Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hi, robotics is a software and robotics company that aims to make automation easy and accessible to companies of all sizes.
Speaker 1 00:00:09 Hello everyone. And welcome to the robot industry podcast. I'm really pleased to let you know that Rob Goldie's from hire robotics is our guest today on the podcast. Rob is the co-founder and CEO of hire botics founded in 2015. Higher botics is a universal robots OEM whose cloud software has made automation accessible to businesses of all sizes. And it's easy to use application solutions, continuous monitoring, and instantly available 24 seven support hire robotics cloud platform and mobile app unlock unique capabilities, deliver application specific skills to you, our cobots and enable revolutionary experiences for everyday end users. Rob, thanks for coming on the podcast. I appreciate you having me. Hey, maybe we should talk to people. I am sure that a lot of our audience knows what a U R cobalt is, but maybe you could tell us what a universal robotics collaborative robot is.
Speaker 0 00:01:10 Sure. So, um, these are, these are six axis robots. They look really sleek. You may have seen them in, in, in movies or TV shows, uh, but they're, they're called collaborative robots because they're inherently safe to be around. There's a bunch of safety features built into them. There's, um, users have the ability to, to limit, um, speed, speed, and torque limit all the joints. And so it, it unlocks the ability for new types of applications that don't, uh, require the same caging that used to be, you know, that you would expect to see around traditional traditional automation. It's kind of like, um, you know, the transition from the mainframe gear up to the PC era, um, that, that sort of, uh, opportunity for expansion in terms of letting people take advantage of automation.
Speaker 1 00:02:02 And so you probably say that like collaborative robots have make automation easier, more accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises,
Speaker 0 00:02:11 For sure. No doubt.
Speaker 1 00:02:13 And you were one of the first companies to offer robotics as a service. Um, so can you explain that and when did you get started?
Speaker 0 00:02:21 Sure. So we started the business in late 2015. We actually had already had experience with universal robots, their collaborative robot that dated back to 2014, but for us in our, you know, really are the, the initial business model was, um, to, to, to make it easy and accessible to companies. You need to figure out ways that de-risked that decision. Um, the product itself is inherently easier to use, but if you think about the average small to medium size manufacturer, they still struggle with the capital investment and then the know-how that requires to put in place automation and take advantage of it. And so we designed that initial business model to allow customers, users to pay for their automation by the hour. That's pretty unique. Um, it was back then and it still is to this day because it's quite a bit different than renting a piece of equipment because we're closely aligning our incentives with our customer's incentives. The more they run, the more they pay, but the more they run, the more parts or widgets or whatever that, that robots doing, you know, they're getting that benefit.
Speaker 1 00:03:26 Yes. And that's R a S. And so can you tell the audience what that means?
Speaker 0 00:03:31 Robots as a service has been that this, this term sort of takes from the software as a service model, where customers, companies are paying like a subscription they're paying for their use of that, that, that product or service. And so to us, when we think about robots as a service, it is not just the ability to rent a piece of equipment. It is the entire business model around how you're paying for it. The fact that it includes service and support all bundled into a, a, I'll say a consumption-based pricing model.
Speaker 1 00:04:03 And that's because CapEx is so complicated and so valuable to manufacturers.
Speaker 0 00:04:11 Yeah, for sure. That's a good point that I, I guess I easily can, can gloss over. Um, CapEx is, is, you know, there's always different things that are pulling for CapEx. Um, it's easy to put numbers in a spreadsheet and say, this, this makes sense this, this can justify the investment, but there's tons of projects in any manufacturing facility that are always pulling for those dollars and for a lot of companies, um, that, that CapEx spend, isn't just numbers in a spreadsheet to say that, yes, this makes sense. Let's go make the investment, but there's also other risks associated with too, because, you know, frankly, a lot of times people don't like to talk about this. There's plenty of automation projects that fail that a company makes that investment, that capital investment in a piece of equipment, a piece, you know, a robot or some sort of application, and it doesn't work out the way they want and they struggle with it and they struggle with it.
