When Rob Cain replaced John Dulchinos as CEO of Adept Technology in February, 2013 he was charged with restructuring the company to either make it profitable to operate or make it valuable as a take-over. The latter happened today when Japanese OMRON announced plans to acquire Adept for $200 million.

The $200M all cash offer represents a 63% premium over the Adept market capitalization the day before the announcement.

Following the transaction, Rob Cain will continue to lead Adept but will report to the president of Omron Management Center of America, Inc., OMRON’s wholly owned United States subsidiary. An OMRON spokesman said of the transaction, “This acquisition is part of our strategy to enhance our automation technology and position us for long term growth. Robotics will elevate our offering of advanced automation.”

OMRON, a Kyoto-based global component manufacturer, integrator and provider of Delta, gantry and SCARA robots, as well as vision components and systems, employs over 39,000 people in 110 countries and has annual revenues of $7.3 billion, of which $2.7B was from their industrial automation business.

Adept on the other hand recently reported annual sales through June, 2015 of $54 million, as compared to $57.5M in 2014, $47M in 2013 and $66M in 2012. Adept is a US based manufacturer of industrial robots and mobile platforms.

On the news of the sale to OMRON, Adept’s stock rose to $12.93, a few pennies from the OMRON selling price of $13, and a 63% increase over yesterday’s closing price.

If you like this post, you may also enjoy:

• Adept Technologies: Ready to be acquired?
• Adept’s restructuring is paying off: earnings better and stock higher
• Management shakeup at Adept Technology

Industrial Robots; Robot Arms; Cameras, Scanners and Vision Systems; Collaborative Cage-free Robots; Mobile Robots; Robot Operating Systems; Warehousing and Materials Handling; New Technologies, and Jobs

There are fewer manufacturers of industrial robots than one might imagine: only a little more than 200 worldwide. Of these, fewer than 15 account for more than 60% of the industry’s revenue. Thus, at Automate 2013, held in freezing-cold Chicago, KUKA, Fanuc, Staubli, Motoman and ABB all had huge display areas showing their uniquely-colored robots (Kuka = orange; Fanuc = bright yellow; Staubli = white and light yellow; Motoman = blue and white; and ABB = red). These industrial arms are able to carry big loads as was demonstrated by this showy barbell-pressing Fanuc robot transporting two very heavy train wheels and their axle from place to place.

Fanuc robot bench pressing train wheels

In addition to displaying robots in their own booths, colorful robot arms could be seen in many other much smaller cubicles. Integrators, gripper makers, end-of-arm tool makers and vision system providers all showed their products and systems working on robot arms from one of the big robot arm makers, the largest of this group being Schunk and Leoni.

Note that all of the companies mentioned are either European or Asian; that’s where the industry is located even though all these companies have marketing and support offices in the U.S.

Cameras, Scanners and Vision Systems:

This year’s Automate seemed all about integrating vision capabilities into robotic tasks. Camera and vision integrator companies were showing the various applications enabled by such visual additions to robotic technology. These included tools for inspecting for errors; identifying surface defects and missing features; identifying the shape and position of objects; measuring components for sorting and classification purposes; and systems to quickly read and verify markings on parts and labels.

In many other booths, bin and conveyor picking was displayed. Some showed vision systems being integrated with robots and special grippers to look into a randomly organized containers or conveyors and pick out and grab a desired item in an efficient sequence. ABB’s PickVision is an example. Their video of a food-handling process [click the image at the right to see the video] demonstrates the system locating, stacking and packing pancakes. During his keynote address to the combined Automate and ProMat audience, Henrik Christensen noted that bin-picking didn’t exist 10 years ago and is now just one of many examples of how new cameras, lasers, sensors and software are augmenting robots to new heights and applications. The epitome of this was the smoothly-running Industrial Perception (IPI) robot choosing and grabbing randomly stacked boxes from the back of a truck and placing them on a conveyor or pallet. The 3D software and advanced spatial recognition algorithms integral to making the IPI robot work are continuing this progression of new developments breeding new applications.

