Episode 32: The Value of Industrial Automation Partnerships

In this episode we sit down with Geoff Dawson from FANUC to discuss the value that partnerships and certifications bring to the world of industrial automation. Learn how leveraging partnerships can help you do more with less and run your business more efficiently and effectively.

Guest Geoff Dawson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-dawson-2a803a2/

Host Bryan Powrozek
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanpowrozek/

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https://www.wipfli.com/manufacturing. You can also contact us here.

Transcript

Bryan Powrozek:

The program that FANUC offers is a great one for any integrator operating in robotics, if they're not already a part of it, to take a look at because it can help them run their business more efficiently, more effectively. Whether you're talking about the integrators and the folks that are going to be setting up the plants of tomorrow, or the people that are going to be operating them and running them, they've got to find ways to do more with less.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Sound of Automation, brought to you by Clayton & McKervey, CPAs for growth-driven businesses.

Bryan Powrozek:

Hello and welcome to the Sound of Automation. I am Bryan Powrozek with Clayton & McKervey, and joining me today is Geoff Dawson from FANUC. Geoff, how are you?

Geoff Dawson:

I'm good, thank you. Bryan.

Bryan Powrozek:

The topic for today's episode is pretty near and dear to your heart over there at FANUK, but really what we're here to talk about today is kind of the value that partnerships bring in the world of industrial automation. And those partnerships take many different forms. There's the technology provider partnerships like the one at FANUC that we'll talk about here in a minute, but then there's even the relationships with associations and some of the certifications that are out there. And really what I've seen from my position in the industry is, especially as companies are looking to take out automation, so I'm thinking about the consumers of the technologies, they typically don't understand these systems and what all is out there. And so for them to know a FANUC partner program or the A3 Certifications that are out there just helps kind of lead some confidence as they're going into an area that they might not be very well versed in. So I guess to start that out, I guess maybe just if you could give everyone a little bit of your background and talk about what you do for FANUC.

Geoff Dawson:

Yeah, currently I'm a director of sales for what we call our Michigan Industrial Region, which is kind of a hybrid automotive and integrator-based sales organization. So we're responsible for basically not the OEMs and some of the bigger tiers, but we have a lot of tier suppliers that fall under our group, along with any what I call general industry end user and a whole bunch of integrators that we have here in Michigan. I've been with FANUC for 27 years now and started as an engineer, worked up, ran an engineering group back in the day at our regional offices. We used to do a lot of work with end users and do various systems, and I'll get back to that in a second. But then I moved up, like I said, through engineering management, eventually took a sales role and then moved to Michigan from Ohio nine years ago to work in our Authorized Systems Integrator group, focused on the machine tool industry. And then about four and a half, five years ago, I took on this director's role for Michigan.

One thing we learned, the reason I said I wanted to go back is, when we did integration systems, we did them across various industries, and though we still today do some automotive systems, particularly in the powertrain arena with some of the bigger OEMs, our systems business, over time we realized that the integrator played a huge role in our growth because the integrators can be focused on a particular industry or area of expertise as opposed to being something to everyone. So we partnered with a lot of companies that had specialties from machine tools to welding, to palletizing, if we want to look maybe a medical industry or an assembly. Over time that's even gotten more specific to different industries. But we realized that FANUC had a product, but we needed to take advantage of people that knew each and every industry and application and provide services and support and tools to help them and help us grow into those areas. Automotive is of course a strong piece for FANUC, but the other pieces is really where we've relied on our integrator network, especially over the last 15 years, I would say, at least, or more.

Bryan Powrozek:

Yeah, exactly. And you're completely right in that, that as I think about the clients that we work with, just naturally, I think you'd start to develop specializations in Metro Detroit, there's a lot of automotive. Other parts of the country, you've got more food and beverage or pharmaceutical or things like that. But the integrators themselves, I think just find that they naturally find those pockets. And so having that in your network so then you know, okay, I think as we were preparing for this, if a company approaches FANUC and says, "We want to automate this particular part of our process. We know we need to use an integrator. We've got this person down the street." And then that's one of the benefits of the FANUC network is you could say, "Well, yeah, you could use that integrator, but we know this other company one state away that specializes in your industry and knows all of the intricacies involved in that." So yeah, I think that's a great example of the value of these partnerships and where things come into play.

Geoff Dawson:

Absolutely. We have some integrators that have really found a niche and they've decided that they really want to focus on something. We have some integrators that are so strong and have such a footprint and bandwidth that they actually have found several industries that they can focus on. And they almost are broken up into, imagine one larger company, but with a whole bunch of smaller towers that are focused on those different applications. So we have both. And there are some generalists out there that you can just take a problem to and they'll solve it. It may be something that's never been done before, maybe something that is akin to something else in the industry, but they'll put their own spin on it and can solve problems a different way. So, a little bit of everything out there.