Speaker 0 00:05:00 And so part of robots as a service beyond just de-risking that capital, it also de-risk that decision-making process beyond the capital. So you think about, you know, we've had some very large companies over the years rent, or, you know, take up, pick us up on this robots as a service business model. And we really de-risked that decision for the plant manager in a large company or, um, uh, someone, you know, some sort of mid-level management person where they're not going forward to higher ups and they're a large company trying to justify capital to find out that the product, the project didn't return as they projected it would.
Speaker 1 00:05:37 And, and so by de-risking you take on that risk and so it's got to work and you're taking that full responsibility, correct.
Speaker 0 00:05:46 That's right. Yeah. So, so our model has definitely changed over the years, but in those early days for the first couple of years, you know, we are our, I'll say our pitch to manufacturers was we know what we can do with these robots. Right. We know what we can automate if we sign up to do it, to do a task, to, you know, to put in place a piece of automation for you, we're taking on that capital risk. And so they're not the customers, uh, are not signing up for like a three-year or five-year commitment. They're truly, you know, we're, we're giving them a worker just happens to be, you know, six motors in a computer called the robot and, uh, they're paying for it as they use it. And so it it's on us to source the capital design, the, you know, things like end of arm tooling program that robot integrated to their machinery. Um, and then, you know, we, we have always cloud connected the, the systems that we put in the field and kind of hook it into our infrastructure so that we can monitor it and bill it.
Speaker 1 00:06:40 So from your perspective, and you're in a lot of factories and you're having a lot of conversations with, um, manufacturers what's happening, high-level in manufacturing across North America.
Speaker 0 00:06:51 Yeah. So, uh, uh, have been the common theme over and over again, is that manufacturers struggle to find people it's easy to have a headline in a, you know, I'll say Maine, you know, popular newspaper or online or something like that, that will try to, I'll say scare people into thinking robots are taking jobs. The fact is that the manufacturing base that the, the number of people working in manufacturing continues to shrink causing manufacturers to find other ways to get, you know, to meet their deliveries for their customers. And so without a doubt, the, the common and highest theme, you know, problem that that customers face is that they struggled to find people that want to show up every day consistently to make parts or whatever it is that that company does to ship to their customers.
Speaker 1 00:07:41 It's a common theme and not a surprise too, on the, on the podcast. So what industries are kind of your bullseye industries when you're talking to people who are looking to, uh, engage with higher robotics.
Speaker 0 00:07:53 So these days we sort of, um, um, focused our business model down and into metal fabricators. And so we have a welding solution today. We have a new product that we're announcing in the, you know, um, around welding as well. And so what, what we've sort of honed in on is, uh, there's this shortage of, of folks in manufacturing all across the country and in North America and, and really even outside of the, the North American market, but it gets really difficult when you think about skilled labor. So it's one thing to say, well, uh, uh, the manufacturer is looking for someone to, you know, pull parts off of this conveyor and put them in a box. That's a low skill being a fracturing job. But welding, as an example is a very high, skilled, um, manufacturing job. And there's a massive, massive shortage. That's only getting worse around trying to find skilled welders in manufacturers. And so we've honed in our offering over the past couple of years to help satisfy that, that, that need for manufacturers specifically around welding
Speaker 1 00:08:59 Switch our conversation a little bit, because we're, we're, we really want to talk about apps today and what we're kind of calling or what I'm calling the application of automation from a couple of different levels. And you really like that term. Correct. I love it. Love it. And you can please please feel free to use it. So, um, when we think about applications, you know, I kind of think about things on my phone, things on my computer, which apps do you use?
Speaker 0 00:09:24 So, um, I'm, uh, I'm a Mac and Apple user, like through and through. Um, I am on a few different social media platforms, mostly just consuming that not necessarily contributing to conversations, but, um, I use a number of different social media applications. Um, certainly web technologies is very, uh, you know, there's a lot you can do with web, but you know, the standard productivity types of apps that I'm using, you know, whether it's to run the business or, um, uh, you know, put forth, uh, quotes and opportunities for customers.
Speaker 1 00:10:01 And what do you think is important about applications just in general?
