Debunking automation myths

SD: Welcome to the monthly installment of Enabling Automation, where we bring industry experts from across the ATS group of companies to talk about pertinent topics in the world of industrial automation.

SD: I’ll be your host; my name is Simon Drexler. I’ve been in the automation industry for about 15 years in a variety of progressive roles, and I’m currently the General Manager of the Automation Products Group inside of ATS Automation.

SD: We’re very fortunate to be talking about a very relevant topic. There are a number of myths that exist in the manufacturing world around industrial automation and how we progress and implement technology into our manufacturing processes.

SD: And so, we’re going to talk about debunking some of those automation myths with a phenomenal expert. His name’s Ian Menzies and I’ll pass the mic over to him for a quick introduction.

IM: All right. Thanks, Simon.

IM: My name is Ian Menzies. I’m the Engineering Director within our Industrial Automation group at ATS. I’ve been around about the same amount of time as Simon for 15 years now, and again, similar variety of roles starting in systems engineering and project management. Now leading all our engineering groups within Industrial Automation. Thanks for having me.

SD: And you’re also a key driver of some innovation and innovative approaches to some of the industrial automation there as well, right?

IM: Yeah. I mean, when you’ve been here this long, it’s safe to say you get to see a little bit of everything and get your finger in the mix, so that’s good.

SD: I think that’s why I’m really excited to have this conversation with you today, Ian. You know, similar background. We’ve been in the industry for about the same amount of time, so similar views, but you’ve been responsible and involved in some of the high-end automation that’s been built over the last few years. And I think that’s a great perspective to bring to our listeners around what myths do still exist around automation and how to implement it into their businesses.

IM: I’m happy to be here. It’s going to be good.

SD: So, as I mentioned, there are a number of myths kicking around. There’s still a lot of companies that are new to the journey of how to automate processes. They’re new to the journey of how to utilize robotics to give themselves some more productivity, which is probably more important today than it has been, at least in the early parts of our career. So why don’t we just start hitting some of the myths head on? I hear all the time, from the time that I started in the automation world is automation is just going to take my job, going to replace factory jobs. What would you say, true or false to that myth?

IM: I’m going to say false, to be honest. And I’ve seen it, I’ve had the uncomfortables, I’ve had some experiences of walking into factories and looking at processes and talking to people who were looking to essentially automate their jobs in a way. But the reality of the situation is much bigger than that. And I think what we do and the industry and the workforce shortages that we have today, automation becomes critical for keeping the business in North America. So, it’s not about really taking away jobs. It’s about staying competitive in the market, is the way I see it. We have things that people don’t want to do anymore, we’re not able to find the right people to do, so we can automate those things. By creating automation, we actually create better jobs for people. We create this high-tech industry, and we build upon that skill set. And we’re not trying to compete in this low-tech industry, which is historically challenging for us to compete in. And that’s where there was a lot of offshoring over the years.

IM: The opposite is happening now is on shoring. Automation now is the driver for more jobs in North America from the way I look at it, because we have lots of customers out there who are coming to us because they want to onshore their work. They want to bring back jobs to North America or to wherever they are. They need automation to be able to do that, to be competitive. And so along with that comes all the skilled trades who install, design, build the equipment, support it, the programmers who develop it and turn it into a living, breathing machine and then there’s a whole group of people that maintain it for its lifetime. So, I can see the perspective. But I think in the grander picture, it creates jobs in the long run. That’s my view on it anyways.

SD: I really like that you framed it like it’s sort of bigger than that. There’s a grander picture at stake because in my view and in my experience, you’re talking to people about applying technology to manufacturing. And there’s always a risk of what comes next. And oftentimes people don’t see or don’t have a viewpoint to what comes next. And that causes that sort of defensive “You are going to take my job” rather than “I’m going to be able to create more value if I don’t have to do this and the robot does this or the automation does that”.

SD: I think one of the things when we’re talking about this myth and if I’m listening to this podcast, I might be looking for some advice as a manufacturing engineer or as an operations manager who is looking to implement technology or implement automation into my operation. And knowing that’s a myth that exists and knowing that might be the response from some of my workforce. What would you recommend? How would you approach that as an expert and as somebody who’s been in the industry for a while?

IM: I mean, I’ve seen it done in a variety of ways, to be honest. But I think starting in a small, I’d say scalable manner is good, right? When you can come in and build it up, if you have an operation, for example, and you look to turn it over all at once, there’s a whole bunch of technical and operational challenges with that type of approach. But if you do it all at once, even just with the people factor, I think you’re going to see a lot of issues with change management. You’re going to have that perception, right? But if you start to do it over time in small bits and pieces, I think people will start to see the reality come true, where it’s not about replacing people’s jobs, it’s about creating new types of jobs and opportunities. And I think you can build upon that a little bit more slowly. That would be my recommendation, I guess as far as an approach, and I can appreciate there can be hesitation there.

