🦾 Automation Freaks Unite

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Topics of the Day

• Would you like fries with that?

• What the hell is the International Federation of Robotics?

• Shocking, the automation business is growing!

• Tech of the Day: PANDAs

Funny Automation Video

Would you like fries with that?

Miso Robotics ring a bell?  If not you need to look them up.  They're working on making robots fast food friendly.  White Castle, Jack In The Box, and Buffalo Wild Wings are early adopters using Miso's bots to fry food and pour drinks.  I even love the name of their bots, Flippy and Sippy.  Doesn't get much more straightforward in my opinion, and mine is the one that matters here.

So think about this.  Robotics in fast food has been SLOWLY evolving and there needs to be a major shift in how these fast food companies look at their stores and employment models.  If Miso can pull this off and offer a low cost, reliable automated system, it could be a game changer for the entire fast food business. 

Short staffed? not anymore.

Dirty kitchens? nope.

Kitchen size? cut in half. 

Finally I'll be able to get that perfect cheeseburger and not something that looks like it got hit by a bus on the interstate.

International Federation of Robotics

Never heard of them?  Not surprising, most people in our business haven't.  The name implies this is a big deal, INTERNATIONAL....FEDERATION.  Holy crap this has to be a big deal.  This must be the brain trust of all that is robotics!

Nope..Basically it's a group of of about 10 or so people working for a nonprofit out of Germany that gather data on robotics and publish reports and articles.  They've been around since about 1970 and they claim to have about 80 members.  They have some logos on their website if you want to check them out.  Looks like they put on a conference for their members to help pay the bills.  

They do put out some interesting reports like the Service Robots Reports that you can check out HERE and the World Robotics Report that you can read HERE.  Interesting finds.  

In checking out the World Robotics Report I saw that China is absolutely dominating the world when it comes to robot installations, somewhere around HALF of all robots installed were installed in China.  Come on US of A lets pony up the big bucks and fire up the robots!  

Tech of the Day

PANDA, not the lazy fluffy bears chewing on bamboo..Print AND Apply

If you haven't been in a warehouse lately it'd be ok for you to not know what this tech is but let's get you up to speed.  PANDA is the common name for a print and apply system. Took me years to finally understand why it was called PANDA.  The P from print, all of AND, plus the A from apply = PANDA. 

A print and apply system has the job of printing labels and applying them to boxes as they move down a segment of conveyor.  Some of these systems all do inserting as well so they can print a document and drop it into a box. These systems can be pretty basic just printing off a shipping label and using a little bit of pressure to push the label on the box or they can get complex with multiple printers, multiple labels, working on different sides of the boxes. These systems exist because at one point some poor soul had thousands of papercuts from printing and applying labels by hand onto boxes.    

Most PANDAs are connected to your software since you'll need to push the shipping information or the information to be printed.  

Two companies with a good reputation are Streamtech Engineering and Fox IV.  

Self serving Plug of the Day

Todays newsletter has been paid for with used cooking oil provided by Cardinal Parts & Equipment. Check out their incredibly tough and creepy looking shotblasting machines at www.cardinalpe.com

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Who would have guessed robotics and automation is growing?

So. Why is anyone surprised by the growth of the automation space?  Even before the VID came through automation was growing at a steady clip.  Some established companies in the space growing at 20-30% per year.  The last few years just put the space into overdrive yet I'm seeing reports making it big news that the space will grow an estimated 8% per year.  Does anyone realize that the North American and Chinese markets is/are the most under saturated automation spaces on the planet?  Japan and Germany have been at it since my dad was in diapers but here in the US we've taken our sweet time bringing in automation to take over jobs supplement our workforce. 

If you want to check out one of the reports I read here's the LINK

  We are entering the Automation Age. Companies need automation to survive due to lack of labor and pressure from global competitors.  These companies and those that make automation need a HUGE workforce to ideate, develop, design, manufacture, apply, and support all this automation.  I'll bet that one day referring to the Big 3 will not be in reference to the car companies, instead it'll be in reference to the 3 largest robot producers in the world.  They'll become the giants of industry...

Thanks for reading but get back to work! 

If you want to help us pay the bills check out our directory of robotics and automation companies. 

https://www.automationjunkie.com/

Have feedback?  Not sure that I'm looking for it.  If you have something constructive you can  catch me on Twitter.  @robotsrcoming

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