Speaker 1Welcome to episode 240 of the Robot Report podcast. I'm your host this week, Mike Oitsman, Senior Editor for the Robot Report. Thanks as always, folks, for tuning in. And I'm joined this week by Gene Dimitri, Editorial Director for the Robot Report in Automated Warehouse. And our special guest this week, Sarah Nguyen, Senior Editor for Packaging OEM. Gene, welcome home. And Sarah, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Mike.
Speaker 2Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1Yeah, we're excited to have your voice on the show this week, Sarah. You cover a range of topics related to packaging over at our sister publication, Packaging OEM. And, you know, look, both of you just came back from MODEX. I know you're tired. I'm sure you're tired. Feet hurt. MODEX was in Atlanta earlier this week. And, Gene, I know you had a heck of a travel day yesterday to get home. And the reason we invited you guys both on the show this week is that we're going to talk about what happened at MODEX, what you guys saw from the show floor a little bit later in the show. But briefly, you know, how was Atlanta and what was the overall show experience like this year? Gene?
Speaker 3Well, thanks, Mike. It was great. You know, I've been to MODEX and at the sister show. You know, a number of times, but this year was bigger and better than ever. More than 1,000 exhibitors, 50,000 attendees, 600,000 square feet of exhibits. I think we saw a little or a lot of everything. You know, it's like most of the events that we go to, it's turning into a robotics show. And even though it's a supply chain, warehousing, logistics event across three full halls, I would say peak traffic was probably Monday afternoon. It was Tuesday, where it was pretty jammed. You know, if anybody saw me, I was most likely running between meetings. I did a better job this year of containing things between Hall A, B, and C. But I can't say I didn't log probably five or six miles a day. And, you know, it was also interesting to see the character of the halls being slightly different. Halls B and C were really the big established vendors, gigantic booths going up, you know, 20, 30 feet, going 40 by 40, even bigger than that, and some pretty interesting booths. Some had a lot of robots. Some had very few robots, right? And that's something else we'll get into. But, you know, thanks to the dozens of vendors and integrators and software providers with whom we talked, as well as to all the folks who hosted us at receptions and dinners. So I think it was... It was great to see a lot of demos. You know, I enjoyed going to the big shows, even if, yeah, I'll admit my dogs are barking by the end of it.
Speaker 1Yeah. Sarah, give us your thoughts about the show from your perspective.
Speaker 2Oh, it was beautiful. So this is my second MHI show. I was at ProMet last year. And for those who don't know me, Sarah Nguyen, digital journalist with Packaging OEM. Very happy to be here on The Robot Report. Atlanta, excellent time. Thank you again. Everyone spoke with Gina and myself. Believe it or not, Gina and I were only together maybe 10 minutes of the entire show. Yeah.
Speaker 1We're going to get a different perspective from both of you a little bit later. So that's great. Yeah. So keep going. So tell us a little bit more.
Speaker 2Oh, I mean, beautiful booths. Like Gina said, tons of robots, some none at all. A lot of software providers there as well. I think I had close to 50,000 steps for the entire show. So I will be recovering this weekend. And we covered a lot. We covered a lot of ground in more ways than one. I saw a lot of technologies, obviously robots, but also for warehousing and packaging as well.
Speaker 1Well, guys, I'm jealous that I didn't get to go and see all the cool tech and catch up with friends in the hallways. But I'm not jealous of the 50,000 steps, Sarah. My legs are probably in good shape, but I always know that experience after walking so much. And we'll come back to the MODX details after the news and anxious. To hear more about what you guys learned. But first, we have to pitch what's coming up next month for us. And that is the Robotics Summit and Expo, which takes place May 27th and 28th in Boston. A little bit smaller show than what you guys experienced this week, but big for us. We've got 250 plus exhibitors, 5,000 of our best friends there talking robots and all robots. We've got lots of great keynotes, including Russ Tredrake, Michael Taylor. We're going to talk about humanoid robots with Boston Dynamics, Agility, and ASTM. And then Steve is going to be on stage with Nolan Arbaugh, the world's first Neuralink user, to cap the show off. And we're super excited to learn about Nolan's experience. So lots of great things. We also have the RBA. We have the RBR50 Gala. And Gene, we're going to be announcing the RBR50 winners here in less than a couple weeks here, right before the show. So that's all come together. We know who the winners are. We can't share them yet, but stay tuned for that coming up quickly. And as a special reward for all of you guys, a reminder, we've got a special discount code for you. But you have to listen until the end of the show where you'll get that special code. So stay tuned for that. And know that you can get it. You can go sign up and learn about everything here at theroboticssummit.com. All right. So let's talk about a couple of news stories. While you two were out this week, there were a couple of breaking news stories that are interesting. So let's just cover those two briefly. The first one, probably the most interesting thing that happened yesterday, I broke this story on our publications. It's a skilled AI has acquired the Fetch Robotics assets. From Zebra Automation. And wow, Gene, this is, we covered, you know, the demise of, so to speak, of the Fetch Robotics division at Zebra back in December timeframe when they decided to shut down the division. And so this is very interesting that a skilled AI has acquired the robotics division from them. And again, that was everything related to Fetch Robotics. Skill has. Said the acquisition will help them deploy its omnibodied intelligence layer across global logistics. And here the concept is that they were really interested in the software aspect there. Zebra's symmetry solution here, which gives the fleet management the opportunity to orchestrate all of the various robot tasks in a warehouse, which I think is relevant to the conversation we're on today. You know, the idea that. When something needs to be moved, picked or placed, you know, a variety of robot assets could be deployed to go do that task. And this is what symmetry does. And of course, skilled is trying to build a general intelligence brain at some point for robotics. And so they're very interested in the technology and the capability. And I would, Gene, specifically say, you know, some of the human skills here in terms of the engineers and the technology. And I would, Gene, specifically say, you know, some of the human skills here in terms of the engineers and the technology. And I would, Gene, specifically say, you know, some of the human skills here in terms of the engineers and the technology. And I would, Gene, specifically say, you know, some of the human skills here in terms of the engineers and the technology. And I would, Gene, specifically say, you know, some of the human skills here in terms of the engineers and the technology.