IPI’s robot consists of their new tool designed to grab cases off a truck or shelf, their use of various vision and lighting systems to “see in 3D” [what’s out there], and their proprietary software to determine the dimensions and exact location of what’s there. It then decides which is the safest and most expeditious package to pick, and, using an industrial arm grabs and then swivels around to place the box or package on a pallet or conveyor. It all works quickly and smoothly and seems logical and conceptually easy. But IPI has made a significant breakthrough in putting it all together and making it work seamlessly. To see the device at work unloading random sized cases off of a truck – (as can be seen in the video above from an IEEE/Spectrum posting – is an ingenious achievement yet simple combination of vision, data analysis, a creative gripper and an industrial strength robot arm.

Collaborative Cage-free Robots:

Two robot makers, Rethink Robotics and Universal Robots, have focused on selling to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and both had big crowds of interested prospects. Baxter, Rethink Robotics‘ new $22,000 two-armed robot, had the biggest assemblage of interested people followed closely by 8-year old Universal Robots, the Danish company displaying their very polished and similarly capable $34,000 robot arm.

Both companies offer new methods of training their robots: Baxter is taught via a graphical interface and direct manipulation of its arms; Universal offers a hybrid of the clunky industry-standard teaching pendant and a simple teaching-style point and click programming environment.

Comparing features beyond training is a bit difficult because Universal sells their robots as single-arm devices; the two-armed version, although similar to Baxter in appearance, is just a trade show demo. In defense of a single arm low-cost robot, one German research institute found that 86% of tasks expected of a healthcare/service robot could be accomplished with a single arm and a flat surface.

Transitioning from Industrial to Service Robots:

In fact, Universal Robots’ two robots, UR5 and UR10 (5 kg and 10 kg respectively), are more comparable to the new and more expensive lightweight one-arm offerings from KUKA, Yaskawa Motoman and others that are making these new single- and dual-arm robots safe to work un-caged and alongside human workers. Rethink Robotics’ Baxter is in a category all its own for the present because of price and capability. There is no cheaper two-armed robot nor is there anything with similar or better capabilities and flexibility than Baxter offers (particularly down the road as they improve it). But competition is coming from creditable players – perhaps as soon as Automate 2014.

The major robot makers appear to be slow in transitioning into this next generation marketplace, perhaps because they are just barely keeping up with the current one which is expanding in double digits all over the world. This may be one explanation for Universal Robots low-cost-of-entry robot having so much success. Or perhaps because they aren’t ready to move into the lower-priced arena just yet. Major robot makers are transitioning from single task to multiple tasks, from single arm to dual arms, in large factories and auto plants. The next round of advances, whenever it happens, appears to be the merging of safety, mobility, vision, flexibility and dexterity that enable new collaborative cage-free robots to assist humans in various short-run tasks including assembly, transport, tending other machines, etc.

Robot Operating System (ROS) Industrial:

I noted a growing use of ROS and ROS-Industrial for the development and integration of add-on systems and equipment to existing robots amongst the exhibitors. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) showed their ROS-Industrial software and libraries and how its use is growing amongst robot manufacturers and integrators. Nearby, the of an integrator showed three robots (a Fanuc, Kuka and ABB) all working together – collaborating – on a packaging line. In the example they were all sharing a single control box – a remarkable software achievement. And Gumstix, the $100 computer on a chip, announced support for ROS — and introduced a bootable microSD card with ROS preloaded.

Mobile Platforms:

Another crowd pleaser was Adept and their new mobility platform, Lynx. Adept’s line of robots were shown on the recent CBS News 60 Minutes segment about robots and jobs and included an interview with Adept’s CEO John Dulchinos. Similar to the platform iRobot developed with InTouch Health, Adept’s Lynx doesn’t require floor or ceiling markings for it to safely guide itself from place to place. It uses natural feature navigation and is designed to work in existing, peopled environments such as warehouses, factories and offices. It has an innovative blue wheel on the side that communicates status and intent of the robot to surrounding people. Lynx can haul 130 pounds for up to 13 hours at up to 4 mph before needing a recharge. It can be programmed by voice prompts or through a tablet.

