[00:00:00] Speaker A: With the change in consumers buying habits from not traveling to a store to pick up products, it changed how warehousing and retail stores are doing business. You have to be able to bring in full pallet loads of homogeneous products, break them down, put them into an ASRs automatic storage and retrieval system, and then divvy those out as they're ordered by the customer.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the robot industry podcast. We're glad you're here, and thank you for subscribing. My guest for this episode is Scott Lang, president and CEO of Motion Controls Robotics. I'm on site here at the factory in Fremont, Ohio. Scott, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Thank you. I appreciate it. Enjoy being here. Excited to talk today about the robotic industry.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Scott, tell me a little bit about motion controls robotics.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: We founded the company in 1995.
We did a lot of work, controls work for custom machine builders, and we've always had a passion for programming automation. We started in 95. We got involved with robotics in 1996, joined the FanuC authorized Systems integrator program. Back then, we kind of did anything and everything in the automation industry, and now we've continued to focus over the years and into the offerings we have today. We've chosen to be a special specialized integrator in the end of line area and general material handling instead of being a jack of all trades in robotics.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: What's on your customer's mind when they're looking for an automation solution? Like what's most important to them?
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Well, what I believe is most important is for solutions or application expertise. They're looking to bring someone in who has done this type of work before, therefore reducing risk in the application they're looking at. I don't think customers are looking for people who have never done this type of work before. They're concerned about putting the kind of money into automation with risks in it failing.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Scott, you've done a lot of work in building materials and food and beverage. What other industries are you operating in currently?
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Consumer packaged goods and manufacturing in general. Although we don't do a lot of advertising in some of the areas, certainly opportunities come across are our desk for manufacturing in general. We do large material handling systems for lots of different industries.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: And what do you mean by end of line? I kind of picture sometimes end of line, but I think I know where you're going with this. But what do you mean by end of line?
[00:02:41] Speaker A: For us, especially in food, there's primary packaging, where you're dealing with the food actually touching the food, but we really take over at the secondary packaging once the product is in a wrapper, or even if it's consumer packaged goods, it's in its first primary package. We take it from there. We can erect the case, pack the cases, seal the cases, label the cases, convey them, track them, create layers, palletize the product, create a unit load, stretch, wrap the unit load, and then transfer the unit load from there. So that's what I would consider end of line. Once the product is in its first wrapper or package, all the way out until it gets to a truck. That's what we deal in, what we consider end of line, and we do any part of that or all of it.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: And so what's happening in palletizing?
[00:03:35] Speaker A: There's lots of things going on in palletizing. I would say two of the big things are modularization and the new products that are available to produce automation cells with less engineering upfront. And then, you know, the software, you know, the ease of use customers are looking for products that are easier to use and software that builds unit loads either with ease or builds unit loads automatically. Lots of neat things happening on that front.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: I've heard the word induction a lot, and I just. You're an expert in this. What does induction mean?
[00:04:14] Speaker A: So with the change in consumers buying habits from not traveling to a store to pick up products and ordering them and having them delivered to their house, it kind of changed how warehousing and retail stores are doing business. So you have to be able to bring in full pallet loads of homogeneous products, break them down. So depletizing, put them into an ASRs automatic storage and retrieval system, and then divvy those out as they're ordered by the customer, you know, either one at a time. Also, some retail outlets are smaller ones, are just looking for a partial pallet of different goods. And so what we call mixed palletizing. And so donor pallets would be inducted and depal, and then turn around and then build a mixed load for them. But it's primarily, I think, reducing pallet loads and to be put into an ASRs to then eventually be sent out to customers.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Thanks for that, Scott. Scott, what is a modular palletizing system?
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Kind of two different things in the modular palletizing area. Either a palletizer that has a couple of different building blocks that get assembled based on the application, based on the floor plan. Basically pieces that can be manufactured ahead of time, and they're off the shelf at an integrator, then pulled together, and to quickly deliver a cell, typically in the four to six week range. I would say modular or even portable palletizer. Like our BA Palletizer, it's all self contained, so it can be moved from point to point within the plant, and that also can be delivered in just a few weeks and up and running within just minutes. So when I hear modular palletizing, those are, those are the two different solutions that we're seeing out there.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: So, RBA, that's your version of a standard product, right?