Speaker 3And I would, Gene, specifically say, you know, some of the human skills here in terms of the engineers and the technology. And I would, Gene, specifically say, you know, some of the human skills here in terms of the engineers and the technology. and data collection and management and maybe felt that the autonomous mobile robot or AMR market was just too competitive and not really worth pursuing, but obviously skilled things otherwise. And if they're going to integrate the skilled brain into fetches, software, and maybe even hardware platforms, it'll be interesting to see where they go with this. Because at first you're like, well, doesn't skilled already have AI? But they obviously realized that they wanted more talent on their team. So I think it's a good
Speaker 1move. Yeah. And Gene, I had a chance to catch up with Matthew Wicks yesterday as well. And while he would not share obviously anything about the actual acquisition in all of that, because he's under NDA, so respect Matthew for that. But he did share how incredibly proud he was of the team that he's managed the last couple of years at Zebra and is really excited that they found a new place for them here at Skilled. Matt has left Zebra as of last week, but he was intimately involved with the acquisition at Skilled. And again, wouldn't share anything, details about it. But he did want to mention that he's happy for everybody else that's going to survive now in their careers, continue to support the fetch deployments at Skilled. That's it for that news. And now we've got another news story, which is also interesting. Reported this week, Boston Dynamics and Google DeepMind are planning to use Gemini to make spots smarter. So this is an interesting story reported yesterday, I believe, that Boston Dynamics announced it's going to use Google Cloud and Google DeepMind to integrate Gemini and Gemini Robotics ER 1.6 into the Orbit AIVI, sorry for the crazy acronym, Learning Solution. And, you know, allow it to deliver more sophisticated, intuitive and powerful AI experience. So, Gene, we've been, you know, following this sort of relationship between, it's been rumored, you know, Boston Dynamics and Google for a long time. And of course, you know, Google originally owned Boston Dynamics back in the day before it spun out. So that goes deep. Of course, those were the days before Gemini became what it is now as well. So yet another AI, robotics, big news story in the news this week, probably obvious relationship that that's going to continue to grow. But Gene, what are your thoughts on this story?
Speaker 3Well, one thing that you point out is it's really interesting that absolutely it's bringing it full circle, right? Boston Dynamics at one point was part of Google. It was one of a number of owners that Boston Dynamics had, and they're now with Anai and doing very well on the commercialization journey. But I think this is a harbinger of things to come. I think, you know, we talk a lot about the AI hype cycle over the past few years. And that's, I think, maybe crested, we might actually be coming into a more realistic view. And we'll get into that more from our MODX observations. But I also think everybody who is a big player in AI is going to want to have some sort of involvement with the physical world, with physical and embodied and embedded AI. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be a big part of this. And I think that's going to be
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Speaker 3but you know, know i spoke with the false interact analysis as i think sarah did as well and they said you know they didn't see any like brand new big revelations of technology we didn't see any you know completely new form factors or anything like that um and at the same time it's one of those shows that everyone feels they need to go to to see how are these technologies being applied and i think that's sort of the interesting thing there uh i was at the the big night with jim gaffigan um the other night and uh congrats to dex3 who we've reported about before they've got that telescoping uh inventory robot and dex3 dex review was recognized with an mhi innovation award so uh it's great to see that technologies that we've been covering there is validation they are getting traction in the market and being recognized for you uh one of the other things i thought was sort of interesting is is sick uh which is known for its sensors and cameras they weren't pointing a camera at the floor for uh mobile robot localization and that's sort of a different application normally you think oh we've got lidar and cameras to look out at potential obstacles or the routes they're doing or whatever and um sick told me that oh with this camera and then internal mapping they can actually be to millimeter level accuracy which again that's important as an enabler for things like mobile manipulation it's important for that increasing uh product tracking and awareness so again a lot of things that we're seeing were incremental but novel combinations of existing technologies yeah i think it was that sick technology similar to
Speaker 1what your mouse uses on your on your desktop there right it's got a little sensor looking at the mouse pad or looking at the table sort of know which direction the mouse is going but you know you know localization and you know knowing where the robot is in space i guess this concept that you can look at the ground and recognize patterns and know where you are uh in the space is is another device to do all the sensor fusion that happens on board these these systems um what else gene uh did you experience or see sort of high level uh