SD: It can be challenging. I’ve actually been fortunate, I’ve worked for a number of innovative companies and you go in and you implement technology and like one approach is always to say, historically as people we’ve always done this. And the easiest one to look at is computers. And I even remember when I was much younger, computers were coming into the workforce and it was, oh, my God, accountants aren’t going have anything to do anymore. The computer is going to do the accounting. But that’s never been the case. Accounting has become more value add. There’s been a lot more analysis that happens to the numbers and become more of a driver to the business. It’s just changed the work. It hasn’t replaced the work. It’s changed the work.

IM: Agreed. And that kind of goes on to say it’s unlocking the potential of people to do things where we really add value, just putting the screw in the hole is not really a value-add thing. People are far more capable than that. Adding two numbers together is not really that critical. It’s the assessment, the analysis of the data. When you get into automation, it doesn’t just run itself blindly. You start to be able to have people who instead of just putting two pieces together, are looking at the way the machine runs and they’re driving optimization, improvement, product optimization. And now you’ve taken all that time and investment in people that are now able to make everything better. So we all move ahead faster.

SD: Last question on this myth before we move on to the next one. Have you seen a change in the last couple of years in the marketplace? You had mentioned right from the very beginning, we’re seeing a change in the industry where reshoring has become a primary driver of automation. Have you seen a change in the perception on replacing factory jobs or is that something that’s still quite relevant today?

IM: I mean, with that mindset, it’s not as much about replacing factory jobs as much as creating opportunities. You see here, brownfield factories that were shut down, being lit back up, you see new factories being built where the work would have previously been done elsewhere in the world. And we’re creating new opportunities for using automation, bringing in high tech people, bringing in the youth of today who are going through for robotics and automation programs. So, there’s a lot of that. And we have some key technology drivers in the world today that are kind of bringing that about. There’s definitely some big changes going on there.

SD: I really like what you said there about lighting back up brownfield factories. You know, I think as suppliers of technology, as people who are involved in the manufacturing industry and a primary driver of the ability to reshore operations back to our local markets, I’m not sure that there’s something that’s more rewarding than seeing that factory light back up. And we are seeing a lot of that these days.

IM: Well, now that you say that I was actually visiting some customer sites down in Michigan last week. And I’ve been there a number of times over the years. And I can say the number of older factories that are getting renovated, rebuilt, new factories being built in place of old ones, you can really see the face of the Detroit area changing right now. There’s a lot going on there. And you look back ten years ago and it was a bit of a different story. And you look at what’s happening. It is that higher tech industry that’s coming back and bringing in the boom in the area. It is pretty exciting when you think about it.

SD: I think there’s probably no better way to debunk that myth that automation isn’t replacing factory jobs, it’s driving higher value jobs. It’s driving jobs where there currently are not. And what a great example the Detroit area is right now.

SD: Well, something else that we hear very often as people involved in the industrial automation world is it’s too expensive for me to implement.

IM: There is definitely an investment up front, and you have to be serious about it. I don’t want to understate that. It’s a trivial undertaking. But I’ve done lots of these over the years. A part of one of my roles here in the past, I used to be involved in some of our pre-automation consulting business, and we do a lot of return on investment analysis. And you’d be surprised how much things cost you over time when you look at the cost of people, the cost of defects associated with, what inevitably happens with people, right? We’re prone to error over time, especially when we’re doing things that don’t typically engage us or stimulate us. That’s when people tend to make mistakes. So when you start to add up all of those other sort of costs of the way you currently do business, and then you look at the potential savings that you can get when you go to automation, it may not be apparent right away, but when you do that, you’ll actually see that the ROI is there. And then today I think that whole scenario is really magnified by the current job markets. I mean, across North America the unemployment rates are at all-time lows. Looking for skilled workforces is challenging. People are moving from one company to the next for small amounts of money in different or small differences in pay, just even to shore up the shortage in the workforce. Automation really starts to add it’s value because with the growth in the market, I’m going to pick on the EV industry as an example right now because it’s fairly relevant to us. We couldn’t get there with people. There’s just not enough people in the industry or in the job markets right now to be able to hire, bring on and keep up with the pace of growth that we’re seeing in that industry. So automation is really fundamental to success to that foundational change to our infrastructure within the automotive sector. Automation is really enabling it and without that we wouldn’t be able to do it.

