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Yeah, we’ve been planning to automate...

Those are the words Saman Farid, CEO of Formic Technologies, hears over and over again from prospective customers when he talks to them about automation. Many times, the companies say that they’ve been planning to automate for nearly a decade, and yet years go by and there’s not a robot in sight. 

What happened?

In the latest episode of the Thomas Industry Podcast, Cathy Ma, vice president of platform growth and engagement at Thomas and Xometry, spoke with Farid about how Formic is addressing the lag time between interest in automation and adoption. Farid speaks to the very real concerns businesses have in investing in automation, even though they understand that it’s rapidly becoming a necessity in today’s manufacturing world, and how Formic has a game-changing solution.    

Why Businesses Don’t Automate

“It usually comes down to a combination of different things,” Farid explains about why companies interested in automating their businesses sometimes don’t move forward with it.

“A lot of it is around risk, complexity, friction, and cost,” says the former partner of venture capital firm Baidu Ventures, a fund focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and investor and board member in nearly 100 robotics and AI companies.

The companies that could benefit the most from outsourcing tasks to a robotic workforce 一 from the small companies working with a skeleton crew to the large companies breaking even because their staff is too busy with menial tasks to focus on bigger-picture projects that would push the business to the next level 一 simply don’t have the funds and expertise needed to invest in the initial startup costs. 

“These factories, who are operating on relatively low margins, suddenly have to cough up hundreds of thousands of dollars on something that may or may not work,” Farid acknowledges. 

It’s not just the upfront costs that concern prospective customers. Savvy shoppers understand that, like any piece of office technology, robots need to undergo complex upfront engineering and routine maintenance and upgrades. 

“They're stuck managing and maintaining and servicing a piece of equipment that they may not be familiar with, and which quickly becomes outdated,” says Farid. “Not only is maintenance unproductive to their business, but service calls to the automation integrator plus spare parts can quickly add up to tens of thousands of dollars per year.”

Then there’s the matter of the hidden “cost” of training employees how to use the new automation tools. Even if the company does not need to hire an outside trainer, in-factory training requires staff to put aside their regularly assigned projects to attend seminars related to procedure and safety. And like any new skill, the automation tool may slow down uninitiated workers at first before it saves staff time.

“On the one hand, they know they need these robots in order to survive,” says Farid. “But on the other hand, there's so much complexity, cost, and risk that they just can't do it.”

It’s a catch-22. For many, it seems safer to continue down the tried-and-true traditional path they’ve been on, but they know that sooner or later they’ll be outpaced by their competitors, who already are investing in automation.

There’s got to be a better way, right?

Formic Offers a Solution

Formic understands the dilemma facing companies today and has developed a solution that is democratizing robotics. 

“We've made it easy enough to bridge that gap,” says Farid, as he explains that Formic offers robots by the hour. “We allow a manufacturer to strap a rocket booster to their productivity.”

There is no upfront investment when it comes to hiring one of Formic’s hourly robots, and customers pay nothing until that robot is operational on their factory floor. Companies can receive unlimited service that comes with a performance guarantee for as low as $8 an hour.

As the company’s website states, Formic offers “the lowest risk way to automate.” 

Now, when he works with customers, Farid says: “They don't have to come up with a single dollar upfront. They just point at the task that they want automated. We show up with the robot, and we just start charging by the hour for that robot to do its task.”

When a client uses Formic’s Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS), they don’t need to understand how the robots work or add robot oversight to an employee’s list of responsibilities. Formic does all the work to run the robots.

“They don't need any engineering resources in-house. They don't need any CapEx approved in-house,” confirms Farid. “They can treat us like a staffing agency, where we charge by the hour for the usage of that empty head 一 except we're staffing with robots instead of people, and our robots never quit or get injured.”

With the help of Formic’s robots, work is accomplished faster and more efficiently. This frees up time for staff to do the higher-level tasks they enjoy and still be home on time for dinner with their families. The company, meanwhile, is better positioned to reliably serve its customers, meet its business goals, and be on a level playing field with its competitors. It can, therefore, strategize its future success.

“Suddenly, what we’ve found is these factories are now able to compete globally,” says Farid.

Hear More from Saman Farid, the CEO of Formic Technologies in Our Podcast

Tune in to the Thomas Industry Podcast to learn more about automation’s key use cases for manufacturing, how robots are opening up new career opportunities for today’s workforce, and how automation is contributing to the American legacy of innovation.

 You can listen to the podcast episode on the following platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Stitcher

Image Credit: Image courtesy of Formic Technologies