Speaker 3themes uh around the show yeah uh sick talked about collaborative and cooperative operations so there's a distinction that they made i thought was interesting that i haven't really heard a lot of before where collaborative is working with humans obviously but cooperative is zone based and we've seen a lot of that this year when you have safety systems where as you get closer the robot slows down and as you move away the robot speeds up and that was not necessarily brand new but i saw three or four systems like sick enabling that kind of behavior um and speaking of collaboration we also saw universal robots force and power limited arms with right-hand robotics ai guided picking again it's a combination of ai vision and in this case cobot arms um i think one of the big ones was toyota automated logistics formally consolidating the operations of bastion vanderlande and via store so toyota is a global robot and it's a global robot and it's a global robot and it's a global company has been around for a long time but uh when i talked with uh aaron jones their ceo for the americans he really walked me through the logic behind that they've been going through they were acquired some time ago those individual companies but um there's the aspect of applying that toyota name and reputation and he said their customers were actually asking for it and even the employees of the individual divisions ultimately were interested in becoming part of the toyota identity which is normally the opposite of what you hear normally when there's a merger acquisition we're like oh we want to either hang on to the brand or we want to remain independent and here it sounds like they were uh really harmonizing which is a cool thing that have
Speaker 1happened yeah so well good i mean lots lots of things uh things going sorry what were your sort
Speaker 2of observations here as well uh piggy piggybacking off gene a bit a lot of palletizing and i love to touch it and we'll get into that in a bit because it wasn't just palletizing same product it was palletizing uh multiple skews on one um but uh well i'll get into that in a second but the sick booth was interesting because it wasn't just one booth it was actually spread across two uh so they and they had so many different things the sick sensing cam was there we had we had a story on that last year about packaging on packaging om.com um sensing cam can monitor anything from vibrations capture incidents uh as they happen so again a lot of palletizing we'll get into that in a second but i want to make sure gene
Speaker 3uh gets to touch on his highlights well another big theme this year as i mentioned is partnerships right and uh speaking of sick mujin is where small sick and yaskawa i'm palletizing uh i don't think you could go more than two booths and not see a palletizing demo and i think that's a good thing to do and i think that's a great thing to do and i think that's a great thing to do and i think that's a great thing to do and i think that's a great thing to do and i think that's a great thing to do and i think that's a great thing to do and i think that's a great thing to do and there were a number of them but they were really starting out now as sarah said there's mixed case palletizing depalletizing there's a whole range of things i will get into some of those later as well um you know another interesting uh partnership is come out on automa which is combining italian manufacturing and automation expertise they pointed out to me that italy is actually one of the top five robot producers in europe something that maybe we should talk about in the future but people don't realize uh thieves not fives thieves has worked with kaha robotics um positioning itself not just for parcel handling but also as a turnkey and i'm using air quotes here uh because you see those that term used a lot but turnkey integrator for person-to-person sortation mobile robots and then i had a good conversation with carl the ceo of vector robotics which has teamed up with lucas systems on voice and out handling he said that this can be particularly interesting in cold chain another area of interest we saw that already back at manifest uh with high tech they had a whole pavilion on cold chain and uh one of the areas that came up repeatedly in my conversations at monex is uh yes we're doing i mean storage and retrieval or we're doing um trying to get humans out of these uh dull dirty dangerous processes and getting them out of refrigerated containment seems to be a big one of interest and i think that's a really good point and i think that's a big one of interest and the robots have finally caught up where they can actually
Speaker 2function well in those environments the turnkey is interesting too gene um festo and cody manufacturing were on site they shared a booth cody's a oem out of colorado they have a flex stack palletizer essentially like a palletizer in a box um so it's a modular solution you can integrate into the end of the line to kind of simplify things but um yes partnerships again key i saw um the the booth with the the smoochins booth with small sick and yukasawa all in one that one was fun to see because they had so many robots moving at once i wasn't scheduled to see them but i caught my eye and i had to step by just watch it for a few minutes yeah that's the fun part is mesmerizing
Speaker 1to watch all these you get to focus on packaging all day and packaging lines i mean i'm just mesmerized but watching packaging lines go and of course you throw some automation in there as well um but the speeds at which uh the machines you typically cover are just incredible right yeah yeah i was in a trance yeah definitely well so sarah what what what tell us a little bit about some of your uh observations what are some of the highlights from from your yeah definitely
