Let Robots Do the Job: How AI Frees Up Humans for High-Value Work

You're tuning in to The Human Side of Engineering and Product Development podcast brought to you by Sarah Tech, where we bring you industry leaders and some of the brightest minds in engineering Product Development and Solutions I'm Andy Diehl, your host, join me me as we discover the inspiring stories of the people behind the most innovative and revolutionary solutions on the market today, so tune in and enjoy. Good morning. Welcome to our podcast with me today. He is Dr. Aryan Kabir, one of the co-founders of gray matter robotics. in the Los Angeles, California area and welcome to the podcast, thanks for joining us today, thanks for having me, Andy, it's great to be here.

So why don't you tell our audience a little bit about gray matter, robotics and your company, so what? Do you do things abroad? Yes, that sounds good, so we are an AI company for everyone located in Southern California. We are backed by companies. I am growing at a very fast pace. Our focus is on manufacturing as a customer base or as our own. In this domain we are focusing on

high

variability applications in the manufacturing space and combining commercially available robotic tools and sensors with our proprietary AI technologies and converting them into intelligent robotic assistance that can help these manufacturers in

high

variability environments, particularly today.

Focusing on surface ratio and surface treatment applications, these are applications like sanding, polishing, polishing, polishing, painting, coating, etc., dueling different manual operations and all these operations depend on manual

work

nowadays and to As Baby Boomers retire and younger generations enter the

work

force, we are seeing a massive decline in the workforce for these apps, the reason being that they are extremely tedious and organically challenging operations. You can imagine wearing a Tyvek suit sweating in 100+ degrees Fahrenheit for 10 to 12 hours every day of your life using a power tool. And you know, you try this for two weeks or two months and you decide you want a better quality of life and as a result, we see this huge decline in the manufacturing workforce and that's putting the entire economy at great risk, according to Mackenzie.

By 2030, due to a shortage of skilled labor in the manufacturing industry, the US economy will be at risk of gaining $1 trillion per year and we are addressing some of those issues by creating smart robotic cells that can help manufacturers to go green to address all the variations and variabilities essentially the way shop flow operators use a robot is that they can place a park in front of the system, they can simply press a button on the touch screen like an iPhone and the Robot autonomously understands, can recognize figures and deciphers geometry. work and ensures consistency of quality.

Okay, wow, that's something very, very interesting. How did you and your co-founder come up with the idea for the company? What was the origin of that? Yeah, no, that's a great question, so, you know, Escape. Rule and I three co-founded gray matter robotics for Rule and I, we didn't really have much manufacturing experience before 2016. When we moved to USC, I was doing my PhD at the time, with SK and at USC we were very fortunate to be part of the advanced manufacturing center. I think USC had a great affiliate program for the industry. We had been interacting with large companies, as well as small and medium-sized companies, on a very regular basis in one of those interactions, a large aerospace company.

They were telling us how they face challenges finding skilled labor to continue their manufacturing operation and meet demand. Their demand was so high compared to their capacity that their delivery time was two to three years. We were honestly shocked and They were telling us that they make multi-million dollar parts and each one of them takes thousands of hours to process manually and that this is the workforce that they have and they keep leaving the job because they want better quality and naturally we wondered. Why can't they use

robots

? Because we see

robots

in the automotive industry or in the electronics industry doing similar applications and when we started asking those questions, we realized that today their robots have a very limited capacity, you can program them once.

They can repeat the same thing over and over again, but as soon as there are variations and variabilities coming from a lot of sbus or material variations or the manufacturing process itself, you are out of luck, you will really have to spend hundreds or thousands. of hours to program the robot to address any minor changes, so that was the Genesis for us to start paying attention to how we can allow robots to program themselves, create AI technologies that can be application specific and allow robots understand and work and ensure quality consistency. Say yeah, excuse me, I'm still getting over this flu that everyone's been getting lately, so yeah, in a blog that SK wrote, he actually, you know, mentioned the labor shortage crisis and how people who Entering the workforce do not see manufacturing work as a viable career.

