“Technologies like AI, cobots, and digital twins are making automation more accessible and making the deployment of robots more agile and much faster. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to engage with a robot.”

In this episode of Manufacturing Matters, TECH B2B Marketing’s Jimmy Carroll is joined by Geoff Dawson, Director of Sales at FANUC, to discuss the different technologies shaping the future of automation and manufacturing.

The conversation touches on how innovations in collaborative robots, AI, digital twins, and intuitive robot interfaces are making industrial automation more accessible than ever before. As manufacturers face a widening labor and skills gap, automation technologies are increasingly helping companies maintain productivity while empowering workers to move into higher-value roles.

In addition, the conversation covers  “lights-out manufacturing,” the growing role of robotics in industries beyond automotive — including food and beverage and pharma — and why small- and mid-size manufacturers represent one of the biggest opportunities for automation in the coming years. Covering everything from reshoring and workforce shortages to AI-enabled robotics and the emergence of plug-and-play automation solutions, this episode offers a look at where manufacturing technology is headed — and why the next decade may be the most exciting yet for industrial automation.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:00:06] Hi everybody. My name is Jimmy Carroll. I’m the vice president of operations at Tech B2B Marketing. And welcome to this episode of the Manufacturing Matters podcast. I’m joined today by Geoff Dawson, who is the director of sales at FANUC, and it is my pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Geoff Dawson: [00:00:20] Thanks, Jimmy. Appreciate being here.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:00:22] Awesome. Well, the pleasure is mine. I got the chance earlier to watch a great executive roundtable discussion at the A3 Business Forum, where we are this week. And Mike Cicco was on it. He’s the head of FANUC, CEO. And they talked a lot about how 2025 was sort of a year of uncertainty, and 2026 is the year of optimism. There’s a lot of reasons to be excited for 2026. And that’s where I’m going to start things. What are you most excited about and why should people be optimistic?

Geoff Dawson: [00:00:56] I’m really excited about the accessibility of technology and the new technologies that are coming out and the purpose of those technologies, things like AI and cobots and digital twins. They’re all really technologies to make things more accessible and to make the job easier. So to make the deployment of robots much more agile, much faster. Just seamless, so to speak. And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to engage with a robot. We’re bringing the technology forward that allows for ease of use and for ease of operation, for these companies to implement them quickly and successfully.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:01:41] Yeah. And ease of use is a good topic, and it seems to come up a lot and for all the obvious reasons. And the reason I’m asking this question is, we talk a lot in this industry about attracting young talent to come in, because there’s a labor shortage and manufacturing isn’t the sexiest job maybe for young people. But if robots are easier to use, if machine vision technologies are easier to use for the non-integrator engineer type, that can attract people to come into this industry as well. Wouldn’t you agree?

Geoff Dawson: [00:02:17] Absolutely. We call them the dull, dangerous, and dirty jobs. And we don’t have a lot of talent that wants to go into that kind of manufacturing. But we’ve all grown up with some kind of device. We all understand how ease of use has applied in our lives. And even current operators, allowing them to move to the next level. And now they’re operating equipment, they’re operating a cell rather than being the cell, rather than being the devices that are doing the loading and unloading, they’re operating the equipment and the technology that is now advancing both their company’s ability to be successful and their lives as well.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:02:58] Yeah. It’s interesting. Like, iPhones now have no buttons at all. But the first iPhone had one single button, and I remember that transition, thinking, “How are we going to go from a full keyboard to one button? How’s that going to work?” Well, in some ways that’s happening in automation, like with intuitive HMI for both the technical and non-technical. And that’s something that’s really interesting to follow. And it’s kind of a good segue into another question I wanted to ask you, which is about this gap in labor and the need for training of the younger generations. There have been some really significant investments in manufacturing and production facilities in the U.S. So obviously, this is going to lead to an even larger labor shortage, gap. And that’s going to mean more automation. So how do you think, in terms of U.S. reshoring efforts, robots are sort of going to lead the charge there, would you say?