Speaker 2mike gene so i mentioned palletizing everywhere turn left turn right there was a palletizing demo um spoke with fanic great conversation with them a big phrase that came up at fanx booth and some others angelini technologies is one is the idea of rainbow palettes uh having multiple products on the same palette they gave i think fanic gave this great example think if you have a variety of uh pop or soda cans so you have a 24 pack and then you have a 12 pack and then you have an eight pack on top so it's the same palette just with different uh product sizes and it as consumer behaviors are changing especially in terms of packaging so maybe uh i want a smaller size so i want a smaller size so i want a smaller size so i want a smaller size so i want a smaller size so now we can send a variety of the same product in different sizes to the store and have it easier to take right off the palette so that one was big um another one i mentioned angelini and the idea of rainbow palettes a lot of software and working in environments that are more unpredictable and harder to standardize uh the idea of easing operator workflows that's something i cover quite a bit uh in terms of packaging the end of line and palletizing moving boxes is a physically demanding job so if we can have a robot come in and assist uh you can reallocate labor elsewhere and then um pie up group this one was fun they have a new end of arm tool it's coming out later this year it's a vacuum suction cup it can work across a variety of packaging formats so think bags boxes cases you know i cover packaging so hearing technologies like this were really fun for me exciting they showed it the suction cup moving of products like this was really fun for me exciting they showed it the suction cup moving of products like this were really fun for me exciting they showed it the suction cup moving of So those were some of the trends I saw relating around variability. Piab's end of arm tool. I spoke with David Garcia, so he's the area sales manager for the company. He shared how Piab is evolving its offerings to meet market needs, especially with those different packaging materials and formats that are going into today's products. Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 4Yeah, there is, because a lot of people are handling a lot of mixed materials when you're doing, you know. Pick a place. There's a lot of automation that's happening in the warehouse. There's a lot of logistics. So this is becoming a lot more common. It's a lot more efficient, obviously. Yeah, so actually, Aurobo Robotics is a partner of ours, and this is one of the robots that they're displaying up here. It's using it on a pedestal, the frame, and it's just showcasing the tool that we designed to be used with the LFF cups. So this is kind of just a demonstration of what's possible, but this tool can be used on any cup. From KUKA to, you know, ABB, this is the first time I'm actually getting my hands on it and understanding it. But it feels like voodoo, because, yeah, because there's so much to it. Like, you don't even realize how little people actually understand of their systems. So if you have customers that are struggling with that, they don't know if it's because they have a leaky cup, if there's a fitting that's loose, if there's something with a hose. You can't tell. It's a black box. So the trend I'm seeing is that people are moving towards IO-Link and integration to monitor and not have a black box. That's part of the reason why I think that the trend that I'm seeing of moving into fully integrated vacuum systems, which are already part of end-of-line tooling, which is part of your robots, which are already going to be integrated. They're already using Modbus or Ethernet IP or something to control them. So IO-Link is just a bridge that allows you to... And then connect that to your network and then you can translate it, you know, and now you have full access.
Speaker 3And Sarah, the other thing that I would say to follow up on your point is this is not just a matter of, oh, we can do Tetris now with palettes, right? It really is to serve those retailers and to, you know, from the distribution center out to the store, have it almost pre-assembled so that cases and packages are where they need. And that's something that I learned from Symbotic as well, that we're seeing this making everything optimized so that when a human does actually have to touch an item at the end of the line, that they know exactly where it needs to go and really reducing the error rate of that. But one of the things that came up is, you know, I asked around about, oh, I've heard some talk about the return of micro-fulfillment centers. Which was an area of interest during the pandemic. I think the jury is still out. A number of people said, oh, yeah, it's something we want to move into. And others are like, well, you know, that expectation might have been premature. I don't know. Did you have any sense of that? Did you hear anything on that?
Speaker 2Yeah, Gene, definitely. In addition to physical AI and rainbow palettes, another phrase that came up was the rise of e-commerce and the idea of having all these different facilities and different technologies to ideally get... products from facility to person faster. So, yeah, we had that talk about rainbow palettes. I spoke with Jeff Dawson, director of sales for FANUC America, about how robots are evolving in e-commerce to help with one of the most physically demanding processes of manufacturing, unloading trucks. Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 5E-commerce and logistics is really big right now. A lot of activity there. It's, you know, a lot of opportunity there. You'll see in this. You'll see in this show all different, you know, truck unload is a big one that we're seeing a real, real push in. So we have some partners that are working in truck unload, and we're seeing that as a really, that kind of seems to be, when we look at the different types of AI vision and AI things targeting the warehouse logistics e-commerce market, we see truck unload right now as kind of a hot one. What we're seeing in truck unload is where the conveyor is being brought into the truck at a point of operation. Then the boxes are being... Then the boxes are being pulled, dropped on a conveyor, and then it can be immediately put into the sort queue and taken somewhere else to palletize.
Speaker 1Well, Gene and Sarah, in addition to hardware, I know there's also software. We talk about AI and all of the spectrum of soft tools that people use. And I imagine the emphasis was different than, say, GTC or even Manifest. So curious, what were some of the conversations about software at Modex?