Warehousing and Materials Handling:

Across the hallway in the ProMat material handling show held in conjunction with Automate, the major vendors tended not to call their products robots; they referred to them as being automatic or autonomous material handling devices and systems. The booths for Dematic, Swisslog, Egemin, Raymond, Seegrid, Murata, Beumer, Elettric80 and Schaefer were as prominent in ProMat as the big gun robot makers were at Automate. Dematic‘s booth in particular had overhead screens – like at a basketball arena — as well as hundreds of feet of moving conveyers, elevators, bins and cases. Perhaps they needed to specially promote at ProMat in order to distinguish their products from Symbotic‘s very similar ones which debuted last year. Symbotic didn’t exhibit at either Automate or ProMat.

It’s All About Jobs and New Tech:

Henrik Christensen’s keynote address discussed his efforts in the halls of Congress and at the White House to convince lawmakers that automation and job growth were not mutually exclusive. “It’s about how to leverage and empower the workforce, not remove it,” he said. “Once we bring manufacturing here, we also have more control over jobs in the associated supply chain.” He went on to attack the recent CBS News 60 Minute segment which showed many robotic advancements but also implied that robots take jobs, as being “a piece of crappy journalism.”

In that same CBS 60-Minutes piece, one of the authors of a study about jobs and the future, said, “Even if offshore manufacturing returns to the U.S., most of the jobs will go to robots.” The International Federation of Robotics, in a press conference the day after Christensen’s talk, revealed the contents of a new study it had commissioned. That report indicated a number of trends: (1) the economy always picks up much faster than job growth; (2) for every job created in manufacturing, there are 1.3 jobs created in other areas because of it; and (3) that investments in technology lead to unemployment in the short term, but a much higher job comeback just 3-5 years out.

In addition the jobs issue and the fact that bin-picking wasn’t even possible a decade ago, Christensen suggested that within the next 10 years autonomous cars may be able to serve as driverless parcel carriers and that un-piloted drones may ship packages coast to coast.

He endorsed the concept currently being used by mobile robot company Aethon which provides a service to manually override their robots when the robot signals for help. Generalizing this service to others, Christensen suggested that robots could be serviced and directed by their manufacturer through the cloud as needed so that the customer wouldn’t have to be involved with robot maintenance.

All in all the buzz of both shows was that (1) there were more buyers and strong leads than last year and (2) that investment in capital purchases for new robots and warehousing systems, which had been put off for years because of the recession, was now back on and companies were reflecting that with their orders and comments.

On Sunday, January 13, CBS News 60 Minutes reported on robots. Their focal point was jobs and the changing nature of work. As a backdrop to their comments they showed Tessla Motors’ robots retooling themselves, Adept’s robots stuffing boxes with packaged lettuce and also assembling Braun shavers, watched ReThink Robots slowly pick and place an item, saw Aethon’s tugs in action in hospital corridors and had a brief glimpse of InTouch Health’s RP-VITA remote presence medical robot and a more descriptive view of the VGo Communications VGo robot at school and for home care. In the process the reporter, Steve Kroft, discussed a new definition of robots and robotics in sharp disagreement from the definitions posed by the International Federation of Robots:

Steve Kroft said, “The broad universal definition is a machine that can perform the job of a human. The machine can be mobile or stationary, hardware or software.”

This is different than the robotic industry’s most recent tentative definition of service robots which, in short, says the following:

A robot is an actuated mechanism programmable in two or more axes with a degree of autonomy, moving within its environment, to perform intended tasks. Autonomy in this context means the ability to perform intended tasks based on current state and sensing, without human intervention.

A robot has to have at least two degrees of freedom plus autonomy. A fully autonous car (2 degrees of freedom (DoF); steering and transmission) would qualify for a mobile robot as would 3D printers. But a washing machine (1 axis; 1 DoF), airline or other kiosk, or adaptive cruise control (all which could be considered as 1 DoF) would not fall under the category of robots. Thus Kroft artfully crafted his own definition to fit what he and his camera crews saw as “robotic.”

Regarding jobs and robots, Kroft relied on the comments of two MIT professors (Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee) who jointly wrote a book entitled “Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy” in which they attempt to answer:

• Why has median income stopped rising in the US?
• Why is the share of population that is working falling so rapidly?
• Why are our economy and society becoming more unequal?

A popular explanation is that the root cause underlying these symptoms is technological stagnation — a slowdown in the kinds of ideas and inventions that bring progress and prosperity. But the two authors suggest a very different explanation. They show that there’s been no stagnation in technology — in fact, the digital revolution is accelerating at an exponential rate. They say in the 60 Minutes interview:

Technology is always creating jobs. It’s always destroying jobs. But right now the pace is accelerating. It’s faster we think than ever before in history. So as a consequence, we are not creating jobs at the same pace that we need to.