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Yes. Our BA Palletizer is a portable, self contained unit that can be pushed up to a line, and within 15 minutes, you can be stacking cases with it.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: So making it easy to use for an operator was probably pretty important in developing that product.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. You know, there's less and less engineering talent at the end users sites, and so we're finding ourselves having to make the products very easy to use, intuitive. We want to continue to make products intuitive and easy to use for those who aren't trained in controls.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: And we just did a factory tour, and you showed me one of them on the floor, and it has integrated forklifts. Right. So you literally can pick it up and put it in a place where you need it for that day or that shift.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. That's the intent, was to be able to make it movable to wherever the demand is. If someone doesn't show up for work, you don't have the labor available for a particular line, that you could just pick it up and move it. It has all the, you can have it memorize all of the stack patterns for the entire plant and then just move it from place to place. Or if you have a customer stack requirement, you can build it on the fly and be running within 15 minutes.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Very cool and very innovative. Are you finding that you're doing more work with smaller companies or with larger companies?
[00:07:34] Speaker A: For the type of work we typically do, which is large end of line and material handling systems, we find ourselves working with larger and larger customers for that type of work. But I would say that our modular palletizing products and our BA palletizer, it can run the gamut as far as the size of the customer. It can be for mid to small as well as large customers, depending on their need.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: So this is kind of a question about kind of your business or your customers business, I should think. What's more important, is it cycle time or is it uptime?
[00:08:09] Speaker A: That's a really good question, because both are important. But thinking about it, I think that uptime is the most important because it makes it predictable. So even if a customer, if it's a situation where a system is just impossible to make the rate they need, at least they know that it's going to be consistent and maybe there's a way to make up for it, either by running additional shift or something like that. Whereas if you have a system that can make or exceed rate but yet incurs downtime, that's unpredictable. I think that would be the more difficult thing for a customer to stomach. Like I said, both are important. Don't get me wrong, we certainly don't ship anything out of here that isn't making rate. I think the uptime is the piece that's really crucial. And certainly we build our systems, the quality of our systems, to reduce unnecessary downtime. For sure.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: This is a good segue into this next question. What does the ROI conversation look like? From my perspective at ATS, it was always like 24 months. But you're in a slightly different industry than we were.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's just the times we're in, you know, there's a fundamental lack of labor out there that's going to continue, you know, for the next decade or so, which is good for the automation industry. But I think that changes that ROI conversation because it's not that you'll be eliminating positions, but you were never able to find those people in the first place. And so I'm not sure how you punch that into the calculator, but some people are just saying, I can't even find the people, so I can't even take on this new business unless we do the automation. I would say that typically the ROI is still in that two year range when we do just the simple calculations. But at the end of the day, if you were never able to get that labor, you either have to move production to another location that does have the labor or you have to automate.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: No, that's a good question. Very good answer to that question. Thanks. And you're a Fanuc partner. What does that mean to you, Fanuc and your customers?
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah, we've partnered up with Fanuc in 1996 when the ASI program started, and we are an exclusive Fanuc integrator. We don't deal with any other brands. We like to be an expert in the Fanuc product and not necessarily a jack of all trades dealing with other manufacturers, but, you know, at the end of the day, an exclusive partner with Faninc over 28 years. And we have a lot of friends at Fanuc, and we both are able to work together, you know, to ensure success, both for us and for the customer. And so when there's trouble. You know, they're, they're quick to respond, and, you know, we can always count on them to go the extra mile to help us out in all facets of business.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Scott, let's talk about end of Arm tools. I saw a lot of them out there on our tour. Are you seeing any trends?
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we had talked about the fact that I'm seeing more and more automation products. We've been in business almost 29 years, and when we started, everything had to be made from scratch. And now we're seeing all kinds of products out there, and one of them is complete end of arm tools for all kinds of applications. And so, you know, there's still room for the custom tools, custom end of arm tools on occasion, but there's also opportunities to use products that can help us deliver faster.
So, you know, that's one of the exciting things I'm seeing out there, is just lots of different end of arm tools that can be purchased.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: It's so great because they all, you know, the performance, you know how long they're going to last, you know, and it does get delivered fairly plug and play, so it makes your job a little bit easier.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: It does.
There's still tons of value added from motion controls and the software and application specific experience, but where we can. We're trying to use off the shelf items.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Absolutely.
How long does it take, if I'm a customer, how long does it take to purchase, design, and build a system in general?