Speaker 2Yeah. So. We talked about the pallet. Obviously, depalletizing, palletizing was a big demo, but there's software to assist. So real-time decision-making on the rise. Systems are moving away from being set at the start of the workday to continuously adjusting based on current conditions. Lucas Systems actually unveiled two new offerings, the first being the dynamic pallet builder. That builds pallets while picking, and it's not a separate downstream step. So they position it as it can help eliminate the tribal knowledge where only experienced workers know how to build the best pallet. We know in manufacturing, labor is hard to come by. A lot of skilled workers are retiring, so this is there to assist. Lucas Systems also had its pallet matching offering. This optimizes pallets so they get built together in real time, resulting in fewer repeated visits, saving on labor, and travel reduction in large warehouses. And Lucas said some of their customers are seeing close to a million dollars a month in savings with this.
Speaker 1Wow. That's crazy.
Speaker 3Well, and Sarah, you bring up a good point that it's not just supply chain or retail, right? It's manufacturing. There's a whole bunch of other sectors that are fed by this. So I think there's a real expansion in that sense of what we're seeing in terms of the real-time operations driven by software and robotics.
Speaker 2Yeah. Working in tandem, that's a good point, Gene. I do cover quite a bit of manufacturing, so I'm happy to tie that in. And Lucas Systems had a great soundbite. I'm going to have to find a way how to use it on social media. They said, this is the year of the pallet. Sorry, you're the firehorse. You're the snake. It's over. 2026 is the year of the pallet.
Speaker 1Finally.
Speaker 2Finally.
Speaker 3Speaking of real-time operations, there was also a decent amount of talk about interoperability among mobile robots. Among different systems on the show floor, most of the companies I spoke with, interestingly, aren't complying with VDA 5050 or the German or European standard that came out of the automaking industry. It recently had a version 3 release. But at the same time, there were several or numerous providers, such as safety systems provider Elecon, talking about how their software layers are hardware agnostic, right? They're saying that they can plug into the WMS. They can plug. Plug into the robot control systems and help drive things. And so that debate between standards and open source and proprietary software, that's ongoing. Mike, thanks for the tip on the Ross meetup I attended on day three of the show. You know, I think there's a lot of interest, but I would argue that the software stack for robots. Multi robot operations is still evolving and there are a lot of new players in that space.
Speaker 1Yeah, interesting. So how about you?
Speaker 2Well, the hardware agnostic approach is something I hear quite a bit and not just at MODX, but in my coverage over the past year, year and a half. But at MODX specifically, Bekoff has a new MDR controller, works on a variety of conveyance systems. We have a story up on that on packagingoem.com and control engineering as well. But hardware agnostic. Yeah, the idea that systems are not meant to be built with one specific company's technology anymore. It's being integrated. Maybe it's a controller from Bekoff and maybe it's a VFD from Nord. I'm just kind of spitballing here, but incorporating different technologies to get the end result that, you know, the end user is ultimately looking for.
Speaker 1Yeah. Well, sir, I got to come back to your, your, the palette comment, because this is the old guy in the room. A comment that when I back, going back to my early days as an applications engineer back in the early nineties, when we got our first palletizer product in the product line, the, the funnest thing about being a application engineer is we would get product from a company coming in on a Monday. And we'd have a couple of days to program the robot up to do a demo, videotape it, videotape, actual videotape, FedEx the videotape back to the sales guy so he could go the next Monday back to the customer and say, here's the product. Here's the application details. But the best part was we'd get those pallets of parts. And then Friday, we, what do we do with a pallets of parts? And there were great times where we got pallets of beer, all kinds of crazy things coming through the applications lab. And, you know, we got to, we always got to, to take that product in the week because we were just going to throw it away. So all kinds of crazy things. It's, it's a good time and good, good, good job to, to be involved with the, you know, the, the. companies. He's programming these solutions up. And on that note, Gene, back in the day, we were creating code to actually do the palletizing 30 years ago. Now it's all AI. So what was some of the trends with AI today that's, again, making this so much easier to set up and use?
Speaker 3Well, I would say at Modex, it was the first time I felt it was more about AI applications than about AI. We've been to a lot of shows, and we go to a lot of shows, and this one felt like, okay, we're taking all the different flavors of AI, from machine learning and reinforcement learning all the way through to general AI and VLAs and VLMs, and trying to figure out how to work with robotics in the real world. And I thought that was actually encouraging to see that finally turning around. For example, Exol, which is backed by SoftBank and working with Symbiotic, they provide visualization and orthodontics. But they said, they're not a tech company. They're not even an AI company. They're a service company. And I've covered the IT industry for a long time. I'm the old guy in the room on that side. And it echoes that evolution where you think IBM started with hardware, and Microsoft started with software, and then IBM moved over to services. And so there is that ongoing evolution, even within the stack for robotics. Another example is in Fios, which came out of HiJump and Kerber supply chain. And they're focused on optimizing data for human-level outcomes. And that echoes what you were just saying, Sarah, rather than building these giant data lakes or trying to analyze all the data coming out of the firehose, rather, they're pushing that intelligence, whether it's to the edge or toward the application or toward the work site. We're really seeing a different approach to taking all of that data, all of that data, and bringing it to the real world. We're seeing a different approach to taking all of that data, all of that perception, and turning that into action. Investa described building AI agents as they're on top of the WCS, or the sensing, the WMS, which they call the brain, and the WES, which they call the nerves or neurons. So again, that evolution of how we think about AI, where to apply different types of AI is really noteworthy. Wise told me, and I quote, "People care more about going to market and managing their business, managing their systems with fewer people, than about the AI hype." And again, we're seeing that companies, the vendors, really addressing that head on this time around.
