Jimmy Carroll: [00:00:07] Hi everybody. My name is Jimmy Carroll. I’m the vice president of operations at Tech B2B Marketing. I’m here today at the A3 Business Forum in Orlando. I have the pleasure of being joined by Matt Wicks at Zebra and my colleague Wynn Hardin. Matt, thanks so much for taking the time.

Matt Wicks: [00:00:20] Thanks for having me.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:00:21] Of course. So Zebra, massive company now. Well it has been for a while, but for those who don’t know, maybe tell us a little bit about Zebra and specifically what you do there in your group.

Matt Wicks: [00:00:34] Zebra has been around for some time now. Multibillion dollar organization. I think we’re best known for a lot of our handheld devices, our RFID or scanning. That’s where the origins of the organization started was, you know, Zebra and the barcodes, right?

Winn Hardin: [00:00:48] Absolutely. Back in Home Depot.

Matt Wicks: [00:00:49] So, a few years ago, Zebra said, Hey, you know, we need to move into a space that is focusing on automation because there’s very complementary types of applications in the space with the core products that Zebra has. And so Zebra acquired Fetch Robotics, and so Fetch is now integrated within the Zebra organization. So I have the joy of owning that part of the business.

Winn Hardin: [00:01:18] You guys have gotten, you’re a few years into the acquisition that you guys were going through. So what I’m hearing is that the integrations and the systems are really starting to align now.

Matt Wicks: [00:01:29] Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Again, we talked about the core products that Zebra has and the handheld devices, and we’re tightly coupling that with the robotics applications. So, like in the warehousing distribution space, for instance, you’ve got picking operations that are generally done manually. And those picking operations in a lot of companies actually use Zebra devices. They direct that picking to the workers, and they will pick to a cart or some other transportation mechanism. And so we offer a solution that is an AMR-based picking operation. So it’s a fulfillment where we have our software that is running on our handhelds, as well as their cloud-based software that directs the robots to meet the workers where they’re at. And then basically all the worker has to worry about or look at is the devices, which they are already very familiar with the picking operation and just follow what the device says, where to pick and where to go next. And the robots will meet him there. And it is a substantial increase in productivity.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:02:33] In the warehouse space, I’m glad you brought that up because I wanted to ask about it. Obviously Zebra is doing a lot there. Warehouse automation market intelligence company Interact Analysis says that modest growth for 2024 but double-digit growth for the warehouse automation market in the years to follow. I know there’s a lot of different types of automation being deployed in warehouses today, but what do you see as some of the main growth drivers there? Obviously labor shortage comes into play.

Matt Wicks: [00:03:00] Clearly labor is the main driver. But there’s also other metrics. You know, pick accuracy is absolutely a metric. But I think companies that are not automating are not growing. And we see it.

Winn Hardin: [00:03:17] Suffering productivity.

Matt Wicks: [00:03:19] We’re at the A3 business conference and we see what the benefits of the automation provides to our end customers. And if customers aren’t looking at automation, they’re not growing. Or the growth trajectory that they’re on is not as substantial.

Winn Hardin: [00:03:42] It’s interesting. The competitive edge of automation is becoming de rigueur. So if you don’t have that, it’s not a question of: Am I going to have a competitive advantage? You are simply going to fall behind.

Matt Wicks: [00:03:51] Absolutely, absolutely. And again, our robots were built to be very collaborative with the labor and the resources that these organizations can find. You look at the growth of automation, you don’t start out with an automated solution. Generally, as a small organization of three people, we’re going to start out with a pretty manual operation. And so where our solution is built around is as those organizations grow, you can very quickly adapt our automated solution to the same areas that you’re doing the manual pick flows and picking operation today.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:04:32] I think it might be a little bit obvious, but I think it’s still worth saying. One of the trends that I’ve observed, everyone’s observed over the last several years is the growing idea of ease of use, and you were talking earlier about how these things are just easier to use. Would you agree that warehouse automation has also grown because these technologies are becoming easier to use?

