Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Those two things go hand in hand. Of course. The fact that our robots are the most precise on the market comes a lot from the fact that they're small. The tolerance chain is ultimately smaller. We really committed to using the top quality components out there also.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Robot Industry podcast. We're glad you're here and thank you for subscribing today. I welcome Louis lapierre to the podcast. His company is called Mechademic Robots. They build very precise industrial robots for medical device, photonics, aerospace, consumer and electronics, and pretty much everything else. And so I was just there actually in Montreal at Mecademic and I got the tour, which was really, really exciting and interesting. Hey, Louis, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Thank you for having me, Jim. It's an honor.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: So, Louis, I'm kind of interested before you maybe tell us about Mecademic, and you recognize Mecademic as. These are the small scale robots, right? They're small enough that you can actually carry around, although they don't recommend it. How did you get into the industry?
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Very good question. So for me, I've been with Mecademic for, let's say, the better half of a decade now. Prior to that, I was working in pharmaceutical packaging, you know, so I was always involved in automation. For me, robotics was really a way to be involved in everything, manufacturing. So this is kind of the beauty of robots, like you can really do deploy them in really any manufacturing industry. So I started with Mecademic mostly focused on the European market. So that was my first real mandate with the company where I was involved, you know, in watchmaking, some of the cutting edge stuff for a very, very high precision. But now more and more I'm focused on the North American market, which is of course, the biggest part of our business. What I do is really a sales and business development job. But of course it's always very technical due to the nature of what we do. So this is where, you know, the, the engineering background comes in handy.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Absolutely. So can you tell us a little bit about Mecademic? And of course, I've known about you for years and years as well. But, but for those people who might be walking their dog right now, tell us a little bit about how you got started, what products you brought on, and that kind of thing.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Fundamentally, what we do at Mecademic is extremely simple. So we manufacture very small, very precise industrial robots. The idea behind Mecademic really comes in, in two parts. We're involved in the cutting edge projects, like for very high precision, but we also allow manufacturers to save a lot of space. Behind every Mechademic robot you get those concepts. So very compact robots that are extremely precise. And this is what we're committed on doing, you know, to save space and bring very high precision, you know, to products, to projects where before in a lot of times it was just not possible to automate. So a lot of times we're going to be replacing not automation, but really just humans under a microscope. So we're very excited to be involved in such projects and be able to bring to penetrate automation markets that were just not possible before our solutions.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: And Mecademic came from academia, right?
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So we still have remnants of that in our name. Mecademic sounds a little bit like academic. Today we really manufacture industrial solutions for manufacturers. But indeed the company really started out of ets, which is the largest engineering school here in Quebec. The first idea, the first product behind Mecademic was really a dual arm SCARA that was focused towards empowering researchers and empowering academic people. And that comes from Iliane Bonave, one of the founders of Mecademik. That being around some manufacturers, he really realized that there was a need for small scale automation to bring compact automation to the market. Using you get some manufacturers that are using gigantic robots to handle light parts, of course they're sacrificing a lot of factory space doing that. So this is really the, you know, the idea behind Mechademic to turn around and offer nice compact industrial robots to the industry. And this is from that idea that we grew, you know, with the MECA 506 axis robot, that's still our flagship robot to this day.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: And that's really like even though we started off with dual Scaras, you really are this six axis miniature robot that is like you say, your mainstay. And that's kind of what you've launched with, right?