Speaker 2Yeah, for me, I agree, it felt very application specific, a lot more embedded into operations, rather than a standalone focus. Another big point of emphasis, and this is something I always ask when I interview or chat about AI with a company, is who owns the data? Because this is a lot of info, and with AI, it's only as good as the data you give it. So ultimately, who owns it, it kind of varies case by case, usually tends to be the end user, but also depending what you're using AI for. In terms of MODX, Zebra had a variety, Zebra Technologies, a variety of AI applications, a lot for the frontline workforce, so real time validation, support at the device level. It's a lot of things that a wearable piece of technology can wear on your hand. I have a picture of me actually wearing it, I kind of felt like a superhero a little bit with it. And you just move your wrist, like a flick of the wrist, and it scans everything right out there on the shelf. Boston Dynamics, we chatted with them, training robots through repeated tasks to develop autonomous behaviors for real world deployments. Spoke with them a lot about automotive, obviously, we know their work with Hyundai. They had a machine vision demo that uses edge computing to sort products by attributes. Their demo was sorting by color, and for everyone, I'm new to this show, but I went to Ohio State, so they were sorting all the blue out, and I was a big fan of that, because I'm not a fan of the team up north.
Speaker 1All right, what other themes did you guys hear or see about in Atlanta? Gene?
Speaker 3Again, this is a shift over time. It's brand new, but I remember going years back where it was like, oh, here's a new technology, we hope you'll find it interesting and use it, to now we're collaborating with our partners, with our customers, to make sure we understand their needs, and then we're going to assemble the best suite of technologies to do so. For example, Derek Printmore, CEO of Asaro, said that the key parameters that his customers are looking for are one, utilization. Two, action or constant movement of product, and then three, throughput. It's not just throughput, and he and I had a good conversation, not just about what Asaro does, but also about his observations on the trends at Monex 2026. Overall, there's a greater emphasis on flexibility, particularly in the automated storage retrieval system or ASRS market. Again, that was one of the trends, I would say. We saw a lot of ASRS. We saw a lot of ASRS systems this year, as well as ASRS competitors. So, you think of the high bay retrieval robots or the racking or more modular systems, but back to ASRS, Steve and I recently visited a major symphonic employment. So, it was really cool to meet two weeks ago in a 1.4 million square foot warehouse, half of which is already fully automated, and we wrote about that. At Monex, Symphonic touted innovation with a purpose, and that purpose is ROI, return on investment. So, clearly, they're listening to their customers, and their customers, yeah, they're odd, as I am, by the grid and all the robots moving around in it, but at the end of the day, what they care about is the result. Because margins on retail are still pretty tight, and they're tighter now with all kinds of economic challenges. So, Monica also happened to announce a collaboration with Medline this week. So, as we were talking before about moving from supply chain into adjacent sectors, this is healthcare, right, and pharmaceutical. There's a lot of interest in that sector. Several companies mentioned that, you know, whether it's food and bev or manufacturing or that, that you're going to start seeing people trying to get automation from, and in the sense of not just from production or not just in supply chain, but bridging the two, and so that's an area of a lot of development for ASRS providers. MAP has expanded to North America. Another provider that we've written about that I thought was interesting was Adabotics, which is back from the dead. So, sometimes when, you know, we talked about Fetch earlier, sometimes if you have loyal customers and another company that understands your value, in this case, Lafayette Systems, Adabotics is back in business and looking to innovate, which I think is great. You know, AutoStore, getting more modular, getting better data, getting their systems to run even more smoothly. They're still the market leader, but they also have their ecosystem of partners. We saw the Cardex One platform, right? Again, we're talking about unifying software and data, all of the picking functions at the perimeter, and in some cases, on top of these ASRSs. And I would say another trend that we noticed is that, going back to Sarah's point, pallets, pallets, pallets. You know, whether it was Swisslog or ZS Robotics, you know, one of the things that I thought was interesting is you now seeing not just cases or bins being put into these big storage systems, but full pallets. You know, there's still some question about the space utilization, but the ability to store pallets 10 high or whatever it is, is something that we've not really seen before. And several companies were moving into that area this year.