Matt Wicks: [00:04:56] Yeah, absolutely. Again, we have a rich history in devices and scanning technology and really the interfacing between people and warehousing operations. And as robotics continue to mature, they are at the forefront of the human collaboration. We’ve seen the collaborative robots come out in the past several years. Now certainly AMRs are also that way, at least some AMRs are. There’s definitely some differences in the different spectrum of different AMRs that are out there. Again, we’re very supportive of what the A3 is doing in the industrial safety standards that the RIA has put and adherence to those safety standards. So we built our robots to be very collaborative with people and very easy to use so that they can quickly deploy, quickly integrate, and get the benefit out of the automation solution. You know, we’re not talking a year for an automation system to put in a mobile robotics solution. We’re talking a matter of a few weeks.

Winn Hardin: [00:06:12] What is the name of your AMR fleet management software platform?.

Matt Wicks: [00:06:15] It’s called Symmetry. Actually, we’ve just recently rebranded it. You might be more familiar with Fetch Core. So that was what it was called during the acquisition. But we rebranded it with Symmetry, and we’ve certainly integrated a lot of the Zebra devices and matured the product to be just more feature-rich and more capable.

Winn Hardin: [00:06:38] Do we have connectivity with Symmetry? Do we already have that built-in connectivity to these various other software offerings?

Matt Wicks: [00:06:52] Certainly from a handheld perspective, we are able to put in that software onto the handhelds. It really is very dependent upon the application. We’re very focused in on the picking operation, material movement from point A to point B and coordination of robots within those operations. But when you start to get into  machine vision and integration is where you start to talk about mobile manipulation, and I’ve spent a little time in that space, and it is a nontrivial kind of activity to do. You mount the arm on the AMR or you have a different kind of device, like a bipedal robot or something like that. There’s walking in an environment and manipulating totes and lifting totes and placing it in other locations.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:07:34] I wanted to ask about that software actually. What kind of access to data do the customers have that they might be able to use for insights to improve operational efficiencies?

Matt Wicks: [00:07:44] Yeah, that’s an excellent question. So we have an analytics module that provides detail about the picking operation, the performance, worker productivity. Basically we can get a window into what’s happening in their operation, understand where they are within the pick wave and where they are within, like, when’s these particular orders going to be fulfilled? So it provides a really good insight into how the operations are performing.

Winn Hardin: [00:08:17] Do you have the specific data points or when you’re taking a proof of concept to a new client, how do you approach it? Do you initially start with kind of a snap audit of their current operations?

Matt Wicks: [00:08:32] Yeah. So we have a team of sales engineers, basically applications engineers that, depending upon the complexity of the operation, they’ll work with, it may be as simple as, I just want to move this from point A to point B and I want a handheld that says, hey, come pick it up at point A and drop it off at point B. But there’s other applications where point B may be 15, 20, 30 locations, 50 locations, and you may have to have a whole fleet of robots that can provide that level of service. And so there’s some engineering work that goes into, okay, well, how many robots do you need and what are you doing to do, what are you looking to accomplish. And so our team will work with our end customers on, let’s understand what those constraints are. Let’s understand what the environment you’re working in. And let’s understand what you need. And collaboratively work together on what that solution is.

Winn Hardin: [00:09:27] And we’ve kind of gotten past where we have to completely redo the the warehouse or plant infrastructure to be able to leverage AMR technology.

Matt Wicks: [00:09:34] Absolutely. I think this is one of the advantages of our AMR system is we have a world-class navigation and localization system. And so the warehouse is a difficult environment. The environment changes substantially. And when that environment changes . . . it’s like not all AMRs are the same, and dependent upon the capabilities you have, you may or may not be able to be real successful when that environment changes. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve seen at this point more adoption of AMR technology throughout an infrastructure in manufacturing, because the manufacturing environment doesn’t change very frequently, whereas in the warehouse it changes daily, if not hourly. And so having the capability to be able to operate in that environment is essential. So what you’ll see is a lot of the AMR solutions are not true AMR in the sense that they’re not collaborative. And they’ll navigate with stickers on the floor. Or stickers on different parts, which in certain applications is absolutely great. You know if that’s what you need. But if you’re looking for true autonomy of roving in a space that is infrastructure free, it requires a level of sophistication that not all players are alike.