SD: I think that’s a great approach to, that too expensive to implement as well. You know, again, fortunate to have lots of conversations at trade shows or industry roundtables and I’ve heard somebody say that automation used to be a nice to have, but now it’s needed for survival. And I think you touched on the reason why, you know, the labor market has changed significantly. Types of jobs, availability of people, capacities and capabilities that are required for products that are getting more complicated and more accurate and more complex. It’s not so much that the approach of a decade ago where maybe automation was nice to have and there were alternates, it’s not so much the case anymore in a variety of applications. It really is needed to drive the industry or the business forward. Like the EV example you just gave.

IM: Yeah, and you look at other reasons out there. If you think about, everybody loves their Amazon, right? If you think about Amazon, I wouldn’t get my Prime next day shipping if it wasn’t for the automation that they have in their warehouses. The customers want it. People drive the demand for things. They want it now. That’s where to really satisfy the people who are paying for things, automation is the answer. If you didn’t do that, if you think about the cost to the lost opportunity cost, so to speak, if you didn’t do it, where would Amazon be today as an example.

SD:  And I think as suppliers of automation, we’ve been so preconditioned, it has to have an ROI, it has to have an ROI, and in some of the other episodes of the podcast, we’ve talked about how to drive that ROI, specific pieces and steps to put that together. But I think when we’re talking about the myth that automation is too expensive, I think where that myth comes from is we’re not looking at the total cost of what not having automation gives and whether that’s opportunity cost, whether that’s challenge with people, whether that’s quality. Is that a fair view?

IM: I think so. And I think that those other factors which are obviously not as direct to put a number on is where it can fall down. If you don’t really extrapolate and think about what that is like, opportunity cost is key. How do you really put a number on that? If you don’t, then you’re really not doing a fair assessment.

SD: It’s great, it’s related, but not the same. Something else I think you probably hear very frequently as well is that automation isn’t scalable. What would you say to somebody who phrased that to you?

IM: I think there’s two ways that I can take that, I suppose. But, I’d say fundamentally, I think in some regards, if you really want to scale, you need the automation to do it. And the example I used before within the EV industry is that that segment there. And I think the numbers here, I could be wrong, but my understanding, my recollection is there’s about 40% growth in the EV market year over year. And the amount of automation or production volume that needs to support that growth. Right now, there’s actually not really enough automation capacity out there to accommodate what’s eventually going to be needed. So you think about that. Even with automation, we might not be able to keep up with that level of growth. Well, how do we think we’re going to do that without automation, with just people producing these things when we also know that the job market is hot and there’s not the available workers out there when you’re really looking to scale your business I mean, automation is important to do it. But I don’t want to understate the fact that you do need to understand where you’re going when you’re scaling. There are challenges. Scalability and flexibility are two different things going forward with an automation solution without I’d say a somewhat stable platform or product can be challenging. It’s not impossible, but you have to be smart about how you do it. And there are right times to implement automation and then there’s times where it’s better to maybe take some other approaches, even lean automation versus full. And that really depends on where you are in your scaling journey and the level of product maturity, I would say that you have.

SD: I like the two paths that you took around that myth because you’re right, it isn’t. If the myth is that it isn’t scalable, there’s two perceptions or two ways you can internalize the word scalable. The first is can I kind of copy and paste it to do more? And I think as people in the industry, we know with absolute certainty. Yes. You know, multiple factories, multiple approaches around the world where you can take a lean cell and you can copy it or you can start to pull automation and technology together as your volumes indicate. And kind of the primary driver of automation is usually volume and production volume.

IM: Yeah. I mean, we’ve gotten really good at being able to even within simple cell scale, scale our approach. So that way within a simple, simple machine, we can start it off at one cell along the line. And we reserve space for growth in the future because we know that customer wants to say start with 2000, you know, parts per hour, but they want to be able to scale to 10,000 parts per hour in the future. Right? We can design that in and build that flexibility in early on and then it becomes a really easy scaling journey. And then you can take that whole thing and then, like you said, multiply it across different factories, different sites and that’s, yeah, that’s proven.

SD: I think both approaches, because the second approach is that flexibility and adaptability, it is part of the design specification from the beginning. If you’re clever about how you approach it, if you take the foundational technologies that now are fairly broadly available in the market, that offer that adaptability and offer that flexibility as products change or as we add automation to drive more scale, you really can achieve both paths of that scalability answer.

IM: Yeah. I think so. Whenever you get into that the product flexibility, that’s always something you just have to be mindful of once you start scaling and you have an immature product, the cost of change becomes greater, right? So that’s where through that equation, generally people will help and work with our customers and figure out what is the right solution for where they are and where they are on their journey to scaling.