Speaker 2Yeah, and then I'll circle back to what I mentioned at the top. Flexibility over fixed systems. Companies no longer designing systems for one specific use case. Instead, they're designing systems that can flex and adapt as production needs change. With the Rainbow Pallet, it all ties together. Are we doing a 24-pack of soda or are we doing an 8-ounce can that's much smaller? A few examples. Regal Rexdorn had an extended robot reach with the seventh axis. So this one robot can serve multiple stations. That one was fun to see. And they have the safe touch. So if your hand or the operator touches, the robot stops. And I verified it. I spoke with Kyle from their company. I said, "Can you put your hands up? Confirm you still have them?" And he did. So his hands are still intact. Also, Robust AI rolling out Carter collaborative robotic cart fits into existing workflows and facilities.
Speaker 1That's fun, huh? It's fun to play with Carter. So I'm glad you got a chance to experience it.
Speaker 2They were excellent. Yes, I had a great time with them. And I also spoke with Iris Ren from Quicktron Robotics. We talked about how system design and human-robot collaboration and how that benefits. It's humans, not just robots, and how it can help resolve bottlenecks. And here's what she had to say.
Speaker 6Actually, if you have a big enough space you don't need to care about the robotics capabilities that means you can always deploy as many and robotics you can to increase the throughput but the limitation will be the operators so when we design the workstation we design the double presence and the small robot each time it each time pick it's gathered to totes that way it goes to the workstation it will unload the totes one by one once the robot unload the totes it can go back to the storage area the robots do not need to wait for the operators picking secondly when you see the double presence that means if the operator finished the one totes picking he can directly switch to the others almost
Speaker 1zero second away well hey I saw some some social media photos of Boston Dynamics Atlas I'm really curious you guys get a chance to see it and was it
Speaker 3moving well the good news is that there were a handful of humanoids at the show but yeah we're moving yes it's on more activity on moment manipulation this year I took the obligatory selfie with digit but you know just as I had seen that at previous shows I mean it's indicative of where he really development is right now and I don't want to say that the moment manipulator people are happy that the humanoids are not moving but given all the billions of dollars that's flown it into humanoid development over the past few years and there's an obvious shift in emphasis again at mode X on practicality and what can be done now or in the near future and so yes Boston Amex brought Atlas a new electric version agility brought digit but they were both standing like statues in their respective booths and I think that's for a couple of reasons one nobody wants to see robots fall down anymore right they want to see the robots in production environments and most of the engineers who are actually working on those systems are actually out in the field they are all conducting trials now there are only a handful of the what 250 humanoid robot developers that are in serious commercial trials and it's noteworthy that they're starting with very simple manufacturing or supply chain processes but if you were going to look for a lot of humanoids at mode X you would be disappointed I think that's okay I think it's a reality check it's gonna take a while for these robots to demonstrate where they're actually going to be most appropriate or where they can be robust reliable and most importantly safe there were a couple of five manual wheeled mobile manipulators a lot of them from China and they were in tablet operation mode again we're talking more training and finding out what they can do and this is certainly putting them to work so you know I I think it's early days and it's perfectly fine to acknowledge that uh on a side note when we're talking about emerging robots Sarah I don't know if you had this observation I saw a lot of Waymo's driving around Atlanta more than I've seen even in California and most of them were empty I did not get to ride in one this time around but I thought it was interesting that clearly Waymo is doing a lot of uh information gathering and testing out there so I didn't get to ride in one
Speaker 2either Gene but I saw multiple and I took a video because I've never those first time I've actually seen one in person um and I didn't see anyone in the passenger seat or in the back seat I think
Speaker 3they're just going around but there were a few there were a few but uh as I said they're they're definitely out there in force but going back to mobile manipulators uh Omron had a large MoMA which is what they were calling them and a small one and I thought that was interesting to see the form factors starting to diverge starting to specialize you're not just slapping a cobot arm on top of an AMR um and then there's a whole adjacent uh territory of the bridge between mobile manipulation and asrs and so one of the big announcements this year is locust robotics which brought locust array uh it made its official debut at a preview at promat last year sort of behind closed doors but this year it was out in the open and running uh and not only is locust array out but it's already in use at DHL which we've covered uh by contrast uh when we talk about truck loading pickle robot had a cool booth showing its robots but it had more space for a pickleball court uh which you know I thought that was that was fun uh you know we've done stuff like that at our events as well uh I didn't get to play but I'm I'm always happy when there's uh people moving
Speaker 2around as well as the robots I would say that pickleball court that pickle robots booth was packed I don't know if I could have even got in and play a game it was it was it was hilarious yeah yeah yeah um want to circle back really quick to Boston Dynamics had a nice conversation with them we did see Atlas we did the interview just a few feet away from Atlas um asked about safety and their team basically said you know this guy's a beefcake he weighs like over a thousand pounds safety is essential and it made me think of a wrestling reference but yeah the the beefcake term uh didn't expect going into the show that I would hear a robot described as that but it it fits
