16 I think of, uh, four levels. I think that, uh, ma maybe not everyone thinks of them this way, but the, the first is the physical layer. That's the most obvious, that's what everybody understands about robots. Right. I need to, um, move X from Y to Z. And, you know, I want to do that for all, all Xs, Ys and Zs, right? So just move all of the stuff. That's the robotics layer, that's what everybody kind of sees. Um, next layer up, I think of as the logical layer, what should be done, uh, which robot should go where that's the, that is human interfaces that is software integration interfaces, um, things like that of do I know where my robots are? Do I know what they're doing? Are they doing the right thing? How can I tell them what to do next, that sort of thing, that sort of logical layer.
Speaker 0 00:18:04 And then there's a decision layer above that, that is collecting all of this data and trying to create informed actions of how to inform that, that logical decision layer just below it. So knowing all of the things that have been happening, you know, how can we be better? How can we improve over time? So those are sort of the three, um, tech layers, but I, I add a fourth that kind of cuts across all of them, which is trust. Uh, we, we take it really seriously kind of the, um, the partnership between human and machine as a part of this transformation. This is not, um, we're going from an all manual process to a full lights out warehouse, where there are no people in there and things like that. We're, we're still a long way from that from a cost benefit perspective. So we really, um, lean into the, the partnership between the people in the plant and the machines, and make sure that they, um, that they understand the process changes. They understand how the technology works, that they can have the confidence and the competence to really engage with that technology, because that is how you get the benefit of the, of sort of the process change and the, and the technology change. So I think of that, um, that building of trust through process change as, as just as important as the physical autonomy of the robots, the, the logical layer of the software integrations and the, and the UX and the decision layer of, of the data and, you know, what should be done.
Speaker 2 00:19:35 Thank you for that. Are, um, is there anything that we haven't chatted about today, yet that you want to?
Speaker 0 00:19:41 Well, there's so many things. Uh, I mean, I, I love this. Um, I love the tech. I love the industry. I love the things that it's, that it's possible to do now. And, and frankly, the thing that I'm, I'm so excited about is, are the things that are going to be possible, you know, in the very near future. It's, it's just a tremendously exciting time to be in the robotics industry, um, to be applying that in the supply chain, because of all of those demands that we were just talking about earlier of like the, the, the need is real and it's urgent. And, um, it's just, it's just a really exciting place to be.
Speaker 2 00:20:17 Well, thanks again. And thanks for coming on to the podcast. How can people get ahold of you if they have more questions,
Speaker 0 00:20:23 Why you should go to a secret.com S C E G R I D.
Speaker 2 00:20:28 Great. Well, thank you. Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart automation systems, Earhart builds and commissions turnkey automation 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 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 like to thank and acknowledge our partner, a three, the association for advancing automation, 83 is the umbrella association for the RIA, the AIA M CMA, and a three Mexico. And these four associations combined represent almost 1300 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, systems integrators, and users, research groups, and consulting firms throughout the world that are driving automation forward. I'd like to thank and recognize our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions.
Speaker 2 00:21:34 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. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, just reach out to 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 traction, 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 partners, a three painted robot at our sponsor Earhart automation systems.