SD: So, as a listener to the podcast, I think that’s a great thing. You know, there’s this math, automation is it scalable? You know, once I’ve automated it, my flexibility goes away or it’s not that easy to copy and paste. I think we both know the copy and paste part is easy. Where would you tell them to start if they know that their product is changing?

IM: The key there is looking at modularity, is trying to figure out how to design your automation process and also your product to allow for a modular design process. So that way, if you have one part of the product that needs to change in their automation to potentially change as a result, it doesn’t impact everything else in the line. And it starts with the product design. The more you can think for design, for assembly to help you with that is important. We try to get involved with our customers as early as we can in the process where there’s still opportunity to implement changes in design for assembly, which kind of does two things. One, that makes the automation simpler in the first place. But it also allows us to kind of keep those sort of modular elements of the way the product design works related to how it’s going to be automated. So that way, again, down the road, we don’t have to have this. I’m going to use the example, one big monstrous machine, which is kind of like the everything under the sun utility knife where we can break it out into these separate systems that are much more easy to maintain, update and keep relevant to your product design.

SD: And this touches on a real passion area for me. I think one of the things that I’m most excited about, about both the current state of the automation world and I think the next decade is the development of platforms that enable modularity, modularization or a modular approach because of that challenge that the marketplace sees. We’ll just keep coming back to the EV example since it’s top of mind. 40% growth. 40% growth drives a lot of change. You need a lot of flexibility. And I think the technology providers have heard that problem and really started to approach it in an approachable way or an accessible way for the manufacturers so that they can drive that flexibility and I think we’re going to see more change in that area as providers moving forward.

IM: I mean, if you look historically, kind of at a more mature industry, like very mature industries in the automation sector, you can see that it really goes towards that over time. I think an example of the semiconductor industry is a pretty good example of that where, now those elements are all very modularized, which are going to a semiconductor fab and it’s last boutique automation where it once was.

SD: Yeah, that’s another really good example. This is also a really good segue, I think, into the next myth that it’s not quite the same as the others, but you hear oftentimes, we’re too small to automate. Automation is meant for large organizations. Do you think that’s still true today?

IM: I’m going to say no. I think that you have to have capability to run automation. So, again, that’s not necessarily about scale, but maybe capability. If you are a five person organization, you could have automation there, but you have to have the right type of people. You could conversely be a behemoth organization and not have the right type of people there. So to put in automation, I think it’s more about the type of people and the organization that you have behind the amount of automation you have. It sounds maybe simplified, but you can’t have a bunch of people who have never seen automation before expected to design or specify, implement, maintain automation indefinitely, right? But if you bring in, for a small company for example, one person who’s got background in robotics and automation after a line gets set up and tuned and installed, absolutely that’s sustainable. That’s doable. We’ve seen it all the time.

SD:  And it’s interesting that you’ve seen it. And I would say my perspective on that, again, background in more innovative technologies coming to market, big change over the last I would say decade on the approachability of technology and I think the understanding of what automation means. I would say early in, at least in my career, automation often meant we want to go lights out, you’d have a costumer or you’d have a partner come in and say, we want to automate everything. And while that’s a great goal and there are lots of companies in the world that do that, it’s probably more the exception than the rule. And now we’re seeing a lot more technologies that work hand in hand with people. The definition of automation has absolutely changed.

IM: It’s so much more accessible now, right? Like you look at the scale where you are, where you’re interested, right? It can be something as simple as one robot on a conveyor line doing something that a person was doing that was a repetitive strain injury type of a job. And that doesn’t require a lot of scale or complexity, but it’s easily implemented and maintained at that level. And it’s not this sort of far out there, high technology. I mean, it is high technology, but it’s not it’s doable by most organizations now, right. It’s taught like you go to schools, you go to any college, robotics and automation is a very common program. There’s a lot of people out there who know this kind of stuff.

SD: And I know we’re biased, but I would say they learn that for good reason.

IM: That’s right. Yes, right.

SD: And I think it kind of circles back to one of the things that we were talking about earlier in our chat today. And it’s that people, companies, operators, they’re looking for ways to drive incremental value in their workforce whereas ten years ago, automation meant almost hands off. Nobody touches the automation cell but we need to know how to fix it, have it breaks. Now, we work hand in hand with the technology and it might be 10% faster or 20% faster, 50% faster, but it’s become more of a joint tool and an integrated part of the process then I think historically it has been.