Speaker 0 00:10:06 Yeah. So, uh, the, when people think about an application, it's, it's, you're, you're getting a piece of software, whether it's installed in your phone or your computer, or it's delivered via the web, that is purpose-built to do a task. So anybody, you know, I, I, I shouldn't say anybody, but, you know, you could certainly write software yourself to crunch numbers that we call a spreadsheet. You can certainly write software yourself to become a text editor that, you know, competes with some, something like Microsoft word or Google, Google docs, but nobody really wants to do that. Right. They want to get a piece of software, whether it's delivered in a browser or downloaded to their, to their desktop or phone that performs a task, does it well sort of the software and the complexity of how that works, fades into the background, and you can focus on what you need to do.
Speaker 1 00:10:55 You know what I think about when I think about apps, I think about apps that are really easy to use better that look nice, that I don't have to take a training course for, and I want it to switch our conversation about applications that are going to be used in manufacturing and for you, what, what comes to mind when you're thinking about an app in manufacturing?
Speaker 0 00:11:15 So, so for me, um, w w I, I, clearly I gravitate towards robotics and automation. That's sort of where, where I spend my time and my mind share. Um, but the, the, the problem that we sort of recognize and why we think about apps and, you know, I know we'll kind of get to more of this, but is, is if you buy a robot today or a piece of automation, equipment, it's kind of dumb, right? Like you get it out of the box, there's no soft, like there's operating system level software, but the user has to program it to do a task. And so take welding for example, or, or machine tending or some application, you know, that that's, end-user's application, everybody's starting from scratch, right? They're all, they're all sort of opening it up. Does that deciding what attachments thing to go on that robot, maybe it's got to incorporate vision, and they're all starting from this sort of low level to build out their, the application that they want to solve in their manufacturing floor.
Speaker 0 00:12:13 And so we see an opportunity in that this is the direction we're trying to solve. This problem in is building apps and applications that are purpose built for, for the end users application, take welding, for example, you know, a piece of software that an end user can download on their phone or tablet or, or access in a web browser and teach, not program that cobalt what it needs to do with all the same sort of interactions that you said looks nice. It's not intimidating dragging and dropping to reorder things. The interactions that a consumer would expect in a, in an app on their phone or, or something on the web. You know, we, we want to deliver that to manufacturer users with automation.
Speaker 1 00:12:57 And I think it's very exciting when you think of, um, back when you used to work in a plant and you have to go to the it department to get them to put a piece of software on and maybe go to purchasing and all of these steps that you have to take, or you can just download, download it to your phone.
Speaker 0 00:13:11 Yeah, for sure. Uh, the, the barriers just continue to get torn down right. In terms of how software is delivered. Um, and it, and it opens up more possibilities as well. Right. I make, I can remember myself. Uh, I'm not that old sort of middle-aged guy that, but, but in, in my early years, right, if you wanted a piece of software, you went down to the computer store and you bought a piece of, you know, literally like shrink wrap software and you put the discs into your computer and you load it software. The way software is delivered now over the internet, whether it's downloaded via an app store to your phone, right. It just destroys barriers that made it hard or high friction, or hard to experiment to try an app before you decide you're going to commit to buying it. You know, that the internet really has changed how software gets delivered.
Speaker 1 00:13:59 Yeah. There's no more friction. Right. I can download an app on my phone in seconds as if I've got high speed. So you're right. It's there, they're all gone. Now you've got a product, a beacon that you've created. And can you tell the audience like what it is and why is it important?
Speaker 0 00:14:15 Yeah. So, um, as I, as I mentioned earlier, we have always connected cloud connected to the cobalt applications that we've put into the field. Um, we've done that through software that we've written, that runs, I'll say, near to the robot in the cloud, and, you know, in an app that that can be installed. And we sort of got nudged and asked over the years by, uh, universal robots. Who's one of our partners like, how do you make this available to more people, more people. And so about a year ago, we finally decided to, to do that, to, to release, you know, I'll say capabilities, which we really feel are like super powers, um, to the community. And so beacon is a very low friction way for people to cloud connect their cobots to do I'll say at first level, just very basic monitoring, alerting, uh, charting of data at real-time data.