Bryan Powrozek:

Exactly. And so if I put myself in the shoes of the small integration firm that's kind of trying to grow their business right now, and I know that that's one of the challenges that the smaller integrators face is they've got so many demands for their time and they're spread in so many different directions that I feel like maybe some of these industry partnerships or certifications are things that are looked at. It's like, yeah, we'd love to get to that, but we got too many other things going on that we can't get to it yet. But I do think it's one of those things that if they were able to get to it, and once they get over that hump, there's a lot of benefits that come along with it that can help them supercharge that growth a little bit or help it move a little faster. So from your perspective, operating within the FANUC partner program, what are some of the benefits that you see for integrator members who get involved?

Geoff Dawson:

At the end of the day it's support and service, the relationship that we build with our integrators. So we try to provide all the resources required for the integrator to be successful, coming from the product, the options that we've developed for the product. So the robot is the mechanical piece of it, but what's behind it is the brains or the controller with all the software on it. So FANUC is continually improving, developing products that cater towards the needs of our integrators, and we take their input too. So a lot of what we develop is directly related to input we've gotten back from integrators on various applications or various things they've seen.

In order to do that, we spend a lot of time, whether it's at a high level, talking about the options that are available or at the lower level, getting in the weeds and training, whether that's we provide technical support on site and we could supply, we work with some of our integrators and do analysis or reviews of what they're looking at. Say they want to do something with vision, we work with them to understand the best products that we have that can solve the problem for them. And then we offer, basically, for all intents and purposes, unlimited training to our integrator partners. So our integrator partners can come to a FANUC location, whether it be Rochester Hills or one of our regional offices, and they can send their folks in to take training to become more versed on a FANUC product. We offer several online training options for them as well. So if they can't travel, there's a lot of maybe shorter courses or self-guided type courses that are available as well.

And then the other thing that comes with FANUC is just service and support. FANUC's about product for life. So the product that we offer, FANUC offers for life. We do not obsolete anything. Anything that does, when we do get to older product, and I'm talking older product being 30 plus years old at times that are still in the field running, when there aren't hardware options available, maybe we don't have a part, we'll find the part. We've done all kinds of things to help customers keep that equipment running if they want to keep it running. Now, many times there's technological advances that would say, hey, really, it's probably time to change that out, but in some cases, customer's happy with what they got, we're happy to help them keep it running. It's really, our service first is one of the pillars of FANUC's success and keeping that product running for as long as possible.

Bryan Powrozek:

Going back to something you said there about the knowledge and the training, we're kind of in the middle here of one of the big conference seasons where there's all sorts of trade shows and everything else going on. And anytime I go to a trade event like that where different providers, different manufacturers are showing up their technology, it always amazes me just the amount and the variety of technological advancements that are going on. And so if I'm sitting back in the integrator shoes and I look at that, there's so much information to stay up on.

So to have that kind of direct line in with your technology partners like FANUC or Rockwell or Siemens or whoever it might be, so did you understand what the developments are, what the newest technologies are and have that partner to lean on and say, "Hey, this is the type of application we're working in. We were thinking about using this." And then, because you guys know the product portfolio inside, now you say, "Well, that's a good option, but you might want to also consider this over here, which may be a different way of doing it." So I think that that's just another way that integrators can supplement their own internal teams and maybe help find some things that they might not have had time to research and look into.

Geoff Dawson:

Yeah, absolutely. And we try to give integrators various channels to get support. So we have your normal customer service type hotline where we have a direct integrator support group there. We have product managers that we have access to that we can get integrators access to. Our district managers or our sales group, they're always having touchpoints with the integrator. We try to give them technical support resources. Most of our regions have a technical support group that is available to come and help them solve problems, come and help them address a new application. So it's really just that relationship and that partnership of having as many ways to make contact and stay in touch and get solutions and resolution to issues.

It's also the education piece too, outside of... It's new employees, it's the workforce and creating a new workforce, creating the workforce of tomorrow. I'm assuming, Bryan, you'll be at the Automate show, but there's a whole pavilion that automate, that's about education. And we have a FANUC team completely dedicated to working with the education providers. I think there's 1500 that we work with today that have FANUC curriculum and content so that we can see employees of the future trained on FANUC and ultimately provide a workforce to our end users and our integration partners.