IM: I know what you mean and this circles back a little bit to the replacement of factory jobs topic. But no, I think you’re right. There’s a lot more opportunity to go on a continuous improvement journey from where you are with a manual station,  manual process today and move into automation. Whereas before, I think it was a bigger leap to move into automation and that’s where maybe the perception was much more there about losing jobs. But now, like you say, you can take small, small leaps into it. There’s, all kinds of kits. I mean, heck, my kid has robotic kits and they’re doing programing now, so it’s just that much more available. And when I look, I think about this all the time, most people, I wouldn’t say most people in general but most people I know, you know, if we’re doing something, we often look for an easier way to do our job. Right? That sort of I think there’s something human about that. Right? No one likes doing something the hard way as we’re looking for things, we inherently are trying to find an easier way. And we know that’s how lean is very successful.  What if I bring my parts over here? This way so that it presents the parts to me and I don’t have to go walking around for them. That’s people looking for easier ways to do it. And now with this, all people are going to the point. Well, you know, maybe if I have a robot that does this little step right and they can take that sort of micro leap into automation, versus saying, I’m going to turn my factory into lights out. That’s kind of cool. How it’s much more accessible today.

SD: Yeah, I agree. And like I said, it’s sort of one of the things that excites me the most about not only the next ten years, but even today, where the accessibility has really changed in the last few years. And I think it’s only going to get better. And again, kind of related but not the same to the next myth that we hear a lot and this is probably the last one we’ll talk about today, but it’s that automation won’t work with a legacy factory or in my current process.

IM: There’s definitely  always challenges. And it’s change management, to be honest. You have to be able to look at what the opportunity is. I mean, I say you absolutely can. We’ve proven it. We do it all the time where we’ve gone in and we’ve updated processes with automation, but it’s not without its challenges. So you have to be cognizant of what the product design is. If something is done without automation, oftentimes it’s designed in such a way that it’s meant for manual assembly or processing. And sometimes those things are hard or challenging to automate. And maybe you shouldn’t be. So you have to be willing to entertain design changes for one, depending on  what you’re looking at and you have to be willing to invest in some of the research areas on how you can replicate your manual processes. One thing we often get into is doing small proofs of principle with some of these types of clients who are looking to change out something that they currently do, and this gives us a pretty good way where we can go study what they’re doing. We’ll come up with concepts and proposal. We can do small scale studies and demonstrations of here’s how it might work. And again, from a cost perspective, you’re not all in and your operations are still ongoing and then you can really understand what the benefit is and the ROI, and then you can choose to make that investment once you know. I mean, I think the answer is you absolutely can, but like anything else, you really have to look at and it goes back to the conversation we had earlier, but it’s the too expensive to implement. You know, what’s the opportunity cost of not doing it to a degree. You have to think about those things. So, I mean, anything’s possible. We put people on the moon.

SD: And what a great way. So I was just about to say the same thing is, you know, we’re  talking through the myths and a lot of them are inter-related for sure. But I think it’s the idea that anything can be done if there is a desire to do that. And the technology advancements over the last few years are really enabling manufacturers, enabling providers in ways that historically we couldn’t. And so like as much as we could put a man on the moon, the moon is becoming more accessible to, the operator of today. And I really, truly believe that. So these myths are really as much as they’re related, the solution to all of them is related as well.

IM: I mean, you know, to your point about like the technology, with the robots and collaborative technologies that are coming about today, it really even closes that gap further. Those are things where when we talk about trying to replicate manual processes, it really is that sort of small scale step where you don’t necessarily have to change everything to go from where you are today to some level of automation.

SD: And I think that’s such a great way to approach that. It can’t work with my process, it’s so old or that it’s not the same as it would have been ten years ago. Collaborative robotics. Major advancements in inspection, equipment and vision allow for, I would say, the augmentation of manual processes to make them significantly more efficient with a relatively low level of automation.

IM: Absolutely. Some of the technology out there today, it’s just it’s super cool.

SD:  And I think you gave our listeners such a great way to get started, too. When it comes to any of these myths that we’re largely debunking today, try it, you know, do proof of principle. There’s not a lot of expense behind trying a key part of your process or a key part of the assembly of something. When you’re working with the right partner, when you find a piece of foundational technology that you want to try, there’s great partners out in the world, find them, try it, learn and then move forward from there. Because I think you’ll find that you can debunk almost any myth that exists in automation today.

IM: Yeah, no I agree.

SD: Ian, I think what a great way to finish our chat today and hopefully our listeners appreciated your input on the topic of debunking automation myths and I appreciate everybody joining us for our monthly installment of Enabling Automation.