Speaker 0 00:15:12 You know, peace of mind that all files that are on that cobalt are backed up securely to the cloud. And so if anything goes wrong with that robot hardware, if anything goes wrong with that application, you know about it, you can recover from it. Uh, you can take action without having to stand there and be near your robot, um, or wait for someone on second or third shift to call you. And so we call that beacon that, that software package it's free for, for anybody with a universal robot to use, you can go onto the UAR plus website or go to the high robotics website and download it, put it on to it doesn't require any hardware runs on the UAR controller. And you can, in a matter of minutes, connect a, a cobalt, um, to, to get some muscle basic, uh, but very important monitoring capabilities on your, on your application.
Speaker 1 00:15:58 And so who might use this, so it's going to be, um, uh, would it be the, the shop floor manager, or would be the operator who's, who's going to be using it, or was it going to be used across a bunch of different job titles in a factory?
Speaker 0 00:16:11 Yeah, so, so various job titles and various partners in that delivery chain of value, I'll say, so what I mean is we have, we have some beacon customers literally worldwide that are distributors. If you universal robots, let's say, so we have, we have one in India that signed up and put a bunch of their customers on beacon. And they do that because they want to save the, I think one of them has a customer that's 500 kilometers away from their location. They want to be able to provide support to that customer. And so they encourage their customer to sign up for beacon and invite them, which all can be done within, within the beacon application so that their distributor partner can help support the cobalt application. But in general, we see, um, management, you know, within a company, we see management level people. We see operators taking advantage of it, um, people that are near the robot, but might not be right next to it. Um, manufacturing, engineers that are maybe responsible for uptime and maximizing production, um, to small business owners that, uh, historically before beacon would have to use like a webcam cam to periodically look at the cobalt to see, is it still running or did it have a problem? And now they don't have to do that. They get alerts through beacon, they get, you know, integration to things like Slack. And so this piece of software that runs on the cobalt in the cloud and, you know, in a browser or an application empowers all that.
Speaker 1 00:17:39 And so where would it be used, say, so in welding, you've got this, uh, this project coming up, um, how was beacon going to be integrated? There you are, what kind of, uh, game-changing parts does beacon have?
Speaker 0 00:17:53 So this is what it gets us really, really excited, right? So we have this, I'll say foundation level technology called beacon and beacon has been built, uh, not necessarily exposed to the world yet, but, but, but is now to be able to have applications that run within and on top of beacon. So the cobalt welder, we say powered by beacon is our, uh, our is our first, uh, application in the market that runs within beacon. So what that means is like, there's, uh, think of it like an app store within beacon that, uh, we've published the first app and that app is welding. Um, it, it allows people to solve the problem around welding with a very easy to use drag and drop interface on a, in a browser and a phone on a tablet. Um, but even more, uh, sort of behind the scenes is other people will soon be able to publish their own apps, whether it's for their, their own company to take advantage of, or maybe they want to publish them out for other people to take advantage of.
Speaker 1 00:18:55 And that's a very exciting thing, right? When you actually have other people saying, Hey, I'd love to open. Are you, do you have an open API? Do we say that?
Speaker 0 00:19:05 So, um, not yet. It's not open yet. Right. So we take advantage of universal robots, open platform, but yeah, but, um, we'll, we will allow people to, to write applications and publish them, uh, on the beacon platform. And importantly, at least the way we think about that is that the application might not be like welding and machine tending that application could be integration to Oracle ERP. It could be integration to some other system, right? So there'll be different types of applications that can get contributed and publish it, published with it, beacon that will do different things that will extend the abilities of your cobalt beyond just what you might think about today.
Speaker 1 00:19:51 What's very exciting to kind of think of what the future could be for, uh, for beacon. What about security?
Speaker 0 00:19:57 Yeah, we, so we take security very seriously, um, from the, from the ground up, I mean, people can throw around all sorts of, uh, of jargon, but we do, we take it very seriously. We don't, when somebody signs up for beacon, they're their own tenant gets graded and provisioned behind the scenes automatically. Um, we don't have, I don't have, I personally, even don't have access to someone else's tenant, right. That's locked down. Um, and, uh, you know, all the kind of, I'll say somewhat buzzwords, right. But end to end security just-in-time provisioning. We take it very seriously. And, um, uh, what want that to be just a hassle-free experience
Speaker 1 00:20:36 And, uh, Rob, uh, what, um, what do you kind of see the future of beacon? Or can you see that? Can you see that far?
