9MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY INSIGHTSMAY - 2023Digital automation platforms are the future. Old mechanical cams can be completely digitized, allowing for incredible flexibility efficiency gainsexecutives, satisfied with the status quote and feared that PC would cannibalize its mainframe business, refused to pivot their strategy until it was too late. IBM is no longer in the computer hardware business. As a struggling start-up, Netflix met with the CEO of Blockbuster in 2000 and offered to sell the company for $50 million. Blockbuster did not want to cannibalize its existing business and declined the offer. Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010. Consumers have options!The only certaintyyou have is that every day someone is trying to go after your business with a better and faster "mousetrap." You don't know who, you don't know how and you don't know when. The question is not if you will lose what you currently have but when and how quickly your business will be taken from you. The only way to win is to stay ahead with innovation and be agile.There areassembly technologies that have been in the market for 10 years that offer speed, flexibility, and precision. These are flexible, high-performance assets assembly equipment that disrupts the way things have been done in the automation assembly industry for the last 4-5 decades. But the industry has been slow to adapt because people are afraid of losing their jobs if they are wrong. A friend who used to work for Pitney Bowes, once said that when Pitney Bowes first enter the market, they struggle to break into the market despite having better products and financial terms. He once asked his customer why they picked Xerox despite Pitney Bowes offering more for less. The client responds that if he buys Xerox and the photocopier does not work, he would not be fired because everyone buys Xerox. If he buys Pitney Bowes and if the photocopier does not work, he would be fired. Staying with the mass is safe. A recent article about fear of innovation by McKinsey Exponential Intelligence will be a measure of how likely a person is to thrive and lead in a changing, technological world. The company reported that 85 percent of executives agree that fear holds back innovation efforts--but that four out of five fundamental strategies for overcoming that fear involved a reckoning with the facts instead of the myths of innovation.And the facts are straightforward: conventional, custom machines are increasingly slower and more costly than high-performance, agile solutions. Ultimately, the foot-dragging stops when you see how it affects the bottom line or in the worst-case scenario suffer the same fate as Blockbuster, IBM, and Kodiak. You mentioned, "digital" How does that factor into agility and performance?I'm old enough to remember that when you picked up the phone, you picked it up off the hook and dialed a number on an actual dial. It was all mechanical. Maybe we have nostalgia, but I don't think anybody regrets moving on. And the biggest difference which allows for all this convenience and efficiency and agility is the move from mechanical to digital with our smartphone. With manufacturing, it's the same concept.We still call it a cam, just like we call it a telephone. But the revolution occurs out of sight because it seems the same, just improved. If you stick with a conventional mechanical system, you're back to being inflexible because the most minor changes require some sort of machining or fabrication. That's no longer agile. It's a fixed asset and once its purpose is complete, it'll just sit there taking up space. Digital platforms are inherently agile as their reprogramming is so much easier than retooling, refitting, or rebuilding. This makes standardized, pre-engineered solutions much more attractive because it reduces automation risk and changeover is fast and simple. You speak with such passion about automation! What gets you so excited about this?First, I'm a geek. I am deeply interested in the forces that are shaping our world today: automation, of course, but also big tech, global supply chains, post-industrial shifts, reshoring, sustainability, Industry 5.0, and so much more. I'm just fascinated by the changes in cultural behavior and how they impact and shape the manufacturing sector. Second, and more importantly, I want better outcomes for real people. It's no exaggeration to say that we improve lives. From syringes for life-saving vaccines to autoinjectors for treating diabetes, automationdelivers lifesavingdrugs safely and fast. I have been in the advanced manufacturing sector for almost 30 years building automation equipment for many sectors. If our machines can make these devices faster, and if we can shorten the development and validation time to get these production lines up and running, then it's no stretch at all to say that we save lives. Every single day. That's something I'm proud to be a part of, and excited to continue working on.
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