Geoff Dawson: [00:04:00] Absolutely. Back in the day, we talked about: How many heads are we going to remove from an operation? Now it’s: How do we maintain the heads we have and how do we subsidize them? And robots, cobots especially, are ways to do that. So we’re seeing a lot of that, things that we didn’t think to automate before, high mix and low volume, now are becoming automatable with some of the tools that we have out there. But I think robots are a very important part of bridging that gap because we have a skills gap, and it’s an ever-increasing skills gap.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:04:39] Yeah. And FANUC obviously does its iRVision technology, but there’s a lot of different technologies that come together to make that possible. And you look at the different-colored lanyards here, and it’s the motion control and AI and machine vision and robotics. And all these technologies work together to make these operations happen. A topic that’s come up a lot is lights-out. Lights-out manufacturing. Not just manufacturing, but also in the warehouse. And I know FANUC has its Zero Down Time solution, but beyond that, how can we get the lights out? Can we get the full lights out? Do you think we’ll still need some minimum level of human intervention? And what are your thoughts in general there?

Geoff Dawson: [00:05:24] I think absolutely there’s human intervention. But I think we can get to a level where it requires less of that. I work a lot around the machine tool industry and around machine tool load/unload applications. And there’s a lot of standard pre-engineered solutions out there now that have drawers and tables that the parts are populated on, and they get loaded up, and then the robot loads and unloads, until basically you end up with finished parts. And a lot of times now these are going into small/medium size — I mean even down to the job shop level. You know, we have over 30,000 what we consider job shops in the U.S. So there’s a lot of opportunity there. And some of these companies are doing some sort of lights-out where at the end of the day, they can load these drawer systems or these systems up and come in the next morning with finished parts. So that’s a variation of lights-out. And FANUC itself has a company that’s been doing lights-out production in Japan for a long time. We have over 5,000 robots in Japan. We build robots with robots. We have machining factories that we could put the raw materials in, and we have a long production cycle of several days before we have to theoretically replenish those systems. So I think we can get there. I don’t know that every operation everywhere can go lights-out. But I think there are certain low-hanging fruits, things that can be run as lights-out.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:06:55] It’s probably application to application or industry to industry for sure. Maybe there are some that are dealing with pharmaceuticals. Maybe that’s more attainable than others.

Geoff Dawson: [00:07:08] Yeah, food. Even if you could come up with an always-running system, at some point you have to sanitize, for primary food handling. So there’s sanitization that has to happen. So it’s not really they can run. But I think we’re at a point where a lot of these systems, assembly systems and such, run several hours, which is somewhat lights-out. You know, they can run without intervention.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:07:40] Yeah, Alex Shikany called it a dark factory. Well, it’s like the mostly dark factory.

Geoff Dawson: [00:07:45] Yeah mostly, but it’s very interesting. And obviously the closer we get, the more efficient businesses can run and everything else.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:07:55] You mentioned food, and that’s a good one I want to ask about, because there are specific needs in food with wash-down environments and things like that. But I know that, when it comes to robotics, automotive a lot of times takes the main stage in terms of the applications. But what are some other industries where you’ve seen robotic adoption growing and where maybe even your company has had to adapt its product development to meet these new needs?

Winn Hardin: [00:08:23] Everybody, I just want to take a quick second to thank our sponsor. Manufacturing matters is sponsored by tech B2B marketing. They’re a full service public relations and marketing agency that focuses on technology companies, especially in the energy and automation markets. They provide full service media relations, investor relations, employee relations, full end to end content development, video services, animation, full IT stack development from website integrating with ERP system, CRM, marketing automation systems, and they bring a whole lot of knowledge and experience about technical markets since they’ve been servicing those markets for over 30 years. So if you have any questions you want to learn more, go to tech b2b.com. And now let’s get back to the show.

Geoff Dawson: [00:09:03] Well, I’d say definitely food, because there’s requirements, sanitation requirements and such, that have required us to take a look at how our robots are constructed and ensure that we have the ability to wash those robots down. Definitely. And the ability to handle chemicals. There’s some pretty corrosive chemicals that are used in that cleaning process. So definitely there. Pharmaceutical assembly-type stuff. FANUC, we weren’t players in the SCARA area. We brought SCARAs out. Now we have a full line of SCARAs and they’re very, very popular.