Speaker 0 00:20:44 Wait, we think about it, right. Broad brush. I mentioned this a little earlier is that traditional robots were like the mainframe equal, required specialized people to work on them. They were typically in rooms with doors that locked, you know, even before like the server rooms and things like that. Um, collaborative robots are like the PC era, right? So we're, we're now in the eighties where everybody was running out to get a PC and, and trying to figure out what they could do with it. And, um, doing, you know, getting valued because they were doing, you know, somewhat basic tasks with the, with the PC and same thing with the cobalt. But we want to sort of connect those cobots to the internet to unlock new types of experiences, new types of integrations, new types of applications. So certainly we think a lot about ease of use and providing a different type of experience because it's on a phone, as we talked about earlier, how do you make that experience feel like, feel like they're engaging with Twitter or some other type of to-do list application.
Speaker 0 00:21:45 That's very easy to use, but also because it's connected to the cloud, give in power users of a, of a beacon organization to do other integrations that go beyond just our software and what we can envision. So we already have integration to Slack, but, but maybe you want to, maybe you want to do something as basic as like make a light in your work area, change colors when the robot needs help, right. That that's not trivial to do today. Um, but beacon can, can unlock those types of capabilities and people could publish applications that make it even easier.
Speaker 1 00:22:17 No, that's very cool. Um, so if there's people way, say from Microsoft or Intel or Twitter, listening to this podcast, are you, uh, very approachable about, uh, offering more integrations or they can write software for you?
Speaker 0 00:22:32 For sure. For sure. So we, we know that we don't want to be the ones trying to solve everybody's problem. W we want to be able to, uh, we plan to open some, some doors so that people could write and publish to their own applications on beacon. And so if, if, if take Microsoft as an example, right? If there's enough cobalt users that use a Microsoft ERP system, right? It might make sense for someone like Microsoft or some partner to provide an integration within beacon to a Microsoft ERP system. So somebody imagined this user or a company that has a cobalt, they have beacon, they have Microsoft dynamics or decent three 65. And every time the robot makes a part, they want it to report production to a business system. Right. Totally doable because of that pipeline and connectivity, that sort of beacon unlocks it enables.
Speaker 1 00:23:21 So thank you very much for coming onto the podcast today, Rob, I really appreciate it. I think it's a very exciting product and it's very exciting time for collaborative robots and for products like beacon. Um, can you tell me what you do in your off working hours?
Speaker 0 00:23:36 Yeah, so, uh, I wish I had some, it like exciting things to say I'm an entrepreneur right at heart. I think about the business and customer problems a lot. And so I'll say when I'm not working and not thinking about work, I'm, you know, doing things with my kids, I've got two teenagers in high school, uh, married with two kids. And so we do stuff a lot as a family, um, uh, enjoy spending time around my family and kids. But I, I, uh, maybe in an unhealthy way, almost like, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about work and getting up early and get, you know, just the excitement of a building and helping manufacturers, you know, consumes a lot of time.
Speaker 1 00:24:13 I think it's a good answer. Hey, Rob, how do people get ahold of you?
Speaker 0 00:24:17 So, uh, we'd love to hear from, from listeners. Uh, you can go to hire robotics.com, get to get more information. You can go to higher biotics.com/beacon to get started with beacon. If you want to. Um, you can certainly send me an email first initial, last
[email protected]
Speaker 1 00:24:32 And higher botics is H I R E B O T I C S. Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart automation systems. Their heart builds 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 Patek, one of their sales engineers to see what Earhart and built for you. That's
[email protected] and Earhart is spelled E H R H a R D T. I'd like to thank, to acknowledge our partner, a three in the association for advancing automation, eight three Z umbrella association for the RIA 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. And I'm one of those consulting firms throughout the world that are driving automation forward.
Speaker 1 00:25:39 And it also to thank our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions. They're a web development firm that offers S E O and digital social marketing, and can set up and connect to CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations, and
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, you can 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 traction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris Bray for the music, Chris Colvin for audio production, my partner, Janet, and our partners <inaudible> and painted robot and our sponsor Earhart automation systems.
