Is the industry ready for humanoids? And perhaps more importantly, does the industry really need them? It’s a debate that’s been going on for some time, and back in episode 200, we even had an audience member call humanoids out as a gimmick! But are there real benefits to using humanoids?
We welcomed back Melonee Wise, the Chief Product Officer at Agility Robotics, the pros at manufacturing mobile manipulation robots and automation solutions. Melonee explains that there are definitely practical uses for humanoids and explains some ways they may outperform regular robotics in certain scenarios, such as containerized movement.
We hear a little backstory about Melonee’s career and why she founded Fetch Robotics, sold it, and took her current role at Agility Robotics. While running her company, she learned a lot about finding product-market fit and ensuring that the designs of robots are viable, in demand, and safe. Safety is a key theme in this episode, and Melonee reveals some of the specific scenarios we need to prepare for if we ever hope to get a robot from the design stage to implementation.
Subscribe
Apple | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube
3 Quick Things from this Episode
- One of the biggest use cases for humanoids is with bulk containerized movement because it’s highly repeatable and has a lot of use cases.
- Like in many other areas of manufacturing, safety is the number one concern. While some companies are proactive about planning for safety, others aren’t, and they could find their products won’t be deployed to the market because they don’t meet regulations.
- Developing technology that solves a real problem is the first step to finding product-market fit. It was by discovering a problem and solving it that Melonee’s first company, Fetch Robotics was launched.
Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!
Tweetable Quotes
- “Humanoids would be having their moment right now, whether or not AI was also having its moment. I think that the technology is sufficiently advanced enough that we can do the work without leveraging AI if we needed to. Now, will AI help? Yes.”
- “There are two factors that make containerized movement great for humanoids. One, it’s very standard work and robotics always loves standard processes. And two, it’s highly scalable. So it’s worth the investment of the development.”
- “Humanoids are becoming the new best friends of AMRs. So that’s where we’re seeing a lot of success, especially because they’re highly repeatable and there’s a lot of use cases for them.”
Please Scroll Down for Recommended Resources from this Episode
Do you want to connect with other leaders that are moving the needle in manufacturing everyday? Then make sure to join us in the Manufacturing Happy Hour Industry Community on LinkedIn.
Fortinet secures the world’s largest enterprises, service providers, and government organizations along their digital transformation journey. The Fortinet Security Fabric platform delivers broad, integrated, and automated protections across the entire digital attack surface. They secure critical devices, data, applications, and connections from the production floor, to the data center, and to the cloud.
MaintainX recognizes that 80% of the workforce – primarily technicians – aren’t sitting at a desk but out managing equipment and facilities. Their maintenance and asset management platform empowers these professionals by keeping equipment running through preventive maintenance, facilitating quick repair insights, and streamlining safety and compliance.
What We Discuss with Melonee
- Are humanoids overhyped or is there a real use for them?
- The practical applications for humanoids in manufacturing and supply chain management
- The realities of managing robots on a production line and why instructions need to be programmed clearly
- Weighing up the speed of human workers vs. automated vehicles and robots, plus the other factors affecting human workers
- How AI plays into robotics development and why robotics would be advanced enough to progress without AI
- How we could manage data from robots to optimize supply chain management
- Why safety is always the biggest challenge with robotics and machinery and the different scenarios we need to account for before deploying a new piece of robotics
- The dangers of not thinking proactively about safety – both to the industry as a whole and to robotics developments
- What led Melonee to launch Fetch Robotics and how she found product-market fit with a new solution to a common problem
- Why Melonee stepped away from entrepreneurship to take a role at Agility Robotics
Recommended Resources
- Agility Robotics, the world’s leading manufacturer of mobile manipulation robots and automation solutions, working with the humanoid robot, Digit
- Fetch Robotics (now Zebra), Melonee’s original company, acquired by Zebra, is a robotics automation products manufacturer that helps robots work alongside humans
Recent Comments