Winn Hardin: [00:11:10] Warehouses are tough environments too. So if you’ve got artifacts or navigation, waypoints, and things like that, they’re going to get beat up in a warehouse. So inevitably you’re going to have degradation of the system over time. Even if it’s little cheaper to get into the initial price point there. But you’ve got a total cost of ownership.

Matt Wicks: [00:11:28] Right. And you don’t have the ability to be fully autonomous within your entire space. It’s very limited to where you put those stickers. You could try to put that everywhere in that space. But again, it becomes like, okay, does this make sense?

Jimmy Carroll: [00:11:43] So one thing I wanted to ask about Matt is, the company in general is, like you said, it’s been around a long time. It’s known primarily in the past for, let’s say, mobile computing, RFID. But now, I met with you and a number of your colleagues at Automate, and not only are you this larger presence metaphorically in the automation space, but at Automate you had a physically large presence. And so you’ve taken up quite a space now in automation. It’s not just the Fetch acquisition. It was acquisition of Adaptive Vision, deep learning software company from Portland, and the machine vision acquisition obviously from Matrox. So now that the Matrox acquisition is kind of fully done, transitioned, and has been for a while now, what are you guys most excited about? Like what’s next for you guys?

Matt Wicks: [00:12:35] I think it’s just a continued evolution of that approach. We definitely are continuing to move forward with automation solutions, whether that be automation solutions that enable the the workers to be more efficient using our handheld devices or scanning devices, but also getting into the automation space and physical automation with the robotics. So I think we’re just going to continue to see more and more of that type of more sophistication and building on this core capabilities that it brings to the table.

[00:13:11] Do you guys have a six-axis offering?

Matt Wicks: [00:13:13] We don’t we don’t have a six axis.

Winn Hardin: [00:13:14] I keep waiting for you to buy somebody.

Matt Wicks: [00:13:16] Yeah, well, I certainly couldn’t talk about that.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:13:20] I’m keeping it general, I’d like to ask, what are some predictions or general trends you expect to see in the next couple of years in terms of hot topics or technologies or things like that?

Matt Wicks: [00:13:37] Yeah sometimes it’s a little difficult to predict where the future heads. I do think that there’s a continual growth in adoption of mobile robotics. Without question. It feels like this is just going to happen. And I think you’re going to see more and more shifting from traditional fixed automation to more mobile robotic solutions. We have some customers, actually BMC, Bespoke Manufacturing Company. They do garments, so they manufacture garments, and it’s specialty garments. And so they leverage our mobile robotics. But there’s a case study actually. You can see it on our website. They do these garments and they have different cells throughout their facility, and dependent upon what is required for those particular cells, you’ll route the products to those different sewing cells. And so it changes from order to order to order. So if you had fixed automation — and they started out there by the way. They started out with a bunch of conveyor running around, and it was totes all over the place and was landlocked. And they didn’t have flexibility in the operation. Very expensive. And so what they did is they adopted mobile robotic technology. And so they have a little bit of a conveyor. It in-feeds, it out-feeds. And then we have our roller top AMR that basically transports around the facility and it’s highly dynamic. So like dependent on the particular orders, we’ll route a robot from station A to station B or station A to E or E to F to G, H, I. You know, it’s like we have all this flexibility that they never had before. And so it enables their business to be a lot more capable of handling a wider variety of products.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:15:32] Yeah. And what’s kind of interesting too, because Zebra has sort of this holistic approach to automation now where within that warehouse or within that facility, not only can it do that, but you can go and have it check the primary packaging, the secondary packaging, ensure that the labels are complete. All with Zebra technologies.