The changes are coming so quickly it’s been difficult for workers to retrain themselves and for entrepreneurs to figure out where the next opportunities may be.

The catalyst is computer learning or artificial intelligence — the ability to feed massive amounts of data into supercomputers and program them to teach themselves and improve their performance. It’s how Apple was able to create Siri, the iPhone robot, and Google its self-driving car.

We now have robots gathering intelligence and fighting wars, and robot computers trading stocks on Wall Street.

It’s all part of a massive high tech industry that’s contributed enormous productivity and wealth to the American economy but surprisingly little in the way of employment. We absolutely are creating new jobs, new companies, and entirely new industries these days. The scale and the pace of creation is astonishing.

What these companies are not doing, though, is hiring a ton of people to help them with their work. Because they don’t need that many people to work in these incredibly large and influential companies. To make that concrete, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google are now all public companies. Combined, they have something close to $1 trillion in market capitalization. Together, the four of them employ fewer than 150,000 people, and that’s less than the number of new entrants into the American workforce every month and the number of employees that work for GE.

I’d love to open this up as a discussion because the IFR’s definition, still tentative as far as I know, doesn’t cover the growing marketplace of service robot-like devices that perform human tasks. CBS News 60 Minutes did this with their new definition and with their report.

The producers at CBS News 60 Minutes also provided additional web and video extras that you are sure to find of interest:

• The actual segment that appeared on TV
• The transcript of the segment
• The Robot Waltz: An Appreciation (a video of the robots that they photographed for the segment)
• An extended interview with John Dulchinos, CEO of Adept, about how technology is leveling the manufacturing playing field
• An extended interview with Rodney Brooks, CEO of ReThink Robotics, on the same subject

Robot manufacturers are beginning to shift their attention from industrial to service robots.

The robotics industry is on the cusp of a major transformation. Today’s factory robots are solitary precision instruments, mimicking the repertoire of capabilities of skilled craftsmen while repeating a handful of tasks thousands of times over. But future factory robots will likely have to be capable of thousands of tasks, performing each only several times, and they will work in collaboration with humans.

Furthermore, interest in nonindustrial robots is emerging at an even quicker pace, and new and larger marketplaces are opening up as never before. But that means some pretty significant shifts in design from caged robots to adjacent workers, from stationary position to portable motion, from programming intensive to easily trainable, and from connected to autonomous robots. Even as they work to improve upon their current industrial offerings, robotics companies are closely watching demand for co-robots, which are the safe, flexible, vision-enabled and easily trainable robotic assistants that science fiction movies made culturally popular.

Thus the reinvention of robotics is fundamentally a transition from industrial robotics to service robotics, and one that is demanding flexibility and versatility beyond what is presently available.

Facing the Major Technological Challenges:

The big industrial robot manufacturers are reinventing themselves in an effort to accommodate these changing realities. Companies such as Yaskawa Electric (Motoman), KUKA, Adept Technologies, and Bosch are fighting against technological challenges and against the clock to be relevant players in the robotics industry 2.0. However, companies face three major technological challenges that are impeding this shift and will require significant breakthroughs to propel the industry forward into the era of service robotics:

1. Grasping and manipulation in human-centered and open-ended environments
2. Learning through observation of human actions
3. Interaction and natural communication, including gestures and sounds

Examining the strategies and unique approaches of companies making this transition can lend insight into how manufacturers will overcome the technological challenges, position themselves among competitors, and bring new robots quickly to market.

Four Strategies for Transitioning from Industrial to Service and Co-Robotics:

• KUKA:

They’ve released a new lightweight and sensitive arm that can be affixed to a tabletop or workbench that is sensitive enough to safely work alongside humans. They also have plans to take their manufacturing and automation experience and enter new marketplaces, particularly entertainment (they have a ride robot), assembly and co-robotics (delta-type robots and lightweight arms working alongside humans), and healthcare and medical (cleanroom robots, lab robots).