Geoff Dawson: [00:09:42] And in that assembly, whether it’s electronics assembly or whether it’s used in pharmaceutical, whether it’s used in medical assembly, there’s a big demand. We got into cobots by taking industrial robots and making them cobots. But we found a need to have a purpose-built robot to really fit what the market is looking for. So that’s where our CRX line came out. Painting. That’s another area. FANUC has been building paint robots in the U.S. since 1982. So we manufacture the paint robots in Rochester Hills, Michigan, that are shipped all over to our subsidiaries. And that goes back to a joint venture we had with General Motors, where they kind of brought the paint technology. We brought the electric servo motor technology and married them together. And now paint’s a huge, very big business for us.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:10:41] Yet see a lot of different industries. So it’s kind of hard to use a crystal ball here. But what are some industries where you could see some significant growth in the next couple of years?

Geoff Dawson: [00:11:01] I think anything to do with data centers.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:11:02] Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff Dawson: [00:11:03] And when I say that, it’s the AI. So it’s building the stuff that’s going into the data centers. So we’re seeing a lot of need. You’re hearing a lot of programs that are building the GPUs and building the cases and assembling those. A lot of backup power for data centers. So we’re seeing a big push because they require a lot of power and they also require backup power. So you’re seeing a lot of power generation growth, from some big customers. So definitely one of the areas. Space, things that take the satellites into orbit. We’ve seen a lot of push there with all the companies that have gotten into that space. Definitely pharmaceuticals, especially with all the new injectables and so on and so forth. We’ve seen a lot of growth there too.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:12:02] What about applications that could be considered so-called physical AI? First of all, what does that term mean to you It’s something that has been discussed kind of at length lately.

Geoff Dawson: [00:12:15] People have strong opinions on it. But I think we’ve been doing it for a long time. We’ve incorporated AI for over 15 years and we use AI to tune servos. We used AI for a product we had called Learning Vibration Control, where we had a vibration sensor on the end of a robot arm, and we would go through the pass. And the whole purpose was to try to smooth out that motion by sensing the vibrations. And this was very important in automotive when they were getting the tack time down on, like, spot welding applications, really intense, really fast, quick, tactile, quick tack time applications. Safety. Physical AI is in safety. A lot of the new safety systems are starting to see where they can incorporate AI and of course AI vision. The impact of all the startups. Especially I would say one of the biggest areas where we’ve seen AI the most in the last few years is the e-commerce and warehousing space. With all of the different companies on specific applications. You’ll have somebody that’s really focused on truck unload. You’ll have somebody that’s really focused on eaches picking. Somebody that’s really focused on sortation, palletizing.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:13:39] High-speed barcode reading, whatever.

Geoff Dawson: [00:13:40] And just having more compute power for that. FANUC’s just really opened up and we’ve got streaming now. We’ve got ROS 2 drivers. We’ve got some Python support in our next-generation controller. We’ve got all kinds of tools now, because at the end of the day, it’s the startups that have the thought on the different kinds of technology. They want those tools. That’s how they’re going to come to reality. And I think Mike talked a little bit about that earlier, too, about how these companies, it opens up a lot of possibilities for them. But it also opens up safety concerns too. So it’s a Catch 22. But I think having those tools available, having the ability for people to get access and use those tools that they’re using to develop different applications within our markets.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:14:42] Yeah. And that’s a really good point. One of the things I wanted to ask you about was, I’ve seen a number of companies out there, whether they’re startups or even sort of grown beyond being a startup, that don’t necessarily manufacture a product. They offer solutions, and oftentimes they’re using FANUC robots. What are some examples in recent years of customers of yours that are using FANUC robots but maybe integrating their own AI or vision or whatever to solve new challenges?

Geoff Dawson: [00:15:13] Most prominently it was in the warehousing and e-commerce space, right? Figuring out the depalletizing, but we’ve also got our own box locators for doing that with AI now and starting to see it on the machine tool side, using AI chat with the robot in order to tell the robot, instead of having to fill out a form, it’s more of a conversation, almost like a ChatGTP, telling the robot and the machine what the setup is and what the part they’re going to run is.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:15:53] Yeah. And that’s a really good point too. Like these large language model tools. Even just a few years ago, people were going, yeah, here and there they can be used, maybe to help with some coding. But now there are large companies that are integrating LLMs into their environments. And that’s super fascinating to me. What else is out there? What are you most excited about in the next couple of years? Do you have any predictions, things you expect to see?