Do you agree with that and is it a misconception that people see manufacturing as a dead end? I do not want to do that. What are some of the things you see in terms of advancement in technologies and other skills? areas that have opened up in manufacturing that are not as terrible as people think is right no, that's a great point Andy and essentially I think when you look at manufacturing or think about manufacturing, the common perception is that You know it's very dangerous, it's very dirty, it's very boring, true, however, it is true for certain jobs or certain applications or operations within manufacturing, and you know that new technologies are coming and creating solutions that allow, let's say, that robots take care of TDS and organ tasks, what does it do?

Create a new opportunity for

humans

to focus on higher-level tasks, greater

value

-added, and creative decision-making. Manufacturing environments are much cleaner compared to before and especially in some of the applications, let's say we are focusing. on a show after, say, sanding or spraying foot gel or something like that, it's very challenging and you really need to wear a lot of PPE and you really need a lot of skill to work on that and that's detrimental to your health if you're exposed to prolonged period with the power tool or do you know something similar, yes, between two and five years, you could suffer shoulder and back injuries from carpal tunnel, sometimes, breathing problems, yes, locked in, yes, so those are the applications or tasks that we see that are suitable for robots, while Human operators essentially with the advent of new technology is that human operators are now improving their skills and moving to a higher level of decision making in higher

value

operations, so I think manufacturing is a great place to work and I think there's this big generational shift coming, that's a really good point, you know, now talking about misconceptions, I mean, obviously, you have a PhD in robotics. , AI and control, and you know a lot of people, including me, sometimes you know you watch Hollywood movies and I see the robot and the AI ​​do these crazy things and people say, "Oh man, I'm afraid that the AI ​​will take over of the world".

The robot will dominate us and control us and things like that, do you know what are other misconceptions that people have about robots and AI in general, right, no, I mean, that's how I would say it's a popular misconception of the media, because even if you think about it, you know when it comes to a zoom call or setting up our audio and video in a conference room we always struggle, yeah, so we have these work challenges and on the other hand, we're worried that AI take over and all that, we are way behind in technology from any form of general intelligence, so what I see is that you know, in the near future, what we can really contribute is by creating application-specific solutions that really focus on solutions leveraging AI and robotics that can essentially help

humans

improve their capability.

Empower humans and focus on greater added value. Tasks, an example I can give you: one of the software operators at the site of one of our clients used to sand by hand before, after three weeks, after knowing that our robot came into his place and became the robot operator in some way. After three weeks, when one of his engineers came back to his site and asked him for his feedback on the system etc., what he told him was very powerful, what he told him was that he could now go home, so he was grateful to our engineers. thank you for creating this technology, now I can come home, pick up my daughter and my arms, it doesn't hurt anymore and those are some of the profound impacts of these advanced qualities, that's really powerful.

I mean, when we think about it, you know, the job is. one thing, but being able to enjoy life, enjoy your family and, you know, have another part of your life affected by work, right, that's not a good thing, right, in a negative way, another interesting thing that I saw that you What we are offering is the concept of robot as a service, so today I want to say that on the software side, you see that on the storage server side, AWS, things like that, the raw robot as a service is a very interesting concept to me, how did it come about?

What are your thoughts and what are some of the advantages of having a robot as a service? No, that's a great question, Andy, so if you look at automation in general, it used to be extremely capital intensive, you have to spend and budget millions of dollars before you do it. You even know whether that technological solution will work for you or not, and there are many horror stories where someone you know was very excited to adopt a robot and automate certain processes, tried it and failed. Even after spending millions of dollars creating certain, you know, bad experiences, on top of that, if you look at, you know, any makerspace, whatever this new topology is, they want to be assured that it's going to work for them.

They want to be sure that it will fit perfectly into their workplace. I want to be assured that this won't be just a one-time thing, as your manufacturing processes or workflow change, this can evolve with your processes and I think the subscription model of the robot-as-a-service model is really making it easier for all those in the robot-as-a-service model. you have zero upfront cost, it is zero risk adoption, if you are the end user, let's say for a matter or any other company that provides robots as a service, it is up to them to ensure that we will meet all the kpis and we will do make this successful at the manufacturing site facility and then when it's up and running, you're essentially paying for the solution system, just like you're paying for your human operators, you're essentially hiding robots for the job instead of hiring people because you can't really find people and you don't have to wait several years to allocate the budget and the books with the planning and everything you can really commit and you can test on a small scale and it expands as your operation progresses and the robot as service really allows you to guarantee uptime, ensure longevity of maintenance service for all equipment, ensure all software support and services you ensure continue remotely and online. site support and training uh that overall package really makes it easier to adopt new technologies in the manufacturing space oh okay yeah.