Kuka has also developed an entirely different type of robot: the youBot.  It’s organized for the education and research marketplace and includes a mobile and also fixed 2-fingered 5 DOF plug and play robot arm selling for $31,000 and $21,000 respectively. youBots run the open source robotic operating system ROS prevalent in most major robotic learning centers and could be Kuka’s inroad to the co-robotic market.

• YASKAWA ELECTRIC (MOTOMAN):

Graphic from Yaskawa.co.jp website.

Yaskawa is developing a line of robotic products to fill the “Robotics Human Assist Business.” The SME marketplace is included in their plan as are new market areas where robotic devices augment and assist humans. Their plan covers workers, seniors, disabled people, and early adopters of other human-assist products.

On a recent visit to Tokyo, I met with Dr. Koji Tomita, Manager, Smart Robotics Center, Kazuo Miyazawa, General Manager, Smart Robotics Center and Shingo Ando, Manager, RT Control Technology Team (from left to right) and they showed me SmartPal V, a prototype for their next generation human assist robot.

Yaskawa is already marketing their two-armed Motoman multi-tasking robots and expects to begin introducing additional products and capabilities in 2015. They recently restructured their R&D by creating a new Smart Robotics Center (SRC) with the mission of accelerating R&D to enable human assist products and their 2015 target date.

• ADEPT:

Adept’s strategy is meshing proven business processes with new tech to form commercially ready solutions and involves (1) acquisitions to supplement and acquire capabilities it feels it needs for the future, and (2) aggressively marketing into new markets in food processing and materials handling.


One acquisition enabled Adept to add mobility to its line of products; another supplemented Adept’s food processing technology arsenal and offered a European base as well. Through it’s 2010 acquisition of MobileRobots, Adept now provides a mobile platform for a variety of purposes. One purpose is as a gofor in a hospital. They’ve teamed with Swisslog to ferry medicine from the dispensary to nurses stations and back again thereby enabling nurses to focus on patient care instead of getting things.

By acquiring InMoTx, a Danish provider of food-processing technology in 2011, Adept was able to add a portfolio of flexible gripping IP (intellectual property) for inspecting, sorting, grading and hygienically packaging unwrapped food products. Hygienically gripping irregularly shaped food products has emerged as one of the biggest constraints in automating food packaging. This acquisition expands Adept’s capabilities and supplements their goal of further capturing a share of the global food processing and handling market.

• BOSCH:

Many of the parts involved in Bosch’s manufacturing process are too small for present-day factory robots. So they have a two-pronged approach: learn, buy and partner from everyone and, if necessary, build their own robots. Their new home-built APAS robot is already being field tested in their factories for intricate handling and assembly work.

These four companies are each demonstrating the kinds of efforts required to make the transition successfully, but other companies are making moves that are noteworthy for this discussion:

• HEARTLAND ROBOTICS AND OTHER START-UPS:

• FOXCONN:

Foxconn assembly workers. Photo: Bobby Yip/Reuters/File

A version of this post originally appeared on Singularity Hub, June 6, 2012.

A version of this post originally appeared on Singularity Hub, June 6, 2012.

By Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher

Robot manufacturers are beginning to shift their attention from industrial to service robots.

The robotics industry is on the cusp of a major transformation. Today’s factory robots are solitary precision instruments, mimicking the repertoire of capabilities of skilled craftsmen while repeating a handful of tasks thousands of times over. But future factory robots will likely have to be capable of thousands of tasks, performing each only several times, and they will work in collaboration with humans.

Furthermore, interest in nonindustrial robots is emerging at an even quicker pace, and new and larger marketplaces are opening up as never before. But that means some pretty significant shifts in design from caged robots to adjacent workers, from stationary position to portable motion, from programming intensive to easily trainable, and from connected to autonomous robots. Even as they work to improve upon their current industrial offerings, robotics companies are closely watching demand for co-robots, which are the safe, flexible, vision-enabled and easily trainable robotic assistants that science fiction movies made culturally popular.

Thus the reinvention of robotics is fundamentally a transition from industrial robotics to service robotics, and one that is demanding flexibility and versatility beyond what is presently available.