Geoff Dawson: [00:16:12] For sure, for sure.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:16:13] What else is out there? What do you, what do you, um, what are you most excited about in the next couple of years? Do you have any predictions that things you expect to see?

Geoff Dawson: [00:16:24] Just the continued usage of our technology to help fill this skills gap I think is important. I think there’s going to be more plug and play on vision and grippers and continued development of applications. I’m excited about the opportunity to bring automation and robotics to help the small company become very successful, or they can’t find people. So that excites me a lot. I think just continued growth in the collaborative robots. We continue to see new applications. It’s funny, you know, collaborative robots. At first it was the do-it-yourself thing. Now it’s about solutions. And I’m excited about all the solutions that are being developed, that people can buy a solution almost ready to go, in some cases ready to go. And also the adoption of cobots. The large companies are now doing programs where they’re realizing that a collaborative robot can be an assistant to their operators, to present parts to the operator, so they can allow the operators to really concentrate on what they need to and get away from ergonomic issues, get away from dirty issues and danger, just handle and really be supplemented by the robot or be subsidized with the robot.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:17:59] Yeah. That’s a really good answer. I think that to me, it feels like the industry might have dips and jumps in terms of growth, but for the industry to really continue to grow, more and more, small- and medium-sized companies need to be able to adopt automation, and seeing what companies like FANUC are doing and then companies that are leveraging FANUC’s technology to implement their own software or whatever it might be as a total solution and making these things more accessible, easy to use. There’s a lot of opportunity there to see growth in automation. And to me, one of the most exciting things, and I say this too often and I know I shouldn’t, but it’s seeing all these different technologies converge to solve challenges for people. And that’s going to be more necessary than ever now with reshoring efforts.

Geoff Dawson: [00:18:46] Yeah, I’m really, really excited about our investments, reshoring, FANUC investments. You know, when I moved to Michigan 11 years ago, we had 400,000 square feet in Michigan. Now we have almost 2 million square feet. So since 2019 we’ve built a 450,000 and a 650,000 square foot building. And we can deliver robots pretty quickly, which I think is needed at this time. And training people too. It’s very important, the training aspect. We’ve got a big investment going on right now into our training academy. So that’s really exciting. And also on the customer side, there’s a lot of pilots out there. We have a lot of pilots and the technology is being proven. And I’m excited for those pilots to turn into scale. So really looking forward to seeing some of these really kick off.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:19:39] Yeah.

Geoff Dawson: [00:19:40] Yeah. So I think I think, you know, really looking forward to seeing seeing some of these really kick off.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:19:46] Absolutely. FANUC’s leadership in the industry is something to follow. I don’t know how many millions of robots you’ve sold now, but I remember you hit some milestone a few years ago. And I thought to myself, “Wow.” I had no idea. Geoff, is there anything else we haven’t talked about that you feel is important to mention today?

Geoff Dawson: [00:20:08] Geoff Dawson: I don’t think so. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation. I think everybody — our customers, our partners — we’re all going to be winners going forward. I think there’s so much opportunity. It’s an exciting time. But I think every year is going to be more exciting. I think we just have excitement upon excitement coming up with this industry.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:20:36] I couldn’t agree more. Yeah, absolutely. And everyone probably listening to this knows who FANUC is. But if you don’t, go to FANUC.com and check them out. Go on LinkedIn, read their blogs, see what they’re up to. It’s been something I’ve been following for a long time now and look forward to their continued leadership in the industry. And same for A3. Go to automate.org. If you’re looking to make that leap into automation, FANUC and A3 would be two great places to start. And with that, Geoff, I would just thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. If anybody has any questions, feel free to reach out to us at Manufacturing-Matters.com, and once again, thank you very much.

Geoff Dawson: [00:21:19] Thanks, Jimmy, I appreciate it.

Jimmy Carroll: [00:21:20] Awesome.