[00:12:23] Speaker A: In general, the sales cycle for our type of automation is about six months from when we're first contacted by a customer about an opportunity to when they're ready to purchase. And then after that, a typical design build is in the 32 to 35 weeks for delivery. Now that's what I'd say a large custom system. As for the modular and portable palletizers, delivery is typically less than four to five weeks.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Do you find more engineers are in your customers building, or are you finding there's less?
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah, we're seeing less engineering at the customer sites, especially in the mid to small customers.
When we're putting in a large, complicated system, we're always looking to have a site champion that we can train and that can train the trainer situation. But especially in the mid to small companies, you have to make sure your systems are intuitive, can recover from their own errors, and are easy to troubleshoot.
Also a big one for us is remote access. Being able to get to our systems and troubleshoot them remotely, it helps in a number of ways. Downtime, we don't have to travel. We don't lose the resource, the customers back up as soon as possible. But in this day and age of cybersecurity, there's a lot of customers, or at least their it departments, that are unable, unwilling to allow access. So it's a fight there that we win at some locations and not at others. But having that remote access is really a big benefit for both us and the customer. At the end of the day, it's.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Almost perfect when they can hardwire that in so we can go down, press the button to give you access, and when you don't need access, go back and unplug the access. Right.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: No, yeah, for sure, which would be fine with us, but, yeah, that access allows us to. Allows them to not have to have the engineering resources on site.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Scott, so you're in Fremont and how are you attracting skilled trades to your business?
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah, so we're heavily involved with our local schools, vocational schools and colleges to promote all types of technical careers. And we do a lot of co ops and apprenticeships here. I believe in you can either sit and wait for talent to show up, which isn't going to happen nowadays, or you can grow them. And so we like the idea of getting a hold of young, bright minds and getting them excited about automation and then training them in the field that we're in.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: It's such an exciting business to be in. I think people really get attached to it for lots and lots of different reasons.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. I've been excited about it since I got involved in automation 35, 36 years ago, and I still enjoy seeing the work that we do today.
There's not really a school out there yet that produces programmers in our type of field, and so it's still something that has to be learned over a year, two years, the application and programming expertise required for doing this type of work.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you need some kind of anchor, like robot programming or mechanical design or electrical design, something like that. But like you say, you come in and you're like, now you know what? You don't know.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah, no, for sure. There's, that application expertise is the, is the one thing that each integrator has a unique set of experience. Like you said, you have to come in anchored with the discipline. But learning how to apply that in.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Automation, how do you stay on target for machine deliveries like this is a very complicated business. There's lots of parts, robots and conveyance and scanners and vision and such. How do you stay on target?
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah, a couple things. We keep the pressure on early in the project. Sometimes it's easy early in the project when everything's, you know, quiet and maybe not keep the pressure on, but, you know, keeping the pressure on early. Holding. Holding the account of the customer accountable, as well as our team accountable for meeting dates and deadlines. Try to keep the scope creep and what if scenarios to a minimum while still being flexible for the customers needs. But yeah, I think using our experience to ensure our customers help us keep their, their project on time.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Scott, when you're not automating and integrating automation, what do you like to do? Do you have any hobbies?
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Yeah, my primary hobby is cycling. Definitely out there, either on the trainer or outside, enjoying the weather. We cycle all year round, so that's primary hobby. Certainly enjoy time with my family and my two young girls who are growing quickly, so trying to spend a lot of time with them.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: And did we forget to talk about anything today on the podcast?
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Yes. I think AI, that's the one thing that I see, is going to make some serious changes in our field. Maybe not soon, but in the next few years, we're going to see a lot of different things. Both AI and digital twin technology is areas I think are going to see a lot of changes in the next few years.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's very exciting as well. And we didn't really talk about vision, but you're probably doing a lot of vision within your facility.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Yes, we use vision for case location, for case identification and sizing, and also for depletization.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Thank you for that. And how can people get ahold of you? They want to learn more about motion.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Controls robotics certainly hit our website and or email us at salesri dash us.com dot.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: Thanks for taking some time today. Thanks for the tour as well.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.
[00:18:10] 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 they're at
[email protected] and Earhart's hard to spell. It's Ehrhardt. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, you can find me Jim Barretta 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 Chris Gray for the music, Jeffrey Bremner for audio production, my partner Janet, our friends a three and our sponsor, Earhart Automation systems.