I mean, when I first saw it I thought, "you know it's a great idea for robot as a service because you know it's very useful." uh, of the cost that would be involved in just getting into the game in terms of robotics, right, yeah, um, and speaking of labor shortages, obviously, covid-19 has a lot to do with that, now, interestingly, the timing when you started the company in the At the beginning of 2020, just before all the lockdown and the huge you know, greed hit you, first of all, you obviously didn't see it coming, and when all that happened, you got scared and thought, what the hell did we do?

I mean, how are we going to deal with this? How did you handle it? No, to be honest, Sandy, we were, you know, we've been fortunate first of all when Kobe, we started the company at the beginning of Covet and then. Honestly, you were scared because you know we were the first ones at Founders, yeah, we started a new company with new technologies and solutions and we approached a market or essentially created a new market and we were very afraid of how we are going to navigate all of that, like be. What Kobe has done is what really helped everyone understand and embrace the concept of Automation and the need forRealizing the great need for Automation and you know what it has done, also helps humans and people to think about what I am doing. with my life and how I should contribute and how I can have a better quality of life and contribute in a meaningful way and that has created a big shift in the workforce in terms of interest or the type of jobs that people want to do well. and that in turn has created a much bigger void in the manufacturing workspace, especially in the space of TDS and organically challenging tasks that humans shouldn't be doing in the first place, so in a sense, covid in general doesn't not only in the US but around the world pushed the concept of automation and the group of you know towards the adoption of automation and that in turn has also allowed us to help all these manufacturers essentially help them start building the basis of their manufacturing processes and you know.

Basically building the entire backbone of the economy and helping people have a better quality of life, yeah, that's a really good point. I think that's very true during Covid people, a lot of people you know sat down and evaluated what they're doing and said Hey, you know, is this something I really want to do? Is this something I'm passionate about? Know? I think it's a very key question that everyone should ask them. Is this something I'm passionate about? I'm doing something? that's contributing to the betterment of the technology society of the people you know, so I think it's a very poignant point that you made there, now, three years later, did anything surprise you at all about starting a technology company ? is it what you thought it would be huh, are there some moments where you go oh wow?

I had no idea this was going to happen. Things like that, that's our everyday life as a family, so every day we learned something new so you know it's been a very exciting and rewarding journey so far and especially when we see that the significant contribution we are making to help improving the quality of human life and helping to build the backbone of the economy, it is extremely rewarding and to be honest, When we started, we didn't even know what are the different problems that we will solve or what are the different markets and particles of the industry where we can help and make an impact, and now, when we look.

We see that we are helping this wide range of industries, from aerospace defense to special vehicles, such as buses, trains, trucks, marine and ship industries, recreational industries and some other general manufacturing, so across the space we see that we have the opportunity to contribute. in a meaningful way and essentially help them improve their journey and that has been extremely rewarding for all of us and the technology that the entire team is working on on this is something completely new that has never been done before so we have been very lucky ones. having a bold team that is breaking boundaries every day, that's exciting, it's fun to be on the cutting edge of technology and be in the leadership position of creating something exciting and new, talking about your team.

I know you guys are hiring like crazy, I mean, obviously, with the shortage of people. How do you find engineers and people in this climate? It's very difficult, yes, no, I'll be honest, Sandy, it is and you. However, I know it's changing because of all the different challenges that, as you know, the tech landscape as a whole is having, so it's changing now, it's changing now, the other thing we see is that from the tech space, You know. We are seeing great interest from engineers to do something meaningful and contribute in a meaningful way; It's less about knowing the topology we're creating and more and more about how that technology impacts and changes the world.

