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Nov 20, 2024
#1 - Satyandra K. Gupta, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist at GrayMatter Robotics
#1 - Satyandra K. Gupta, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist at GrayMatter Robotics
00:00
17:24
Transcript
0:00
[instrumental music] Thanks so much for joining me on the Slice of Manufacturing podcast. It's great to have you here today. Truly a pleasure being here, and I look forward to talking with you. Let's dive right in.
0:14
So would, would first like to, to start with my very overused question.
0:19
For the people out there that maybe haven't heard of Grayma- Graymatter Robotics, what do you tell them if they saw you in a sweatshirt, if they saw the logo and they're like, "What does that company do?"
0:29
What do you typically tell someone? Yeah.
0:31
So we make smart robotic cells for high-mix manufacturing applications, and the kind of applications that we work on are basically sanding, polishing, buffing, grinding, blasting, coating, painting.
0:45
So these are all operations which are currently done manually in high-mix applications, and we are trying to deliver people turnkey solutions so that they can basically get these robotic cells to perform these very ergonomically challenging and tedious tasks.
1:01
So before Graymatter Robotics, can you tell our audience, you know, for those that aren't familiar, how, how it worked before, and then why you wanted to start this company? Sure.
1:11
So robots have had great success in mass production applications. So the way robots get deployed in mass production applications, basically as machines.
1:22
So since you are making the same thing over and over again, you can invest in custom hardware, and you can hold the part. You are making the same part over and over, so you can afford to program the robot.
1:34
So a human programmer can go program the robot, very carefully calibrate it, and then you let it run for, you know, nine months, one year without any change, and it's gonna keep doing the same thing over and over.
1:46
And that model works great in the context of mass production. Large amount of manufacturing that gets done in US is high-mix.
1:56
So I'm making one type of panel right now, and an hour later, I will be working on a slightly different type of panel.
2:03
And therefore, this whole idea that I can have custom tooling to hold the part and a human programmer program the robot, th- those ideas will not work.
2:12
And, uh, therefore, people will not be able to use a mass production style of robotics technology in high-mix.
2:18
So that meant that high-mix is largely, uh, at least in surface finish and surface treatment application, is highly manual. And these are the kind of job that nobody wants to do.
2:29
Nobody wants to really spend eight hours a day doing sanding, wearing PPEs, and performing these tedious jobs which could, you know, put your health at risk.
2:40
So industry was having significant labor churn, and they needed some solution to, to, to make sure that this type of work can be automated, and that's how Graymatter Robotics was born.
2:52
And I think, you know, a big part is-- a big thing in the conversation is labor shortages, right, within US manufacturing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this, this directly addresses that, right?
3:03
Like, um, so I guess, what impact do you see this having on workforce in the long run? Sure.
3:10
So US, you know, uh, in manufacturing, we are seeing tremendous shortage of labor and, and people really do not want to work on this type of work, right? Because of gig economy, people have options.
3:24
They could be driving Ubers. They could be doing something else. They would really not like to do this work which, you know, puts their health at risk and, and create challenges for them.
3:35
So U- US, you know, is having tremendous labor shortage, and these are not the kind of job where you can take somebody, uh, you know, from some other sector and immediately get them to start producing result for you.
3:49
It still requires training, so this still requires some skills in order for you to become good at sanding or grinding or painting or buffing. It requires significant amount of training.
4:00
Now, you invest all these resources, and then they leave after two, three months because they did not like the work. Then you have invested a lot of money in training, which, you know, basically is totally wasted.
4:13
So over long term, we believe that US manufacturing would be well-served, uh, where people can do interesting work, where they can add really high value and they can move up the, you know, job ladder and then do more and more interesting work which pays them well and, and work is enjoyable and eliminate a lot of these tedious, ergonomically challenging work.
4:38
And that way we can get a nice balance where, you know, we can serve the US manufacturing with the existing workforce that we have.
4:48
Not only that, but we can also reshore a lot of manufacturing because once we can deploy these kind of solutions, then we can do reshoring as well.
4:57
This is another topic that kinda goes hand in hand, right, with labor shortage and whenever people hear, uh, AI, robotic-- like AI or robotics, they're saying, "Oh, no, my job's gonna be replaced," right?
5:09
But, you know, something that, that you've emphasized is improving the quality of life for workers.
5:14
So could you-- You gave us a little bit there, but could you elaborate on how you also envision it helping kind of improve that quality of life for workers? Sure.
5:23
So if robot starts doing just all the tedious work, then workers can do more high value-added work, right? They could still be performing some inspection related, related tasks.