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Correct. Like the company started in 2013 with this dual arm Sari Scara. Very quickly, I think in 2015 we started selling the MECA 506 axis and from there, you know, it really blew up. A lot of people were excited to use that for manufacturing. Like I said, the MECA 500 is still our flagship, but there was a lot of revisions. So now we're at the fourth revision and we also launched new products like our SCARA 4 axis robot. You know, behind every Mechademic product we're going to have the same mentality, of course, to have nice compact robots that are some of the most precise in the world.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: And you're building your Robots in North America. Correct.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Exactly. So we still make everything in house up in Montreal. So really you see aluminum bars come in and robots come out. So we're extremely proud of that. Really. The only external main components we get from abroad, the harmonic drives, you know, the gearboxes and the motors. So we get the harmonic drives out of Japan from the original harmonic drive company and the motors come from Switzerland from Maxon. But aside from that, we have a very good control on quality since we do everything in house. You know, we have our, our own SMT line. We do of course, all of the precision machining in house. So it's great to have that control on quality. Also this really allows us to have extremely quick lead times.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I was pretty impressed when I got my tour that you did your own board stuffing right there and you had all the CNC machines right there and the assembly right there. So it's very, very exciting. And so that probably made you a lot better during the pandemic because you had such control over your supply chain.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Oh yeah, definitely. So that idea to be really, you know, auto sufficient comes from, from Joe, our CEO, that really wanted to have a full control over, over our production. But yeah, of course, during the pandemic, with the lead times for, for basic components going crazy, that helped us a lot and that helped us maintain our great lead times.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: So your products are small, but highly accurate and precise. And why is that?
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Actually, like, those two things go hand in hand. First, the fact that our robots are the most precise on the market comes a lot from the fact that they're small. The tolerance chain is ultimately smaller. We really committed to using the top quality components out there. Also, if I look at the gearboxes we're using, like for the MECA 500, we have zero, zero backlash harmonic drives on every axis. So of course this helps a lot for durability. Mechanically, those components have been really perfect. But of course the zero backlash is a big part of why our solutions are so precise. And this is really more for the repeatability of the robots. I don't want to get too technical here, but also for the global accuracy, we have solutions.
Absolute calibration. The robots are the most precise in the world, but also with this new calibration service, they are the most accurate in the world.
The way we do this is actually quite novel. Normally when you calibrate a robot, this will be done with a laser tracker, but in our case, since we make extremely compact robots, we're actually able to fit the robot on the CMM calibration surface we offer is actually done on a cmm. So that's something super interesting.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: You know, I'd never thought that you just put the robot in the CMM machine and absolutely guarantee its accuracy. So your quality is very important to you.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Oh yeah, definitely. And to do this in house for us is something very important and something we're very proud of. Like I was saying, like we have the aluminum bars that come in and every step of the process is monitored till the robots come out. So this is also great. And by the way, Jim, it was great to have you visit to explain this whole process. But I say this to all of our customers that they're always welcome to visit and see how we do things here at Mecademic.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Yes. And I think Montreal is such a great city to visit, so much fun. And we saw a hockey game and it was great to visit you guys and be able to see kind of where your robots come from. I wanted to switch our conversation right now to a bit about software and lack of software, you might say. How is the Mecademic robots different from Teach pendants and software and such?
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, this is also a very strong part of our identity. Like when we started the company, you look at the ecosystems, you look at the PLCs that are available, the different programming languages, it's endless and it's growing. So this was a decision from the get go to be able to work with everyone.
So we're really like, in terms of software, we're really agnostic. We really built our solutions so that, hey, if you're working with Allen Bradley PLCs, you're able to pick up our robot as a component and get started. If you want to use a Python script, the same goes for that as well. We're able to tell our customers, like when they ask us, what should I use to integrate your robot? The answer is always what they're familiar with. So this is a very strong side of Mecademic to make the integration and the interfacing as easy as possible. When you look at all the different PLC brands that are out there, we really try to make very nice, very clean PLC integration examples for our robots. So, so that if you're using Beckhoff, if you're using Siemens, you're able to take a look on our support page and grab what you need to get started. And the same goes for PC based systems. We have a fully supported Python API, for example. So this is a strong aspect of Mechademic to get started quickly with what you're familiar with internally.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: So the robot kind of acts like a slave, right, to whatever system you want to use.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Exactly. So like everyone else in robotics, we have our standard commands like move joints, this move pose, that. The way we see the robot is really as a component as opposed to being the master of ceremony. So you would deploy the robot in the same sense as you would deploy like a linear axis, for example, and you're able to use R commands, you know, move joints, move pose, all that fun loving stuff from your PLC or from your PC, basically.