SD: I’ll be your host of the podcast. My name is Simon Drexler. I’ve been in the automation industry for approximately 15 years in a variety of roles, ranging from application engineering to business leadership. As well as serving several different industries and phases of the automation lifecycle.

SD: My guest today is Frank Schmidt from PA Solutions. And Frank, would you take a moment to introduce yourself to our listeners?

FS: Thank you, Simon. Frank Schmidt, as you said, responsible for the Process Optimization Business Unit within PA Solutions, where we try to help our customers improve their processes, usually to an efficiency OEE and all around that KPIs. I’ve been with PA for two years of having a background in discrete industry and have more than 20 years experience related to manufacturing, including industrial engineering, production management, side management and I have had the chance to build up several plants myself before PA Solutions. And now I’m doing consulting work now as I said, helping customers to improve their processes.

SD: That’s fantastic, Frank, and we’re just so fortunate to have someone like you on the initial episode of our podcast to talk about how to enable and how to get started on the automation journey. It can be daunting for some and the experience that you have both in your professional career as well as being a business leader inside of PA Solutions, which is responsible for enabling it and coaching people and teams through maximizing their investment in automation is just such a perfect fit for this topic. And so why don’t we dive right in?

SD: You know, you’ve got a lot of background. You’re dealing with a number of different customers worldwide. Why is now the time to automate?

FS: We currently live in a world of disruptions, so I see many supply chains disruptions, which is bringing companies back to where they originally started. They need to set up a different footprint, maybe in some cases they need to bring formerly relocated production footprint back to where they originally started to be able to have material available. And we see that those customers, they are kind of desperately looking to improve their cost position overall. Most are looking to understand A) could we somehow automate and B) if yes, where would it make sense to start from?

SD: And you mentioned an interesting word in disruption. And certainly, over the last couple of years there has been a disruption and a major change with a global pandemic, which has, I believe, forced a number of people to reevaluate their global footprint and how their products come together and come to market. I know that is the primary one, but are you seeing sort of secondary drivers and secondary reasons for that disruption where we’ve got more people looking for automation than ever before?

FS: And I think that the secondary triggers and maybe also some primary ones, it’s gaining efficiency. And I think that maybe the pandemic is kind of the trigger for “we need to have a look at our processes” that we maybe did not have for the last several years and we need to start to do that. And maybe this is number one and what we also see is that the population in some companies is aging a lot. And we also get requests from customers who say “yes, we have some trouble with finding people, finding new talent”. And we would like to get independent from this one and to set up an automated process to be more flexible and robust in the end, in the process.

SD:  And in my role, I hear that a lot as well. It’s the accessibility of talent. And you touched on a couple of different reasons, you know, changing in population dynamics as well as potentially an aging workforce in different areas around the world. So certainly, a primary driver is the need to find a different way. Inside of that you know, there’s a number of companies and approaches to try to make technology more accessible to these applications. Is that something that that you’ve seen in your experience dealing with customers as well, where it’s getting more straightforward to apply technology to these gaps in our processes?

FS: I think that technologies have improved a lot. So, number one of course is the digital sanctions that the data availability, as you would say, has much improved during the last few years to make data available almost everywhere at any time. I think this is number one. And if you would like to improve and maybe to start automation, you need to have the data to understand what is going to happen, what is happening in your process. So, I think this is a trademark. And then also with that, let’s say, for example, in robotics, we see many topics where also in the next level, maybe in the technology that is available somehow and that makes it easier to substitute human beings in the end and to do that and implement the technology.

SD: You touched on another thing that I’m quite passionate about, which is, you know, that fundamental and underlying data in the process and I completely agree with you that one of the things that has become more accessible in the implementation of technology is the amount of information that we are able to pull from our processes and what I’ve seen as a major trend is being able to utilize that data to justify the return on investment. So not only is it a continuity implementation of technology where, you know, maybe accessibility of talent or wanting to improve the efficiency of supply chain, as you’ve already mentioned, but also that we’re getting much better at justifying the investment in technology because we better understand our processes. Is that something that you’ve seen as well?

FS: Mm hmm. I think in the end, there are still a few triggers to do technology, automation or not. And one of the most important ones is, is there a business case in the end? And let’s end with number one, having more data available. You can calculate maybe better than in the past what the outcome of the business case will be. And number two, all the simulation tools that are around can also help to justify if automation in the end is going to work how you would like to see it, right?

SD: Absolutely. And PA Solutions does provide that coaching and consulting of both lean process evaluation and application of automation technology on top of those assessments. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about a common outcome of those types of assessments and the data that you provide?