5:36
They might be fine-tuning the recipe for doing sanding much faster so they can train the robot to do sanding much, much, much faster than what is humanly possible.
5:46
Loading the workpiece into the cell, uh, still requires, you know, human effort. So there is still work to be done by human operators.
5:55
It's just that-- And also there are some features which are very delicate, which are very complex. Then again, those need to be done by humans. So still a lot of interesting work left for humans to do.
6:07
It's just that the work, which is simple, repetitive, and ergonomically challenging, is done by the robots.
6:13
So that overall improves the quality of life for workers, and if the workers are doing more valuable work, then hopefully they can be paid more as well.
6:22
As you've been building this, what has been, in terms of challenges, which have you seen more of, more operational challenges or technical challenges?
6:29
So right now, you know, the biggest challenge has been getting, you know, people to embrace change. So if you try to deploy robotic cells, and if you wanna get value out of it, you have to make some changes, right?
6:44
The way you do the business has to little bit change, right? The way you run your operation has to little bit change. The space that needed to accommodate robot has to change little bit. So some changes are necessary.
6:57
And sometimes, you know, getting people to change, uh, requires some effort, right? This is still new technology.
7:05
People have to kind of believe in it, that all the effort that they're gonna put into making changes would be worthwhile, and in the end, these robots will deliver the value. So this is a relatively new technology.
7:16
These smart robotic cells where robots are powered by AI is a new concept.
7:21
So challenge has been just convincing people that this will work, this will deliver value, and therefore they should make appropriate adjustments and changes.
7:31
Now, your, your title at the company is co-founder and chief scientist, right? What do you like most about being the chief scientist? What's the most fun part of your day? Sure.
7:42
Most, uh, fun part of my day is, you know, working on challenging problems, right?
7:48
So obviously, our technology can do certain things today, and certain kind of features, certain kind of new processes, they require further upgrade to the technology.
8:00
So we have to constantly invent and add new capabilities and features into the technology. So that is the part that excite me the most. And also, as a chief scientist, I have to also pay attention to our IP strategy.
8:14
I mean, what technology to protect, how we're gonna protect it, what we are gonna patent, what we are gonna hold this as a trade secret.
8:22
So, so all of that is also part of my job, and, you know, I have to make sure that we, uh, protect our IP, and we build the right strategy for managing our IP.
8:34
So you, you raised a, a Series B around, I think it was June, July, right, this year. Can you talk to our audience a little bit about, okay, you raised that round.
8:43
Where will you be investing, like, over the next, let's say, months, year plus, um, with that raise? So we are expanding into some new solutions. So in the past, we have offered sanding, polishing, buffing.
8:59
We have now a- also offerings in grinding, blasting, coating, and painting arena. So we are expanding our basically solution offerings.
9:10
So that's the one aspect in which we are, uh, basically investing more to offer people more products.
9:18
Also, in the past, we only had solutions where you put a robot on a rail, and therefore you could increase the reach of the robot.
9:28
We are also now going to be very soon offering, uh, solutions where you will put the robot on a mobile platform, and therefore, you know, you will have unlimited reach.
9:38
So some of our solution configurations would also change, which will then allow people to work on much, much bigger, uh, part.
9:47
We are working on integrating some new, uh, type of inspection technology, which allow people to do much better quality assurance after the robots get done.
9:57
So these are all technical extensions that are happening in the process, in the cell configuration, and also, uh, i-in terms of, you know, what robot will be able to do.
10:10
On the other hand, we are expanding to many different markets.
10:14
So we are now looking into, you know, different markets, and we are trying to see how we can deliver the right kind of solution to much broader market segments. So that's another, uh, thing that's happening right now.
10:28
When you think of, like, who your ideal customer or partner is, what, what does that kind of persona look like?
10:34
Um, I, I ask that to kind of point that out for anyone that's listening that aligns, right, with, with who you're already working with.
10:42
Um, you don't have to say who you're working with, but, like, um, would love to hear how you define that. Sure.
10:47
So right now, the customers who find the most value from our products are people who are performing large amount of manual sanding, polishing, buffing, grinding, painting, coating, blasting type of things on relatively large parts.
11:07
So these large part means that people spend large amount of time doing these things. They have to travel, reach is hard, and all of that makes basically, uh, work challenging.
11:18
So th-those are the kinds of customers that find the most value, uh, basically using our solutions. And, and we are quite agnostic to industry. So right now, you know, we have companies, uh, in aerospace sectors.
