October 17, 2024

This panel will bring together investors and roboticists to discuss the challenges and opportunities of raising money for your robotics company. This panel will discuss the current state of robotics investments, macro trends, how the landscape has changed, what applications and technologies are finding commercial success and more.

More speakers to come.

Taking robots from controlled pilot environments to real-world deployment presents a significant hurdle. White initial deployments often occur in controlled environments, the subsequent “messy middle” phase exposes them to varying environmental factors and levels of human interaction. This transition presents several challenges that must be overcome to effectively scale a fleet.

First, moving away from custom solutions for individual robots and toward standardized designs and methods for a fleet. Second, gaining customer buy-in requires developing a deep and thorough understanding of each customer’s unique needs. This includes their particular environment, labor structure, and deployment preferences. Finally, data overload can become a trap. While monitoring KPIs is essential, getting bogged down in data analysis during software updates and iteration can hinder progress. The inability to quickly iterate and test solutions can impact productivity and risks misalignment over Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with customers.

Drawing on extensive experience scaling robot fleets, Joe Wieciek, Director of Technical Operations at Outrider, shares his practical strategies to ensure your robotic fleet delivers consistent value to customers. He will discuss how to navigate the complexities of cradle-to-grave deployment to effectively scale past the pilot phase. Attendees will learn:
– Why adopting a standardized, ‘cattle, not pets’ approach simplifies the logistics of your fleet and optimizes it for deployment
– Strategies for building mutually beneficial partnerships with your customers and being attentive to their unique needs
– How to leverage proactive monitoring to identify issues quickly, roll out solutions, and maximize value for you and your customer

It’s predicted that by 2030, over 1 million mobile robots will be in the field. However, implementation is still complex and the cost of robot downtime is estimated to range from $1,000 to $10,000 per minute. With AI and SLAM systems struggling with real-world variability, what are the real challenges in understanding the total cost of ownership?

For mobile robots to be feasible and improve operational efficiency customers need performance in real-world environments at an acceptable cost. By focusing on reducing BoM, teams are making trade-off decisions on performance, while simultaneously incurring silent costs that are not measured or managed. To make the right decisions we should all be focusing on the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). BoM is just one important part in a life cycle of costs required to develop, set up, maintain and update an autonomy solution. Yet often it is the main or only cost factor considered in purchasing decisions.

Understanding and measuring TCO is tough. Doing so however, creates a path to long term scalable profits and a more competitive product. This talk will explain why autonomy is at the heart of TCO, what costs are secretly undermining margin and customer experience, and how you can measure and solve these issues.