Speaker 0 00:00:00 It turns out you can teach an old robot new tricks.
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the robot industry podcast. Thanks for subscribing I'm Jim Beretta. It's my pleasure to introduce Jeff Howler from brain Corp. Just been with brain Corp for more than two years, leading the product management team and overseeing all robotic applications within the clean move sense and flow categories. So first exposure to robotics was in high school where he participated in the first for inspiration and recognition of science and technology program founded by Dean Kamen. And if you recognize that name, it's because he's best known for the segue. This program involved partnering with local engineering firms to build task oriented robots and competing against other high schools on a national level prior to joining brain Corp. Jeff worked at wag labs, Inc. And the LifeLock. Hey, welcome to the podcast, Jeff. Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 0 00:00:55 Thank you. Great to be here.
Speaker 1 00:00:57 Hey, can you tell our audience a little bit about brain and what your job is at brain?
Speaker 0 00:01:02 Um, brain Corp is the global leader in robotic AI software or cloud connected platform. Rhino S plower powers, the world's largest fleet of autonomous robots operating indoor spaces. Um, our robots navigate autonomously learn from user demonstration and process sensor data collected from usage to avoid obstacles, adapt to changing environments, uh, manage data and seamlessly interact with our end customers. Um, you know, my job at brain is I lead the product team at brain Corp in short. My job is to make sure we are working on the right products and prioritizing the right features and capabilities that our partners need. Um, you know, like anyone in product, there's no shortage of good ideas. Um, you know, we just strive to prioritize the products and features that add the most customer value and benefit.
Speaker 1 00:01:49 I'm sure you feel like you're hurting cats at times, for sure.
Speaker 0 00:01:53 Absolutely. So
Speaker 1 00:01:55 I was interested in our pre-call, uh, we talked a little bit about, uh, your products and about dividing them into clean move and sense. Can you tell our audience a little bit more about that?
Speaker 0 00:02:05 Yeah, absolutely. You know, we, you know, it's important that we can clearly communicate what our products do to our end customers. So we came up with these simplified categories that are very purpose-driven. Um, so we talked about clean, right? This incorporates our autonomous scrubbers sweepers and vacuums, um, move. This is all about our autonomous delivery machines. Um, you know, within sense. Um, this is where we get into our data collection activities like shelf scanning, um, and you know, underneath all these three robotics category, we have a fourth category that we refer to as flow flow is really our, um, the data services that we provide flow is about integrating the data insights we collect into our customer's workflows and platforms, um, to just so we become more tightly integrated with them and we can provide better benefit. Um, you know, when we talk about our four categories, uh, with customers, we refer to these as the automation journey, um, you know, because automation is not a one-step shop, um, and that's why we kind of work our way up the journey with clean move sense and flow.
Speaker 1 00:03:16 Nice. And I'm sure we'll be talking more and more about data as I think is a very exciting part of all the other things that you do. So what's happening in the industry around autonomous floor cleaning?
Speaker 0 00:03:27 Um, yeah, I mean the pandemic really shine light on the value of clean, um, you know, customers started realizing that cleaner environments aren't just nice to have, but actually directly impact the customer experience in sales. I mean, I think I'm a cleaning robot, went from novelty to necessity. Um, you know, we've actually heard from our customers that, um, you know, their customers will spend more time in a store that's clean that, you know, looks clean when they walk into it and spending more time in the stores means more sales for the retailers. So it's really important. Um, you know, and again, with the historic labor shortages going on more customers are looking towards robotics to supplement their workforce. Um, you know, and when we automate a task such as floor cleaning, what that does is that frees up the employees that they do have to spend time on higher value activities, you know, and these activities are interacting with customers to make sure they can find what they need and then making sure that inventory is stocked and available for customers to purchase.
Speaker 1 00:04:29 Thank you for that. Well, um, what are some of the challenges and opportunities that you're looking there, especially in the autonomous for cleaning category?
Speaker 0 00:04:37 Um, you know, one challenge always is how do we develop this system in a way that it's, it's robust, but not complicated for the end user, you know, in the janitorial space, for example, there is a high rate of turnover. So, you know, when we deploy these machines, you know, there's some in-depth training that goes on, but we need to make sure that, you know, weeks, months, years from then, if someone new is now operating that machine, they can easily take it over. Um, you know, at the end of the day, we are reliant on an operator to run this machine every day. Um, so it's important that, you know, number one, it's very easy to operate. And then secondly, that it actually helps the operator, you know, that they see this tool as a benefit versus an adversary, and that's, you know, very important that it fits into their workflow and they really want to use this machine.