11:32
We have company in port, uh, you know, basically marine sector, where people are making boats. We have lot of transportation sectors, so RV, ambulance, fire trucks, buses.
11:45
Uh, we have customers in the sporting goods sector. So, uh, we have people working on, you know, basically some type of furniture. So, so we have quite a spectrum of applications which we are able to serve.
11:59
What excites you most about the future of the company and where you're heading? I, I know we're almost through 2024, right? So kinda heading into 2025 and beyond.
12:09
Obviously, you know, you wake up every day, you're excited about, about this. What, uh, if you had to narrow it down to one or two things moving forward, what, uh, what are they? Sure. So I'll point out to two things.
12:20
First is that, you know, when we started our, uh, company, we largely focused on- Doing the process the same way humans were doing, right? So basically, humans were sanding apart certain ways.
12:33
We wanted to deliver the same performance the way humans were doing. But remember, robots are fundamentally different creatures compared to humans. The robot can apply a lot higher force, the robot can move a lot faster.
12:47
So that means that robot can do things fundamentally differently. So that creates tremendous opportunity for process innovation. Why do I have-- why do robot have to do sand the same way humans do, right?
12:58
So that suddenly now creates this great opportunity for inventing new process recipes, uh, inventing new types of tools, which then enable human-- basically robot to deliver superhuman performance.
13:13
I mean, they can deliver performance which we simply will never be able to get out of humans, right?
13:18
So all these exciting things that suddenly start happening, uh, as a result of us using robot opens up, you know, basically radical innovation possibilities in, in manufacturing space.
13:31
So even though we started our journey to, you know, basically
13:36
automate the tasks that humans were doing, but, you know, there's a tremendous opportunity to reimagine and, and, you know, completely invent these type of processes. So that's one, a very exciting dimension.
13:50
So that goes well beyond, okay, humans are doing things certain ways. Robot should do these things in a similar way. This is, you know, brand new concept. I mean, why robot has to do things in a similar way?
14:01
Robot can do a lot better, a lot differently. So that, that is a, you know, space of, you know, significant possibility and promise.
14:11
Second thing is that when robots start working on, you know, th-these type of operation, you can eliminate significant rework, scrap, use of PPEs, use of consumables, and that makes your operation significantly more sustainable.
14:29
So robot can dramatically reduce sandpaper consumption because, you know, robot can extract out every last ounce of value out of sandpaper, right? So you can make your operation significantly more sustainable.
14:44
So those are the two dimensions in which I'm super excited because I think we can offer significant innovation in the manufacturing space where we can do things a lot better because robot can move faster, apply much more force, they're more consistent, and also we can make manufacturing significantly more sustainable by using robots.
15:05
So those are the two dimensions in which I'm super excited about. I love it. [chuckles] I'm excited to see how things continue to evolve. My, my last question for you before we wrap up here is, is a fun one.
15:16
I always say: What's something you can laugh about now, but made you wanna cry when it happened when you were in the early days?
15:22
So, you know, when we made some design choices in terms of, you know, what robot to use, right? And, uh, how to configure ourselves, right?
15:35
So those choices, particularly with collaborative robot, led to systems which were not as reliable as you would like them to be, right? Uh, at that time, we were not that experienced, right?
15:47
And we did not run the cells for years at a time [chuckles] and therefore we did not know, uh, how reliable these things are going to be and how much a harsh environment they can take.
16:00
Yeah, so at that time when those cells were having challenges, then it, it wasn't a fun period because we had to still go fix that cell very quickly to make sure that we can get the cell, uh, functioning again.
16:13
Now, we have made tremendous improvement in, in making sure that the reliability of our cells is supremely high now compared to what it used to be at the very beginning of our company.
16:26
I really appreciate you, uh, joining us on the show today and, and sharing your thoughts about what the future looks like and, uh, also those little fun things. Um, uh, we're wishing you the best of luck.
16:37
We're gonna continue to stay focused on, on what you're doing and, uh, please let us know of any announcements or anything. We'll be sure to, to reshare those because we're excited on what you're building.
16:45
And, uh, thank you for being the first-ever guest on this new show that we're launching, and we'll share it among some of the other verticals too, so it gets seen by, by those folks as well. Yeah, great. Yeah.
16:55
Well, you know, thank you for inviting us.
16:57
And if people wanna come check out our technology, we will be in Orlando, Florida, uh, in the week of October 11th or 12th, and people can come out, uh, you know, at the Fabtech show.
17:12
People can, you know, visit us, get a live demo, and check to see how our technology works. I love it. Thank you so much. Okay, great. Thank you. [paper rustling]
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