FS: Maybe, yes, of course. And maybe I start a little earlier in the process. So usually, I find often customers come and say, hey, we have a feeling that we could do something, but we do not know exactly where and how to start. And then if in the end this would be off. And then we can go in with, as you said, the kind of assessment where we start to display a process in a registry mapping. And because with this use the process is clear, everybody can talk to it, everybody can understand it, and everybody usually has remarks where the weak points are. And then we can bring in lean experts, we can bring in digitalization experts, and we can bring in the automation experts. And this is, in the end, very good and very important, because if there are some gaps in efficiency detected or shown, then we can quite easily develop ideas and solutions with our experts that fit to close the gap or to improve the situation. And so that I can say the triangle of the offering of PA is really addressing the need. So, to find the gap, to understand the process, the digitalization, to get the data and then the automation positively, to improve the situation. And then in between, of course, we do a business case. I’m starting to calculate if the investment is worth doing it and the result we receive is like expected in the end.

SD: You touched on another topic in that response that I think nicely ties together a few things that we’ve mentioned already. You know, there’s disruption in the way that business has been done, at least in the recent history, that has companies seeking more effective ways to drive efficiency in their processes. You and I mentioned data. I know we’re both passionate about it and the accessibility of data, but we didn’t talk about simulation, and you just mentioned it there. And with the advances in computer software, ease of implementation, one of the trends that I’ve seen is that simulation is becoming more accessible, which allows that visualization and better understanding of data, better understanding of processes. Are you seeing that as a major catalyst for the investigation of technology and the implementation of automation?

FS: To be honest, yes and no. Number one, yes, because usually with simulation, depending on how it’s done, you can visualize a future state of a process. This usually helps to get and to give decision makers an idea of how the process could or would look like or if they make a change. So for me, this is a wonderful tool to support the transmission of the message on our future state of what it looks like. So this is number one where I believe the simulation is really helpful. And then sometimes it’s used, unfortunately, maybe as a kind of a selling point still a little bit.

FS: On the other hand, I see more and more companies that really would like to understand if in the end, in the process, how it’s designed and set up, if there are still bottlenecks, some possible problems. So really making a technical justification if this is going to work in the end. I still see it could be improved and the number of companies using that and what we currently see and also having one or the other nice project is doing really digital trends. So, this is an interesting topic where companies would like to understand it in a virtual room, how a process behaves, and where we can do some, I don’t know, influences and simulation. And where would work on the process somehow and see how it would behave and what the outcome would be.

SD: Interesting and in the scope of today’s discussion around you know why now is the time to automate. Digital Twin is an interesting topic as well to me because it’s being utilized as a means to either reduce the risk or reduce the implementation time of technology into the process. Are you seeing that improve throughout the analyses that you’re doing and the customers that you’re working with in the use of Digital Twin.

FS: So right now we have only a few customers using the Digital Twin and I would say most the important factor is really reducing risk. In one case a customer is rebuilding an old system to training on it and then to really get a smooth start up again. And in a in another case, we are talking about a British water system where the customer would like to understand and simulate if a quantity of the pipe would be blocked or if one of the other pipes running, what possible deviations would look like or how record would instruct operators on what to do next. So, this is more topics that we see in the context of time to market for example or time to set up a system.

SD: Understood. So continuing on that path, you know there are new technologies coming available. There are things and tools that make the accessibility of technology more straightforward. Are you seeing automation technology applied to applications or projects where historically that hasn’t been the case because of the disruption we started with?

FS: Yes, we are seeing more and more customers that are asking for our operations assessment tool to gain efficiency who are asking us to look for potential automation pieces where we could implement this. And so I see that not only in industries but also customers who are used to or who are not used to automation. They start thinking about it and maybe explicitly that it should be on the table and on the screen to understand if they could gain efficiency from this one.

SD: I really like the fact that you keep coming back to efficiency and utilizing technology to drive efficiency. And one of the things inside of the business that I that I’m a part of, we talk about frequently, is that technology is now being applied not to be the perfect solution, but one that will drive some level of efficiency for the manual workforce. Because if we are able to take even 10% of what has been historically manual and allow technology to drive that, then we can take 10% of our very valuable labor force and apply them to another part of the business. Is that something that you’re seeing? And in the assessments that PA Solutions complete?