Speaker 1 00:05:28 And you're taking a partner approach to manufacturing your products. Can you kind of give us a little bit more information on that?
Speaker 0 00:05:34 Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, most people, even my friends think that we build robots, um, which we don't actually build robots. I mean, sure. We build some prototypes and designs, um, but we really rely on our OEMs and partners to build the actual robots. Um, you know, brain iOS enables a company to take a manual machine like a floor scrubber and then modify it into an autonomous autonomous machine using a set of sensors and our brain iOS software, you know, with brain iOS, you really do get the best of both worlds, right? You get the, um, the choice of OEM with who's established in the industry. And then, you know, they build the machine, they service the machine and then you have brain O S and brain Corp as your, you know, trusted robotics, automation partner. Um, you know, just another advantage of this partnership approach really is that, um, you don't need to pick just one OEM, right? You can have a multi, multiple OEMs across multiple use cases. Um, and they all run the same great software. And so at the end of the day, when you're trying to report on your machines or learn how to use them, it's all the same experience, you know, whether you're cleaning something, delivering something or scanning inventory on your shelves.
Speaker 1 00:06:47 And so I guess to the end-user he could have, or she could have five different machines, scrubbing floors and maybe five different facilities. And yet it's all the same uh which is kind of convenient.
Speaker 0 00:06:59 Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we'll talk about this more later, but even with, um, you know, a multi-function robot, you know, we have a machine that does scrubbing and does scanning and, you know, the same person can operate both of those functionalities of the machine. Um, it's just something we really strive for when we design our user experience and, you know, the workflows of how the operator interacts with the machine.
Speaker 1 00:07:23 So you've got 16,000 units out there. So what are some of the big trends that you're seeing from the data that you're collecting?
Speaker 0 00:07:31 Yeah, I think, um, you know, one thing is more and more retailers are going to go towards robotics as they continue to face these, you know, labor shortages. I think cleaning is going to continue to be, um, a major focus in the industry. Um, you know, businesses are striving to provide a high standard of clean in their facilities, you know, on top of that, I think we are going to see, um, more of these multipurpose robots and using robots as a data acquisition platform. Um, you know, we'll see more use cases of customers wanting to add more sensors to their robots. Uh, these sensors could be for checking inventory or checking the temperature around a store. Um, you know, the data that the robot is collecting is going to drive insights, which in the end drive actions, you know, within the retailer and within their operations. Um, you know, and just finally, I really think that, um, you know, robotics is going to continue to deliver additional ROI as the cost of, you know, hardware continues to go down. Um, the, the capabilities of AI is improving. So what that means is that you're going to have these autonomous mobile robots that, uh, are more functional and more effective and, you know, allows the business to get more done when they're using these.
Speaker 1 00:08:48 It's going to be very exciting, right. To be able to take data that you've never had before. Like how many square inches or centimeters have I cleaned the cycle? Uh, so it will be interesting for, to, uh, deal with data that we've never had before. So I think that's really, really fascinating. So who's making the buying decision when it comes to cleaning grease. I, I, I kind of heard you say about the, the, the brand of clean right. Or the clean of brand. And so I wonder if, is it marketing, is it, uh, who's that?
Speaker 0 00:09:18 Yeah. So, you know, when we get into these engagements with customers, it's often at the senior level, you know, a lot of times it's the, the chief operating officers. Um, you know, and then if we're talking about the world of, you know, shelf scanning and our sense products, um, you know, we're often working with the innovation groups. And I think that's mainly because these solutions are more tightly integrated with the digital operations of the store, um, versus cleaning, which, you know, doesn't necessarily have as much digital tie in, of course there's all the rich data, et cetera. Um, but you know, once you're tying into the actual inventory operations of the store, um, you're just dealing with a different set of individuals. Um, you know, one thing I'll say is that executive buy-in is key to the success of robots. Um, you know, there needs to be support from the top down and the robot needs to actually work and add benefit to the store operator. Um, you know, in order to be successful these days, I think we all need to move way past the novelty phase of having a robot and make sure that this thing is actually delivering value and benefit to the end customer.