Facing the Major Technological Challenges:

The big industrial robot manufacturers are reinventing themselves in an effort to accommodate these changing realities. Companies such as Yaskawa Electric (Motoman), KUKA, Adept Technologies, and Bosch are fighting against technological challenges and against the clock to be relevant players in the robotics industry 2.0. However, companies face three major technological challenges that are impeding this shift and will require significant breakthroughs to propel the industry forward into the era of service robotics:

1. Grasping and manipulation in human-centered and open-ended environments
2. Learning through observation of human actions
3. Interaction and natural communication, including gestures and sounds

Examining the strategies and unique approaches of companies making this transition can lend insight into how manufacturers will overcome the technological challenges, position themselves among competitors, and bring new robots quickly to market.

Four Strategies for Transitioning from Industrial to Service and Co-Robotics:

• KUKA:

• YASKAWA ELECTRIC (MOTOMAN):

Graphic from Yaskawa.co.jp website.

Yaskawa is developing a line of robotic products to fill the “Robotics Human Assist Business.” The SME marketplace is included in their plan as are new market areas where robotic devices augment and assist humans. Their plan covers workers, seniors, disabled people, and early adopters of other human-assist products.

On a recent visit to Tokyo, I met with Dr. Koji Tomita, Manager, Smart Robotics Center, Kazuo Miyazawa, General Manager, Smart Robotics Center and Shingo Ando, Manager, RT Control Technology Team (from left to right) and they showed me SmartPal V, a prototype for their next generation human assist robot.

Yaskawa is already marketing their two-armed Motoman multi-tasking robots and expects to begin introducing additional products and capabilities in 2015. They recently restructured their R&D by creating a new Smart Robotics Center (SRC) with the mission of accelerating R&D to enable human assist products and their 2015 target date.

• ADEPT:

Adept’s strategy is meshing proven business processes with new tech to form commercially ready solutions and involves (1) acquisitions to supplement and acquire capabilities it feels it needs for the future, and (2) aggressively marketing into new markets in food processing and materials handling.


One acquisition enabled Adept to add mobility to its line of products; another supplemented Adept’s food processing technology arsenal and offered a European base as well. Through it’s 2010 acquisition of MobileRobots, Adept now provides a mobile platform for a variety of purposes. One purpose is as a gofor in a hospital. They’ve teamed with Swisslog to ferry medicine from the dispensary to nurses stations and back again thereby enabling nurses to focus on patient care instead of getting things.

• BOSCH:

• HEARTLAND ROBOTICS AND OTHER START-UPS:

• FOXCONN:

Foxconn assembly workers. Photo: Bobby Yip/Reuters/File

The above video, by Erico Guizzo and Evan Ackerman of IEEE Spectrum, and shows Patrick Rowe, of RE2 (RE-squared), the firm hired by DARPA to build the standard platform for their ARM program, putting a completed unit through its paces at ICRA.

A small omni-roller suitable for use as one or more fingers of a robotic hand…

An autonomous robotic fish for detecting and finding the source of pollution…
http://youtu.be/z-XI9MrU1iM

MIT 6.141 Robotics Class Final Challenge for 2012…

Back to ICRA to watch an Adept mobile robot navigating the show floor…

Another Adept robot being used in research at Cornell…

And finally, Georgia Tech’s Travis doing a little dance…

In the emerging world of service robotics, many markets are opening to robotics that were once only handled by industrial robot manufacturers. Safely unmanned, or working alongside human workers, in a show focused on handling materials in the factory and also in the warehouse, Modex 2012, held in Atlanta (after 16 years in Cleveland), displayed the wares and solutions offered by 560 vendors and covered all aspects of picking, packing, handling and transporting material. Unlike industrial robots from the past, the newer robots displayed at Modex are able to adapt, easy to use and intuitive to operate.

After talking with many exhibitors, my impression is that there were more buyers than in previous years and those buyers appeared to be holistic in their approach to revamping their material handling in the factories and storage and pick and pack setup in their warehouses.