So this really makes us able to work with everyone.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: So one of the interesting things about mechanimic robots, it does not come with a teach pendant because you don't need it, right?
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah, correct. So this sometimes comes with a bit of a learning curve. You know, you have some guys that come out of engineering school focused on robotics and they're very much used to having that teach pendant. In our case, we really decided not to have a physical teach pendant simply because we've replaced it with a software approach. So when you get a robot internally for the first time, all you have to do is connect to it with any PC system, the Google Chrome page or Safari page, whatever. From there you have what we call our Meka portal. So this is basically a web interface version of a teach pendant. This really goes hand in hand with our vision of our robot being slave components. This gives you more control on how you interface the robot. But yeah, sometimes when we get a project with a new customer and they're used to having the teach pendant, it's a bit of a learning curve, but it comes with a lot of strong sides as well. So sometimes there's a bit of a teaching phase for us with our customers to explain how that can work. But of course, we're always happy to support our customers and clarify the benefits of having such an approach as well.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: So you have a lot of partnerships as well at Mecademic. You've got, I know, partnerships with Asriel, which is a sorting technology, as well as end of arm tools. Can you tell the audience a little bit about what that looks like?
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, Jim, from my perspective, robotics is hard and it's not really like, because of the programming aspect of it, like it's fairly easy for someone with engineering or technical background to tell a robot where to go and build a program. Robotics are hard because of what comes before and what comes after. How are you going to grab your parts and how are you going to present them to the robot? Feel is always the hardest part in a project. So, yeah, any partner, anyone who can help us with that, with those parts of the project are great partners for us. So, yeah, of course, like you mentioned, Azuril, they're out of Switzerland, by the way, come from that watchmaking sector with tiny parts that sometimes you can't even see with the naked eye. So their expertise is really priceless for a robot manufacturer like us that builds some of the most precise robots in the world, because we always need something to present to the robot apart in a precise, reliable way. And Azurill is able to offer that. So they have offices now in the us it's really a booming business and of course we're excited to grow with them. If you look at Shunk for the gripping aspect of the project, we actually have a very good relationship with them. They actually make all the mechanical aspects of our grippers and those have been really great mechanically. So what we do at Micademic is we embed our controls into there to add a bit more functionality that's relevant for our customers, you know, so we force feedback, speed feedback and position feedback, for example. But it's really mechanically, it's a Shunk product, mechanic, controls inside. So gripping parts, presenting parts. If you can help us with that, with that, call us. We want to work with you.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Well, and I did want to mention, I forgot to ask this question earlier, but also the controls of the robot are in the base of the robot. So that's another really interesting differentiator for Mechanimic.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Definitely. So like if you, when you typically use an industrial robot to build a system, if you have four or six of them on the line, that means you have four or six mini fridges to hide somewhere under the machine frame. So for us, yes, our robots are the smallest on the market, but they're also by the most compact. So all of the controls are embedded into the base. The reason why we're able to do that is quite simple really. We at Mecademic, we only make industrial robots that are very small, so we're able to optimize the electronics, put that in a nice bundle. So you sacrifice as less space as possible. So when you look at the bigger guys, of course they're going to optimize their cost by using the same hardware for the bigger robots and the smaller robots. So in that case, even if you're using the smaller one of the line, you still have that huge controller that you have to manage. So that's another good advantage of using Mechademic. If your parts are light of Course.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Louis, we kind of talked a little bit about watchmaking where your robots are absolutely critical to watchmakers all over the world. What are some other use cases that you're doing? And I know you're doing work in photonics and all kinds of other industries.