Speaker 1 00:10:23 Yes, I'm sure there's a lot of selfies being taken a lot with a lot of the robots that you're seeing and you're right. It's kind of, it's fun. Um, but let's maybe segue onto the data, uh, something your customer has never had before. So how valuable is cleaning data?
Speaker 0 00:10:38 Um, the data is extremely important. You know, it really is one of the fundamental differences of having an autonomous machine versus having a manual machine. Um, you're actually able to, you know, report and view what happened in the stores. Um, you know, at the store level, a customer can actually go and look and see, you know, through the heat maps that we provide, you know, what areas of the store were actually cleaned that day before that week before in which areas were missed. Um, you know, and then once we get to the corporate level, you know, they can take all this data and aggregate it and understand like, what's my total, you know, claim to fame here, how much square footage has this robot cleaned. And they can also look at it from the ROI perspective, right. Of how many autonomous hours have I run, you know, cause those autonomous hours are correlated with labor savings and they can actually put a dollar value on, um, what the autonomous robot program has done for them.
Speaker 0 00:11:33 Um, you know, as we go from cleaning into some of the higher value activities like shelf scanning, the data is even more critical. Um, you know, this data is now telling you our items out of stock are items out of place. Um, you know, it's, this is just really fundamental to a retailer, right? Keeping the right items, um, on the right shelves. Um, you know, as you can imagine, this creates a massive data pipe, um, and this data is only, only actionable when it's comprehensible. Um, that's why we're partnering with some of the best AI companies that can ingest these large volumes of data and then help us turn it into, um, insights for our end customers, you know, bringing, bringing together this type of ecosystem, working with certain AI partners. Um, it's just really important that, you know, that's just more value that we bring to the customers. You know, we bring the appropriate partners that can help add additional benefit to this data.
Speaker 1 00:12:31 What does then the ROI discussion look like, like in traditional automation, it's like a two year payback, but when you were talking about branding and cleaning and such, how does that discussion go?
Speaker 0 00:12:44 Yeah, totally. Um, you know, the ROI discussion had typically been around labor savings, you know, and that's, I think even back in the day how we pitched our products, um, you know, how many hours per day, week year does the machine save that, you know, a worker can spend doing more valuable tasks, right? And you kind of multiply the hours out by the labor saved, um, you know, over time that we have learned, there are other benefits here, um, you know, the consistency of the cleaning, like we talked about earlier, um, then there's also costs associated when, you know, when an operator is driving these machines, you know, they may drive into store fixtures, caused damage to those fixtures, caused damage to the machines. Um, you know, we've actually done some, um, discovery here where we go to certain stores where we've seen a high level of manual activity and we can actually see that those machines have, you know, been through some, some rough patches.
Speaker 0 00:13:39 Um, so it really is true that you can prevent these, uh, the impacts to other fixtures around your store. You know, another one of course is, um, you know, preventing injuries to, uh, employees and customers, right. Um, you know, we have all these safety sensors in place. So, um, you know, the machine is going to be inherently safer than a person driving it around. Um, and then, you know, again, as we shift into the world of shelf scanning, um, the ROI discussion is of course different there, you know, the ROI discussion is more of, Hey, if you can help us keep our shelves stocked and keep things in the right place. Um, you know, what's the, what's the actual percentage lift on our sales that we can attribute to that. And that's how retailers are measuring that.
Speaker 1 00:14:30 Nice. Should we, um, this is kind of a show me industry, right? The cleaning industry. So how does the customer buy,
Speaker 0 00:14:37 Um, typically, you know, they'll engage with us through one of our OEM partners or some may reach out to us directly. Um, you know, the first step is always to talk with the customer and understand what they're trying to accomplish. Um, you know, walking into any engagement, we need to know what their goals are because we need to know what success looks like for this engagement and not every customer is going to measure success the exact same way. Um, once we've talked through that, the next step is a demo, like you said, it's a show me industry. Um, in many cases, customers are testing out a number of different, um, robots if it's in the floor cleaning space. Um, so they may do a head-to-head comparison, you know, when they can see how the brain S enabled machines stacks up against competition, they may also be testing multiple BrainU S machines that have slightly different form factors to see which ones meet their form, their, um, their applications, the best, um, you know, demos are typically short and only lasts a few days. Um, from there, we typically would go into a pilot where we'll do a pilot across a number of stores, um, just to make sure that this really does fit into their store operations. Um, and then, you know, assuming the pilot goes well, it really goes into the scaling phase, which is, you know, one of the more exciting phases I would say.