Speaker 1well that's funny so you don't think it's gonna be doing flips then no I don't
Speaker 2um and I'm glad to hear of all the safety and how they're designing that intentionally in because it's a it's a big Atlas is pretty good yeah absolutely yeah and that's the challenge also
Speaker 3is humanoid demos right how do you do it in a way that is safe pretty 10 knees and yet you have enough room to do what the humanoids do best which is move around and and are beginning to manipulate um speaking of mobile manipulation um another noteworthy system was bright pics grid pick uh which CEO John Ziska told me it's a combination of vision manipulation and mobility uh so imagine an ASRS type grid but with a mobile shuttle or robot on top of it and reaching out and picking each is and assembling uh inches is a robot arm and it's similar to the robot arm that they already have on staff and and breaking systems but uh print pick is one of the newer products we saw Mike if you ask me what I think uh was some of the most noteworthy robots showing this is only one of them uh but it's not the only one so uh grid pick was slightly less controversial this year than it was at luggy mat earlier where uh rival Ocado called the German police and they had to wrap up their booth and intellectual property dispute uh I don't know the status of that if that's you know moving to a court case or what but there were a number of companies that are uh working on that sort of picking manipulation um and then I want to
Speaker 2I want to add to Delta America's you know modex robots cobots oh my everywhere um Delta America's had some thoughts about general robot robotics and integrated solutions they had a cobot on display
Speaker 7this is what Bill Faber from Delta had to say uh well one example is if you take a look at uh our demo arena uh we have an AMR move around we also have a a robot that's uh uh it's a collaborative robot that's moving around inside of those uh are a lot of Delta's technologies that we have um so we've got visualization power networking software motion drive control and vision and all those platforms have Technologies in them that Delta is really good at and so we've embedded a lot of those Technologies that we're good at inside of these Solutions like an AMR like a robot and we're able to provide uh you know deeper Solutions that go beyond even just those but to take a robot that has the components in it and then also attach other pieces around like vision and strippers uh and the software to uh to have a final solution like a pick and place or a palletizing
Speaker 1system well Gene maybe the other part we didn't talk about also covered here is what what goes on in the loading dock uh were there any other uh aha moments around the Solutions operating in the
Speaker 3back dock yeah in addition to the mobile manipulation and then the uh grid picking systems that we saw uh another related area is the loading dock which is narrative continued development I would say this is addressing Sarah's point about flexibility that uh there are still a number of companies taking different approaches to how you load and unload trailers especially with mixed parcels or boxes inside them uh we saw a symbolic recently acquired automated forklift provider Fox Robotics um to mention Foss Dynamics again uh stretch their truck unloading robot Foss Dynamics also showed for the first time Partnerships with jacoby Robotics Fortna and ABB so again getting to that point of understanding that you're part of an ecosystem uh for all talk of end-to-end many companies are acknowledging that they need to work with other robotics vendors in order to accomplish these tasks. I also had the good fortune of moderating a session with Slip Robotics, which discussed the evolution from the SlipBots to the SlipLift, which decoupled Having Done Your Robot from its platform for loaning and unloading an entire trailer at once in just minutes.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I've got to touch on packaging before we wrap up. You know, that's my topic. I mentioned at the top the end of the line becoming more dynamic. We talked about Kodi and Festo's palletizer in a box. You can read more on that in the coming weeks with a special research report from Packaging OEM. But I'll finish with pack size. They had Think Automation Meets Packaging, Box First and Box Last technology that creates right-size packaging in real time, two machines on display, including the CVM Impact. That's an automated machine that has a box last approach, so you put the product in the machine. No upfront dimensional data is required. The machine captures it all in real time. It can do up to about 500 boxes an hour and can be combined with AMRs. Before the show, Pack Size said, bring your own items for us to package on this machine. So we ran my iPhone through it with a little Hot Wheels van. We got a nice little video of that taking a ride on Pack Size's machine. So I greatly appreciate their time and their team for doing that for me.
Speaker 3Well, thanks again. To everyone who met with us, we really do appreciate it. We'll share a lot more observation and news over the coming weeks at automatedwarehouseonline.com and packagingoem.com.
Speaker 2Yeah. Oh, I was just going to say, thank you, Gene. Thank you, Mike, for having me. This has been a blast.
Speaker 1Thanks for being here. It's great to have your voice here and your observations.
Speaker 3And once again, I want to remind everyone that registration is now open for the Robotics Summit and Expo. Our agenda is now live on the site and there's still, well, a few opportunities to exhibit if you're interested. The show itself will be on May 27th and 28th in Boston. We're going to have over 250 exhibitors. We're expecting 5,000 plus attendees. And the moment you've been waiting for, you can use the discount code POD25 for a 25% discount only for our podcast listeners. Sign up now to attend at roboticsummit.com.
Speaker 1Well, Gene, thanks. For that, and that's going to do it for episode 240. Thanks again to everyone for tuning in. Thanks again to Sarah Nguyen from Packaging OEM for joining us today. Be sure to check them out online. New episodes of the Robot Report podcast drop each week. You can find us anywhere you get your podcasts. Please subscribe, leave us a rating, give us a review, tell your friends about us. This episode was produced and edited by Mike Weitzman. Our executive producer is Amanda Buhner. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
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