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So like it's always difficult to explain to someone that we don't only do super high precision stuff. Like of course, like you said, we were involved in watchmaking for tiny, tiny parts, tonics same for very, very small parts. But we also do more classical automation. Like for example, automotive is a big part of our business. The reason why they choose us in automotive is really going to be more for the space saving aspect of our solutions. Like we were talking about the robot not having a controller. Of course this helps a lot. Like we had a use case where they needed to, the customer needed to increase their production in defined space. You know, they couldn't move the factory. So the only reason why they chose mecademic in this case is really to make the line smaller and fit more into a given space. Of course, since our robots are extremely reliable, this is also a strong factor. Like our solutions are really built to run 247 and a very interesting thing. If you look at automotive, we know downtime is crazy expensive. So if there's ever a problem, you know, Murphy's law, there's always going to be a problem one day. If, if there's ever a problem with let's say the MECA 500, they actually list it as a spare part in a lot of cases. So you're able, you know, to unscrew four bolts, uncap two cables, bring the robot into the same position and continue production. In some cases where the points are not super precise, you're actually able to swap the robot, continue production and that's super easy, you know, because the program is actually stored PLC since the robot is a slave component. So yeah, we see a lot of successful business case like these that are not necessarily in super high precision.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: You know, I can see, you know, being an ex applications engineer myself, I could see robots onto a precision indexing environment where you could have like, where you could have all kinds of robots in this very small space and be able to be very successful in automation, pick and place or whatever.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So the best applications for us, like where we see that the fit is the most natural is cases where space is very important and precision is very important.
Medical device being the best example for that. We have a lot of customers that work in clean rooms. The space, the square Footage in such facilities come at a premium. So if they're able to put as much productivity in a smaller space, this is a big win for those customers. And the tolerances are often very tight for those products. So, yeah, we're seeing very exciting projects in that industry of medical devices.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: I had never heard of a desktop factory, but before I had actually Asriel and Mechademic on an event. So can you tell our audience what a desktop factory is?
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Well, the idea of a desktop factory is very simple. So this is where you have your cell in just a tiny environment, and the fit to do that with Azuril is very good. Kind of have the same mentality in terms of programming as well. We see a lot of projects where the parts are light, the parts are small, where this can be done on a tiny desk, basically. So a huge advantage if your parts are light. The concept of a desktop factory can be. Can be a great win for manufacturers.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: I know you're doing a lot of work in lenses and in photonics and consumer. What are some of the processes? I know that you can't mention customers, but what are some of those processes you're doing? Obviously you're handling precision optics.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, when the company was started, a lot of us at Mecademic had. Well, we didn't. We didn't have any experience in optics or photonics. But we know, like, a few years ago that there's a boom that really started with this industry. We learned by being at trade shows or just getting general customer requests that our solutions were ideal fit for those industries. So, of course, we can't go too deep into the details. But the concept we see a lot of for photonics, for optics manufacturing is a lot of times it's building, you know, building an actual laser. The concept is pretty straightforward. So what we're going to do is grab lenses, grab mirrors, align them in a very precise manner until the position is perfect. So typically they're going to have the right sensor at the right place to measure when that position is reached. The lens or the mirror is going to be fixed, whether it's glue or welding.
And we're competing a lot in that sphere, not with industrial robots, but with custom stage stacks and even some cases, exopods that we can see the Mechademic robots really, as a sweet spot between industrial robots and custom stage stacks. From a business perspective, this is really where we're at.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: One of the questions I had for you at trade shows, so I always kind of wonder about the people who may not know about the Mechademic brand and about the processes and about the industries you're in, but it's probably the application engineer. How important is that for you?
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Definitely, like for us, Jim, anybody who's in a position to evaluate their toolbox and maybe consider Mechademic is someone we want to talk to. Like I was saying, we're competing against robots sometimes. We're competing a lot with custom stage stacks, custom engineering. We're really a suite component right in the middle of a traditional industrial robot and custom engineering. So we want all the apps engineers in the world to know about Mechademic and know about the benefits using our solutions can bring. Like sometimes, of course, like a stage stack will be more optimal, but if you look at the engineering time that comes behind that, in a lot of cases the optimal solution would be to use, you know, just a mechanic robot. So we have our niche and we want applications engineers to know about us and the sweet spot where they could work with us.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: So I was at the atx, one of the ATX shows the other day and I actually saw a mechanic robot as an end of arm tool for one of the Fanuc robots. So I thought that was really, really an interesting application.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: Oh yeah, it's definitely eye catching at a trade show to use that. For me, I can say I've never seen a real practical application where this could be used. Maybe we will someday.