Speaker 1 00:15:52 So we're talking a lot about, um, robotic floor scrubbers, but what are some of the other autonomous vehicles you're building, especially for retail?
Speaker 0 00:16:00 I mean, th the one we talk about the most right now is around our sense platform. Um, so I think shelf scanning is, is a really, really exciting opportunity, um, being able to capture and provide that higher value data to the retailers. Um, you know, additionally, we have to remember that we're a robotics enabler. So, you know, we're really excited about, you know, what our OEMs come to us with with future projects and form factors and, you know, things that they want to turn into self-driving robots. Um, you know, there's things I wish I could go into more details on here. Um, but you know, I'll just say I'm really excited about some of the projects we have in the pipeline right now.
Speaker 1 00:16:41 And that is a good segue to my, one of my last questions. Like, so what do you see as the future for autonomous vehicles in retail and, and elsewhere?
Speaker 0 00:16:51 Um, I'll try to avoid, you know, some of my earlier points, um, but you know, as the big themes here, right, I think we're going to see more data and more insights. You know, we talk about the robot being a mobile data acquisition platform. You know, I think we're just going to see more and more of this, you know, the capability to automatically and consistently capture this data day after day, and then integrate that into store operations is going to be huge. Um, you know, retailers are going to have more insights. Um, you know, they're going to have data that they can actually take action on. Um, you know, at the same time, I think we're going to see robots taking on more activities. Um, you know, I think as we talk with different, you know, customers that we're already with and, and, uh, you know, future potential customers, a lot of them come to us with ideas and problems they're trying to solve, you know, like what if you attach this to your robot, could you measure this?
Speaker 0 00:17:46 And what if you attach a temperature sensor? You know, so it's really interesting to hear what the retailers are thinking as well. Um, because you know, that helps drive our roadmap of what we want to work on. Um, and the other thing I see as the future, you know, I think I, I used the phrase from, you know, necessity to novelty earlier, and then talking about how, um, you know, the machine actually needs to add value. You know, I think, I think that the bar is raising here. So I think we're gonna see machines that have, you know, higher autonomy, meaning less manual interventions. You know, we're going to see a lot of improvements to mapping and navigation, um, that help these machines function more efficiently in the spaces that they operate in.
Speaker 1 00:18:29 I totally agree with you. I think we're going to see a lot more sensing all of our cameras a lot more like sensors are reasonably cheap and they're very good and they're smart. So I think we're going to see a lot of that. So thank you for that perspective. So I have a personal question for you. So, Jeff, what do you like to do when you're not building an innovating autonomous technologies?
Speaker 0 00:18:48 Um, yeah, I'm happy to answer that. So, you know, when I'm not working, you know, with customers and robots, you know, I'm typically spending time with my wife, my daughter, and our dog, um, you know, whether we're going to the beach or hanging out, but then, you know, when it comes to my personal projects, um, I'm really, uh, avid do it yourself. Or, you know, I'm a strip the bathroom down to the stubs kind of guy and rebuild it, paint the house. Um, you know, I just love taking on, uh, those types of projects when I'm not busy at work.
Speaker 1 00:19:17 How can people get ahold of you if they want to find out a little bit more about brain Corp?
Speaker 0 00:19:20 Um, totally. Yeah. I mean, reach out to me on LinkedIn. Um, and then of course, via our corporate website, you know, um, brain Corp com and that will filter into the appropriate teams to make sure we, uh, engage back with you,
Speaker 1 00:19:34 Jeff, thanks for coming onto the podcast.
Speaker 0 00:19:36 Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 1 00:19:38 Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart automation systems ever heard 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
[email protected] and Earhart is spelled E H R H a R D T and other thank our partner, a 3d association for advancing automation. They are the leading trade association in the world for robotics, vision and imaging motion control and motors, and the industrial artificial intelligence technologies visit automate.org tore and more. And I'd like to thank painted robot. There are a partner which builds and integrates digital solutions. They're a web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing, and can set up and connect to CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations. And you can find
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot podcast, you could find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer attraction, industrial marketing, and I look thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris Coleman for audio production, my partner, Janet, our partner is a three and painted robot and our sponsor Earhart automation systems.