Bryan Powrozek:

When we started brainstorming ideas for this episode, the piece that really stands out to me is we all know the demographic challenges that every manufacturer's going to run into. I mean, the populations are shrinking. There's more division of where people want to spend their time, what they want to do. So manufacturers, and whether you're talking about the integrators and the folks that are going to be setting up the plants of tomorrow, or the people that are going to be operating them and running them, they've got to find ways to do more with less. And so to me, one of the ways to get around that is to leverage these partnerships and folks, as you said, are providing the training and the resources to help understand how to use the products versus just trying to do it on your own and trial and error with the equipment and stuff like that. I think the program that FANUC offers is a great one for any integrator operating in robotics, if they're not already a part of it, to take a look at because it can help them run their business more efficiently, more effectively.

Geoff Dawson:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the education piece could be a discussion of its own, honestly, of what's going on in the education space and how that program can help integrators by providing future workforce and future trained employees and help their customers as well. So where to go find people that are trained on our products and-

Bryan Powrozek:

Exactly.

Geoff Dawson:

... other products. So, for sure.

Bryan Powrozek:

So to shift gears for a second, I mean kind of away from the FANUC program, but something else that you're very familiar with is some of these industry certifications that are out there. We're going to specifically talk about A3s, Certified Robotic Integrator Certifications. Obviously dealing with FANUC it makes sense that that's probably the one you're most involved in. But I know A3 has other certifications on vision systems and motion controls. Control System Integrators Association has one focused on the controls area. So there's a lot of different certifications out there that are available to integrators. From your position in the industry, what do you see as the value of some of those industry certifications?

Geoff Dawson:

I think it's another thing to hang your hat on and demonstrate to the customers and the end users your commitment to your craft. I think it really shows a commitment to a craft, a commitment that you want to be able to provide the best out there. So you're willing to take a look at a certification and use it as a map to say, "Hey, we have all these pieces in place and qualify." It's not an end all be all by any means, but I think it's just a thing that as part of the integrator's offering to their customer, if they can show that there are things within these certifications that show proficiency, show organization, show how they run projects, how they support their customers, I think those are all things, if you can put a check mark in all those different categories, I think it's just one more thing that when you're in discussion with your customer that can give them the confidence that they're working with the right partner.

Bryan Powrozek:

Yeah, exactly. And I think that that's where, especially when I think about the small manufacturer who maybe this is the first time they're even approaching an automation solution, they're just kind of dipping their toe in the water. That's a big undertaking. That's a big challenge, a different way of doing it. And it's not necessarily always going to be cheap. And so if you have that one bad experience, it could turn them off completely to automation. So going about it and trying to find, if you're the person that's going to be the buyer of the automation equipment, doing some research and figuring out what's out there so that then you're looking for the right groups, the right people, it can help make that buying decision a little bit easier. Because ultimately, I think about around my house, I got some trees I want to have taken a look at to make sure they're okay. I don't have a tree person I use every day, right?

Geoff Dawson:

Yeah.

Bryan Powrozek:

I don't need it every day. I don't have it. So now I'm relying on the word of friends and people that I know in the area that I trust their opinion. So this is just, as you mentioned, that little bit of a seal of approval that shows, yes, this company follows these best practices. They know what the industry standards are. You're right. It's not the end all be all, but it's at least another data point that the consumer of the automation can look to.

Geoff Dawson:

Especially I think a key one when you say standards is safety because I think that's one of the key attributes of the RA's, or the A3's program, I should say, is safety. Because they have a standards group that works with ISO on the safety standards, which brings it to what we use in North America as our safety standard. And I think it's very important that integrators understand the importance of a risk assessment and working with their customer on a risk assessment. And I think when you're certified like this, that is definitely one of the things that you're expected to demonstrate your acumen in and to follow through with as you offer projects or offer systems to customers and end users.

Bryan Powrozek:

Yeah. So I guess we've talked a bit about both of those and, I mean, there's countless other programs that we could probably go through that provide similar comfort to either the integrator or the company that's going to be buying the automation. But do you have any practical examples of how this has worked out? Maybe an example from the FANUC program of the ways that FANUC was able to help an integrator to more successfully execute a project or anything along those lines?

Geoff Dawson:

I think specific examples is difficult, but I think there's many times when customers come to us with challenges, we take a look at it, we have some ideas, and then, like you said, we pick the appropriate integrator. We take then that lead, and we develop that opportunity jointly with the integrator. Many times, I mean, honestly, it's the vision solution that can be the piece that kind of ties it all together. I think in today's world the other is sometimes with the advent of collaborative robots or cobots, a lot of people, end users get into this, "Hey, we're just going to deploy a bunch of these," but without any definite idea on how they're going to do it. As we've introduced ours, as we've seen how that industry is developing, we've had a lot of success working with our integrators on developing standard collaborative robot solutions so that somebody can buy a package ready to go as opposed to just buying a robot, sitting it down and trying to figure out what to do with it.