We've had researchers also at universities do that. For me, I can't imagine how complex it would be to have a 12 axis robot. The inverse kinematics must be a nightmare. But yeah, definitely interesting to see that at a trade show. It makes people stop by and look, that's for sure.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: I imagine too the educational market must be pretty important for Mecademic.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. Like it's a considerable part of ourselves. It's not one of the critical ones. But for us it's a priority to have people from academia, people that are studying, people that are doing research, have an experience with our robots.
And a lot of times we see cutting edge projects where they're really going to benefit from the high precision, high resolution of our robots. So yeah, it's always great to have discussions with people from academia and really push the limits of what our robots can do.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: So how do you feel about the future of robotics, just in general?
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that the robots, the actual robot arms are going to get more precise. We want to be on that forefront of that chase and we will be, but for me it's really artificial Intelligence that's, that's getting more and more impressive. Not necessarily on the motion planning and the robotic side, but mostly on the machine vision side.
It's really crazy what the algorithms can do today for recognition of components and also the resolution that's being augmented with such systems. With the vision systems really goes on in hand with the increased capability of the machine vision, the AI systems. Like, we're seeing more and more projects where using AI and machine vision, you're actually able to deploy automation, deploy robotics towards biology, like to pick up cells and stuff like that. So for me, it's always mind blowing to be involved in such projects.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: And of course, Montreal is a great place to be when you're talking about AI because it's one of the centers in the world for AI expertise and, and vision as well. So I'm sure it's going to be an exciting bunch of new years for Mechademic, AI vision and all those kinds of things.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Oh yeah, we should definitely leverage more like internally at Mecademic, I don't think we've ever had projects that are directly related to AI. We try to focus on the hardware side, precision manufacturing. This is really what we're good at. But we should definitely, in the future leverage that and collaborate at least on vision guided robotics projects. With the folks here focused on AI in Montreal, that would be a great opportunity.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: Louis, thanks for coming on today. Did we forget to talk about anything?
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Well, you know, as opposed to going on our website and looking at our specs and seeing pictures of the robot, I would encourage anyone listening here today to take a look at our case studies. Our marketing team is doing an amazing job, you know, to, to show what the robots can do. We have case studies, you know, in precision manufacturing, medical device, lab, automation.
Very impressive stuff. So I encourage you to take a look at our website at the case study section to really have a better understanding of what we do here at Mecademic.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: And what is your website?
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Mecademic.com straightforward.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: And then how best for people to get a hold of you, should they find you on LinkedIn or.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: Yeah, well, anyone is always welcome to contact me directly on LinkedIn. I'm always excited to discuss your projects, discuss your challenges, but really the best way to get in contact with Mecademic is to go on our website and reach out with the contact us part of the website. So this will be redirected to the people who take care of your specific region. And everyone here is excited to learn more about your challenges and your ideas with our solutions.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Louis lapierre thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: Jim. It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for hosting me.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart Automation Systems. Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing, they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing and project management, delivering world class custom automation on time and on budget. Contact one of their sales engineers to see what Earhart can build for you. And their email address is infoerheart automation.com and Earhart is hard to spell. It's EH R H A R D T and I'd like to acknowledge A three the association for Advancing Automation. They are the leading association for robotics, vision and imaging, motion control and motors and the industrial artificial intelligence technologies. Visit automate.org to learn more. And if you'd like to get in touch with me at the Robot Industry podcast, you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. Today's podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing and I'd like to thank my team, Chris Gray for music, Jeffrey Bremner for audio production, my business partner Janet and our sponsor, Earhart Automation Systems.