Their reasoning, and the underlying economic drivers for their renewed interest appeared to be:

• a lack of qualified labor
• and higher labor costs
• fear of the effects from the forthcoming retirements of baby-boomers
• customized ordering via e-commerce requiring speedy and customized pick and pack
• the availability of new sensors and lower-cost automation and robotic devices to augment workers and enhance their productivity
• prices for these new devices and systems are holding steady or lowering
• productivity enhancing concept systems from a few years ago are now proven and available
• low interest rates make such investments even more affordable
• mid-market companies can now afford material handling automation because
• installation is easier and less costly
• software and communication methods are more intuitive and easier to use
• there is less need for costly integration assistance
• they need to automate to stay price competitive with the larger companies
• and… needed improvements have been put off because of the economic crisis and must now be renewed just to stay competitive

From left: Adept’s Transporter, Intelligrated’s bin controller, Kiva Systems’ robot, Creform’s AGV and Grenzebach’s trolleys.

Although there were not a lot of robots or robotic components shown, their presence was implicit in all but the most utilitarian booths. For example, free-form vision-guided navigation (with collision avoidance) instead of tapes, ceiling signals and other path marking methods was openly praised and thought of as finally being of sufficient robustness, safety, speed and minimal programming, to finally become a realistic choice for material handling so many vendors were showing how they were adapting.

Vendors I thought of as particularly interesting at Modex included:

• Intelligrated displayed their software integration system enabling every form of communication with the various automation devices, workers and robots involved in order fulfillment: voice, ViPR, regular barcodes, RFID and scanners, touch devices, tablets and pads, etc.
• Kiva Systems novel robots, shelving and their Mobile-Robotic Fulfillment System were not only widely viewed at the Kiva booth but discussed or compared in many of the other booths as well. One interesting tidbit: Kiva gave an iPad to visitors to their booth so that they could place an order which, seconds later, they were able to pick from the movable shelves brought to the user. Very cool.
• Egemin Automation showed how their warehouse management software system integrated with other manufacturers automation, conveyor devices, and palletizing equipment in addition to Egemin’s own line of AGVs.
• Daifuku Webb displayed their Smart-cart line of AGV tugs for pallets of materials, shelves and containers, and emphasized the flexibility and safety needs of an active warehousing center.
• Adept, which is in the process of expanding its product line from solely industrial robots to products in the service sector as well, introduced their new mobile transporter/courier. They showed how their mobile devices were integrated into Swisslog‘s hospital and healthcare product line and also how their motion controller module is the navigation and collision avoidance system within RMT Robotics’ ADAM line of mobility robots. A few other companies also offered similar vision/navigation/controller modules.
• Frog AGV Systems, like many other AGV systems providers, has improved their navigation methods and software and is selling components and modules to OEMs.
• Systems Logistics, a European full-service provider, demonstrated an automatic picking station for mixed SKU skids. This feature – mixed SKU and inverse loading – was talked about all over the show as the “new” cost-saving way to load pallets and trucks for expeditious delivery.
• Seegrid Robotic emphasized the significant cost savings and productivity enhancements of using robotic forklifts and other tugs, tractors and trolleys. Their special value-added offering was a AGV learning system where the system’s vision-guided navigation system learns the moves and layout from a human driver. Seegrid, like many others, is offering their navigation and vehicle control system as a module for other companies to incorporate into their existing systems.
• Creform had a line of modular mobile devices for moving lightweight carts, trays and platforms and their low lying robotic devices were similar to a few other vendors like Grenzebach‘s automatic trolleys and platforms and Transbotics‘ transportation robotics.

Brad Berger, editor-in-chief of SupplyChainBrain magazine, said that investing in automation for material handling is back after many years of being put off because of the economy. Buyers are creating smart warehouses where RF, voice, barcodes, tablets and software all work together seamlessly as tools in the bigger picture of moving, handling, picking and packing our materials and products.

As an aside, and with a focus on which companies will lead this new world of robotic augmentation of material handling and the workers involved, Adept Technology (NASDAQ:ADEP) appears to be moving toward bridging the gap between industrial robotics and the very real need for safer, more flexible, vision-enabled, mobile and easily trainable service robots. Today they announced a collaboration with Willow Garage to harness Willow Garage’s ROS (robotic operating system) so that new methods can be used to control, simulate and program legacy industrial robots. Through acquisitions and business acumen and software changes, they seem to be successfully entering the service robotics sector adding those extra values – along with robustness, durability, connectivity and ease of integration that the industrial robotics manufacturers presently provide.

18,000-20,000 people attended Modex 2012 – 10% were international visitors. There were 560 exhibitors in the 170,000 sq ft space. Very impressive, very busy… and very tiring.