And I think what we've also seen is a lot of times that happens, and by the time the customer or the end user tries to integrate that robot and thinks that they're going to do it themselves and save a whole bunch of money, the speed and the expertise that an integrator can bring to the table, it may be a little bit more upfront investment, but long term that investment pays dividends to that end user because they not only have a successful system that can do what they need, they got there a lot faster. So they started realizing the benefit of it much sooner. And I think we see a lot of that too. I mean, one of our larger integrators has developed a collaborative robot welding cell, and it's been very successful. We have others developing other standard collaborative robot machine tending cells and such that are now becoming a lot more accepted and a lot easier to deploy. And I think we're seeing a lot of success with that and expect to see more in the future.

Bryan Powrozek:

And I think the fact that you brought up the collaborative robots is a great point, because I think that that's one of those areas that you hear a lot about. It's almost kind of like Industry 4.0, right? It's a term that I think people use a lot, but maybe don't quite understand it. Yes, the idea of the collaborative robot being where the worker can be in the workspace with it, not needing to have safety guarding around it, but that isn't always necessarily the answer. Right?

Geoff Dawson:

Right.

Bryan Powrozek:

And so I think sometimes the consumers of this technology get in their head of, oh, I need a cobot, or I need this particular type of vision system, or whatever it might be. And that's the value that FANUC and its partner network brings to the table. I know one of your partners that actually has a display stand where they're showing the same operation with a collaborative robot and then just a traditional robot, but with different safety features kind of added to it. And it really gives a great example of the pros and cons of both, right?

Geoff Dawson:

Absolutely.

Bryan Powrozek:

Sure, the collaborative drops in, it's going to be a little bit slower, but if it's truly important to your process to have the operator right next to it, you probably want to go this route. If you're just concerned about, you want the operator to be able to get in, but then not necessarily wanting to decrease your cycle time, well, maybe there's some other safety features we can put in place, sensors that are going to pick up, and if someone gets close, it slows down the robot or stops the robot. So having those kind of conversations rather than someone just coming in with this idea in their head that, oh, I need a collaborative robot, it's like, well, let's talk about what you mean by collaborative before we go down that path of putting a fully collaborative robot in place.

Geoff Dawson:

And I'll take a step further. The advantage of many collaborative robots is not necessarily that it can work alongside a person from a production standpoint that the person's always going to be there. Some of it is the ease of use and the ease of changeover. So in the welding example, a certified welder can set up a job, go set up another job, go set up another job, as opposed to working on one job himself or having to do a complex teach. There's some ease of use benefits to those collaborative welding cells, which allows one person to maybe run several cells.

So we look at it as it's not just... There are some simple applications where working alongside a person works perfectly. Inspection is one. Put a camera on the end of a robot, let the robot verify various things. And it could be a person could just be on the station ahead of it assembling something. But we look at as it's almost a subsidy, working in the area and easy to program, easy to change over. Maybe somebody doesn't show up today, I need to just move part from A to B that they're normally doing. If that helps me there, I can get some extra resource elsewhere to finish the process. I have 1000 parts in quarantine that I need to inspect. Maybe I just roll my collaborative robot up and inspect some parts, that type of thing. So I think there's a lot of subsidy available and ease of use available by incorporating these as much as it is having the robot working next to a person.

Bryan Powrozek:

Yeah, and it's funny that you bring that up because I think that just kind of underlays the comment I made about that collaborative term is going to mean something different to a lot of people, and there may even be the industry accepted definition of what a collaborative robot is, but as you start getting out into the market where you're the user of the technology and not the producer or the integrator of it, you're trying to speak the same language, but you're using a word that means something different to everybody. So it just further underscores the need of leaning on these partnerships, these relationships, to answer those kind of questions.

Geoff Dawson:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Bryan Powrozek:

Excellent. Well, Geoff, no, I appreciate you coming on and sharing some of your thoughts. Obviously FANUC is pretty easy to find, but if anybody wanted to reach out to you and learn a bit more about anything we talked about here, what's the best way for them to do that?

Geoff Dawson:

Best way is probably by email, and it's geoff.dawson@fanucamerica.com. And it's Geoff, G-E-O-F-F, Dawson, D-A-W-S-O-N.

Bryan Powrozek:

Excellent. Well, hey, I appreciate you giving me some time here today and look forward to probably running into you down at Automate this year.

Geoff Dawson:

Absolutely. Thank you, Bryan. Appreciate it.

Bryan Powrozek:

All right, take care.

Geoff Dawson:

Great talking to you. Bye.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for tuning in. Don't forget to like us, subscribe, and share on social. To learn more about Clayton & McKervey, visit us at claytonmckervey.com. That's C-L-A-Y-T-O-N-M-C-K-E-R-V-E-Y.com. We thrive on finding the solutions for you.