In that context, you've been in a very fortunate space where we can give our team the opportunity to contribute meaningfully and see their work. In fact, you know hundreds of lives right away, so until we've been fortunate, we're expanding the team at a pretty rapid pace to meet growing customer demand and essentially help implement different robotic solutions across and that's brilliant. I love small businesses and I love watching them grow. I mean small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone. of our economy, so I love to see that, now, brother, your CTO and co-founder, let's talk a little bit about the company culture and the team environment, right, brother, you have said that regular open communication and sharing of Reflective knowledge is one of the most beneficial things you do in gray matter robotics, so how do you ensure that excellent communication and knowledge sharing occurs within the company?

Yes, but that's a great question and this is extremely important, especially because they know that they are doing something new and noble and basically, you are breaking the barriers of technology. We are very diligent when it comes to sharing information with the entire company. We are out. If I take a step back, we are extremely customer-focused. We are very focused on customers and solving their problems. Our entire engineering team. and you know the entire team Beyond engineering, everyone knows that customers come first and they get top priority. We are not here to build any fancy topology or technology for the sake of technology.

We are here to solve the problem first and walk back to see the topology that can allow us to solve those problems for our customers and we communicate that very clearly, we communicate it all of our engineers know how the sales and marketing functions are happening, all of our sales knows what they are, you know very clearly what the limitations of the current technologies are and what the roadmap is and all that within the entire engineering team, it is a multifunctional engineering team because robotics, as you know it, It's a multidisciplinary field, everyone has that open channel of communication and works together to solve some of these. deep technological problems that can eventually create meaningful solutions and add value really strong value for our clients the other thing that we do we also make it easy for engineers to communicate very openly with our clients, as I was mentioning in all your robot as a service model that we provide premium support our customers, so all of our engineers actually take turns doing some support shift where they observe how the end users are using the system working with the system and that really helps us all understand how we can create a great product made and designed. for software operators who don't have a background in robotics, engineering or artificial intelligence, this is someone for whom the solution should be like you know, essentially be a device where they can take apart, press a button, go back to doing something else high quality.

Valued tasks in which the robot can take care of the mystery and organization, so I would say that you know how to be very focused on customers, communicate it very clearly and openly to the entire team and read, and you know how to help improve the culture of problem solving and adopting a first principle. problem-solving approach that has really helped us build a great team culture. That is fantastic. I think it's very important to think about the big picture and what we're doing, and you know what I've dealt with with many, many clients. Also, one of the most important things is that you know that you have to be realistic and set the right expectations when it comes to sharing information with clients.

You know you want to under-promise and over-deliver what is absolutely right. so that's good, yeah, obviously, talking to you you're very passionate about, you know, helping other human beings better themselves, you know, I know you're very passionate about causes like animal welfare, human rights, poverty alleviation. and things like that, are there any? uh, particular pet projects and things that you're working on that we, uh, that we should know, not right now, why right now my entire focus is on weird stuff, however, our team is often sure to that you know work on certain fun projects. every year and this Thanksgiving, we actually, you know, one of our engineers came up with the idea of, how about we create a system that can roast a turkey and they basically put a turkey on a plate? rotary, they put a flamethrower on the robot and use the The same software and technology to essentially create instead of scanning and sanding, creating scanning and roasting and roasting a turkey, so we do some fun projects at the gym.

That is fantastic. How was the turkey? Did you try it? It didn't look good, but we were afraid to try it. I would love to see a video of that. It sounds incredible. Well, Aryan, thank you very much for your time today. I know you, and you know that running a company is always busy and never. It's really a downtime, so I really appreciate you taking the time and joining me today on our podcast and, um, just one last, last question I have for you, where do you see robotics coming in? gray matter in the next five to ten? years, so thank you very much for having me, Andy, and in the next five, you know, short and long term, our focus is to be the solution provider for you, automation in the finishing and surface treatment space and, basically, creating the de facto standard or some of these advanced solutions that can really help manufacturers improve the quality of life of their workforce and help them close the gap between their capacity and demand and that has their long-term productivity. .

We also focus on adjacent applications, adjacent industries to essentially continue to push the boundaries that create a broader impact. Fantastic and you know, I really love what you're doing, best of luck and again, anytime I can help with anything, just let me know. It's been a pleasure talking to you today and thank you so much for spending time with me this morning. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much Andy Foreign.