Matt Wicks: [00:15:50] Yeah, actually that is another one I failed to mention. I mentioned about this conveyor there, but we actually did all of our scanning of the totes going in and out using Zebra scanners.

Winn Hardin: [00:16:07] Hopefully in the final production show, we can show a little bit of that background we’re talking about here, so everyone in the audience can see it. Of course you can always find more on Zebra.com.

Matt Wicks: [00:16:17] Matt, anything else we haven’t asked about today that you feel would be important to mention or that has been something you’re passionate about?

Matt Wicks: [00:16:24] I’m certainly passionate about mobile robotics. I’ve been interested in this space. I’m a conveyor guy. You know, I grew up in the conveyor space and the fixed automation. And when I saw some of the things that was happening in the AMR space, it’s like, this is where the future is here, and companies can really benefit from this technology. And I just encourage folks to take a look at what we’ve got as an offering. And I think it’s extremely flexible and extremely powerful to enable our customers to be a lot more productive and get a good return on their investment.

Winn Hardin: [00:16:56] Yeah. Let me ask you one more question before you go, because I know we’re almost out of time, but do you think the AMRs are going to be a transitionary tool for service robotics? I could totally see that happening.

Matt Wicks: [00:17:07] I’m not saying whether Zebra would chase down the service robotics?

Jimmy Carroll: [00:17:10] What do you mean by service robotics?

Winn Hardin: [00:17:11] So more in hospitals, you know, for just distribution or helping of the elderly.

Matt Wicks: [00:17:17] We actually have a partnership with Diligent Robotics. So Diligent leverages Zebra robots to be the service robot in the hospital space. So Diligent delivers medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. Those kinds of things. And really the same challenge that we’re solving in the warehouse with some of our internal solutions, Diligent is solving. Their solution is service robotics for health care.

Winn Hardin: [00:17:50] Using you as the pedestal basically.

Matt Wicks: [00:17:51] Absolutely. So we have this technology like I was talking about before. I think we have a fantastic localization and navigation system. And they’re leveraging that. And so they didn’t have to go and develop this. And so they’re leveraging that with the application layer on top to be able to provide this really fantastic solution in the health care space. So it’s a great partnership that we’ve got.

Winn Hardin: [00:18:14] Plus the focus on collaboration and human safety in your systems, which makes you kind of uniquely positioned for that. I’m going to take that answer as a yes. AMR is going to help us get to the world of service robotics, which is really exciting to me. Who amongst us doesn’t in this space doesn’t want to see robots walking down the hallway one day? Yeah, I know I do.

Matt Wicks: [00:18:37] I do think there is a lot of discussions around like bipedal robotics. And I think there’s some really interesting things that bipedal robots can do. And I think as we look at what they can and can’t do, I think there’s a lot of space for a lot of different types of form factors and robotics. And I think AMR is going to have a strong position and a collaborative position with other robotic technologies, whether they be fixed automation, robotic arms picking or manipulating objects, or with bipedal robots interfacing with robotics. So lots of cool stuff ahead.

Winn Hardin: [00:19:14] That’s what we like to have.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:19:15] Yeah, we talked about it on a previous podcast, but this idea today of all these companies coming together to solve problems, to push automation forward, where you didn’t really see as much of that maybe in the past, but now it’s like you’re talking about a direct partnership solving problems and it’s very interesting to see. And it’s great to come together at a place like the forum and talk about it.

Matt Wicks: [00:19:38] Absolutely. This is a great event. The movers and the shakers of the robotics industry are here. You walk around and you see just some fantastic individuals here that really know this space extremely well.

Winn Hardin: [00:19:54] And really have accomplished amazing things. It’s a geek festival here for sure.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:19:59] In the best possible way. Well, Matt, thank you so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it. Like Winn said, Zebra.com. And from our side, Manufacturing-Matters.com. If you have questions want to reach out, want to join the podcast, let us know. Thanks so much. I hope you enjoy the rest of the event.

Matt Wicks: [00:20:20] Thank you.