FS: Yeah. Yeah. And yet maybe coming back a little bit on this efficiency topic, my deep understanding about it is that if you start to talk about automation, you need to find the pain point that the customer is having. And if you talk to internal operations about what is it about in the end? It’s usually about quality. It’s about, let’s say, delivery, so output or delivery time or it’s really about the cost in the end efficiency. And so usually one of those pain points is triggering companies to ask for help. And of course, in the end, we’ve also had scenarios where a customer came and said, well, we are on a growth path. We have an experienced workforce right now. We see that customer demand is really, really increasing. And yeah, we could either hire manpower over manpower or we can use the experienced manpower that we have and try to go to the next step with automation and keep the manpower on board and extend our capabilities for delivery. So this is something that we see also with our customers.

SD: I’m happy that you’re seeing that trend as well. And to phrase that or frame that a little bit differently, you know, what we’re seeing is trying to apply our manual workforce to the highest value applications possible and utilize technology, again, even if it’s not the perfect solution, but utilize that to do the low value tasks. And it sounds like you’re seeing that as well.

FS: Yes. And then let’s say if you have customers who are into that, do you have any examples or experience in mind of how they are doing this? Because for me if you start optimizing something that is maybe done manually before, the are a lot of potential hiccups and you can run in. So, a grip of the robot is something different than the hand of a human operator, right? And you can maybe react to a smaller reaction with a human being that is maybe not so obvious in the beginning with an automated system or a robot. Or do you see stories like this and how do you cope with that?

SD: And that’s a great example. And I often use collaborative robots as the primary example of where you might not be applying the ideal solution, but you are applying something that is easily accessible, reasonably straightforward to apply an ROI to, and you start to break out your process into what the collaborative robot is able to do. And even if that’s 10, 20, 30% of the process, even if they’re slightly less efficient than the manual operator in the opportunity benefit, I would say it’s almost the opposite of opportunity cost, the opportunity benefit of being able to take that operator’s time and apply it to some other part of the business to support the growing demand and/or the growing complexity of the product or the implementation of some new process or new part of the organization is what generally justifies the implementation of that piece of technology. And so we work with our customers in a similar way to you to analyze the process, understand where the major phases are, understand where the major validation points are to be able to really hone in on where can we get started. How do we get moving with automation or technology.

FS: I have another question for you in this context.

SD: Absolutely.

FS: So if you work with customers, do you have cases where they ask you to improve an existing system and do you then do you sometimes find out that the availability of the system is good, but the logistics, for example, around this is the issue. Do you also have some section kind of topics?

SD: We actually see that quite frequently. And I think it’s some of those major trends that you spoke of right at the beginning of the call. The disruption of supply chain, the disruption of the availability of workforce has companies seeking new ways. And we all have limited footprint, especially inside of facilities so we have a lot of customers, partners that come to us and say, how do we get more parts that have less space, essentially? And that has us really diving into the processes that exist.  Are there ways to more effectively move parts around? Are there ways to improve or optimize the availability of individual process stations or individual steps along the journey in order to start to drive more efficiency with the ultimate goal of more parts out of less space.

FS: That sounds interesting because what we always tell customers is if you have a manually done process which is bad and you just optimize this, you will have an automized process which is still bad, right? So you should have a look inside before you just add a robot to see if you can get the problems out before getting it to the next technology level.

SD: I’m fortunate to sit on a number of different boards and do a fair bit of speaking, and it comes up very often. You know what happens when you apply technology to a bad process? You basically just get a faster, more efficient, bad process. And so that is definitely something that we would encourage our listeners to avoid. And we will have a podcast actually dedicated to that topic of how to get started in the automation journey.

SD: So Frank, to wrap up our topic for today and coming back to why is now the time to automate, what would be the one side or the closing thought that you would leave our listeners with?

FS: So why is now the time to automate? I believe circumstances are triggering us to think about the processes, how we did it in the past. So starting with the pandemic, with the disruptions in the supply chains and everything, this is only number one. And number two is that, for example, for talents, the aging of the population, not finding the right people, this is also a trigger. I think it’s a good time to start now because the availability of technology is, know-how wise really good and has improved over the last few years. And to bring it into context with the processes you are having, the digitalization is also scaling up and supporting the idea of bringing in more technology and automation into processes. So, all together, from my point of view it is really a good time actually. It is a good time to start now and to think about it now and to get into it.

SD: What a fantastic way to summarize our topic in our talk today, Frank. Thank you so much for both your time and lending your expertise and thoughts to our listeners. Really appreciate you joining us today in our podcast for Enabling Automation. And to those listening, the next topic that we’re going to talk about in our podcast is starting to debunk some of the myths that are associated with the implementation of technology and some of the things that Frank just summarized is things are changing, technology is rapidly innovating, and that’s changing the way that we implement technology in the world. So we’ll debunk some of the myths that still existed in the world today as we continue on our journey of enabling our listeners to implement technology and automation in their processes.