Episode 9 – Bryan Sellars from SICK Inc.: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 9 – Bryan Sellars from SICK Inc.: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Winn Hardin:
Morning, everybody, and welcome to Manufacturing Matters. We're in Boston at the Autonomous Mobile Robotics and Logistics show Co, located with the vision show this year. And I'm lucky enough to be with Brian Sellars, industrial marketing manager for SICK. Thanks for coming, Brian.

Bryan Sellars:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Winn Hardin:
Awesome. So kick us off a little bit. Tell us a little about SICK.

Bryan Sellars:
Yeah, absolutely. So SICK is a German based company. We've been in the United States now since the mid seventies. We are a manufacturer for automation components. The name comes from Doctor Erwin Sick, who started the company back in the late forties. So it's a German thing. The kids love the name. So six awesome name that way. But we got our start with inventing the world's first, if you like her, and that was in the fifties. And so since then we've we've obviously stayed true to our roots with safety, but then we've evolved more into more vision stuff like cameras to DD three. D We do a lot with robot guidance, we do a lot with safety, LIDAR and other types of lidar multilayer lidar single player lidar time of flight technology as well. It's all about optics. So you know, it used to be SICK Optic actually. And so and so our our really bread and butter is anything with light or laser sensors, anything like that. And so so yeah we've been we've been very fortunate. It's been it's been a great run. We're we're strong. We're still a privately held company, which is awesome. And yeah, I've been here ten years and it's been great. So yeah.

Winn Hardin:
That brings up a whole lot of different jumping off points. And you talk about the LiDAR and all the other applications to you guys in the robotics side, autonomous side. But before we go, before we get into the delving deeper there and get more granular, So what is the sickest thing that you've seen on the show floor?

Bryan Sellars:
The sickest thing is at the SICK booth, obviously, with our with our new brand new safety rated three D type of light product we call the safe visionary to it's say it's made for robot safety. It's made for human safety. And so it's the first one of of our portfolio that is a call it a multi planar lidar we're not just doing the two D now it's we're actually measuring X, Y and Z. And so now we can we can really protect that robot, protect people from getting hit mobile robots, stationary robots. Some of the other things I've seen a lot of three D technology out there as far as cameras go, there's they've got cameras moving that's stitching together great looking images, color images, a lot of that kind of stuff that's maybe a little bit more on the metrology side. But it's it's it's really fascinating to see this technology and and really how far it's come just in the last few years.

Winn Hardin:
So with the new safety systems, you've got the optical image based safety systems, right? So you're doing a point cloud or at least a grid projected.

Bryan Sellars:
Grid, Right.

Winn Hardin:
So what is the value proposition? I would assume that's a little bit more expensive as a safety system or what? I mean, seriously, where's the value for the customer?

Bryan Sellars:
Yeah, absolutely. So number one, it's actually it's actually not as expensive as the as the leader safety leader. So it's kind of kind of the way and it's kind of the way the industry is going. You know, it's everything in technology gets smaller, better, cheaper. And so, you know, and we're no exception. But but yeah, it's it's a great price point. The real value to the customer is now you're you're detecting humans in a3d space and not just in a2d plane. So in other words, if, if you're the robot, right. If you're the robot and I do like this, if your safety laser scanner is at the bottom, my foot, my leg may be right here, but my arm could be right here. And so now we're actually seeing that, right? Yeah. We don't we don't want to. Exactly. Yeah. It's a bad day, Bob. The nub is not a not a good look, but. But yeah, so we have that. And so now we're seeing the world is not flat. Neither are you. And so with a3d image now, we can actually see beyond just what a2d plane may give you. And that's what the real value is to the customer.

Winn Hardin:
And the tof you know, from a machine vision perspective and a guidance thing, it operates usually a little bit slower than you're straight up light hour, single plane planar light hour systems, which probably 30 FPS or whatever you're operating is right A good enough for any kind of robotic safety.

Bryan Sellars:
System. Yeah. Correct. Correct. Yeah. The speed, you know, it all comes back to a risk assessment, right. So your risk assessment will tell you, you know, based on the speed of your robot, based on the speed of your safety equipment, how far do I need to be away from you before I actually can get to you? The danger zone, if you will. Right. So based on that risk assessment, yeah, you're not you're not going to outrun the product. Now, again, you need to you didn't make sure it's a plot correctly. You can have the safest product in the world, but if it's not applied correctly, then it doesn't matter. And I will say that's one of the differentiators with SICK is we have that knowledge not only in making the products themselves, but doing risk assessments, doing proof of concepts, doing validations. Once the once the whole thing has been built, we've got an entire safety services group that that handles all that and takes that liability away from the customer. We've got broad shoulders. And so we're making sure that not only are we giving you products that are going to be safe, but we're going to apply them in a way that's going to be safe.

Winn Hardin:
So you guys are really doing a lot of consultative sales. It's not just working through distribution channels and everything, correct.

Bryan Sellars:
It is.

Winn Hardin:
Committing a lot of resources and helping customers understand their application.

Bryan Sellars:
Correct? Yeah. Yeah. We have a wonderful distribution network. We also again have a direct network and part of that part of those services kind of come through that. But like I said, it's it's really we're wanting to take that liability away from others because we want to make sure that our products are are used correctly, implemented correctly, so that at the end of the day, we ultimately would have the liability if something were to happen because we've given it our stamp of approval. But yeah, that's, that's and it's just all this knowledge we have, we've just decided to put it to use for, for people to make sure that again, it's something that's going to be safer to use.

Winn Hardin:
Were you guys at the robotics safety conference this year?

Bryan Sellars:
We are, yeah. I was there a couple a couple of weeks ago in Columbus, Right. Or last week or something like that.

Winn Hardin:
Yeah. If I was in Columbus that the CO located this year with Robot safety.

Bryan Sellars:
International Robot Safety I.R.S. Yep.

Winn Hardin:
Is that becoming a bigger deal for the industry? Oh yeah. As robotics safety becomes more.

Bryan Sellars:
And more mainstream, as robots become more mainstream, robotic safety is obviously going to follow that. I mean, it's it's everyone is in a labor crunch. Everyone is having trouble finding qualified, skilled labor. Yes. And so as automation continues to grow, you know, a three is obviously on top of all that with all the robot standards, with shows like Automate, with shows like RSK, which is which is one of the big values that I see out of a three in our company. Cs Out of a three association. But yeah, it's as, as these become more prevalent and as these work in, in concert with humans, you know, we're not replacing humans entirely. There may still be a human element there. We're making sure that that robot has eyes, that it can see its environment, it can see the people around it, it can see the products it's trying to interact with or whatever the process. And it's it's trying to do. And so we really give the robot eyes. And and again, as robots become more popular in the industry, safety has obviously never gone away. And we're always going to have to make sure that we maintain the highest level of safety. We don't want people getting hurt.

Winn Hardin:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So we talked about 2D 3D vision. We talked about LiDAR a little bit. What's at six position regarding? When I think of LiDAR, I think one of the hottest applications right now is for autonomous systems. And of course, we're here at the Armor Show. Absolutely. Right. So I'm assuming it sic is widely used both in the safety systems, but are you also helping to provide assemblies or components to the armor companies for their sensing mechanisms? Are we transitioning, trying to get out into embedded systems in consumer products, a.k.a. self-driving cars? What are you, six position. Yeah.

Bryan Sellars:
So sickle six Obviously the strongest point is in the automation factory automation, logistics, automation, logistics from where we come from. And that's, that's where we're always going to maintain our strength. What we've seen actually your other light manufacturers that maybe tried to go after the consumer market first, now they're trying to get into this market because it just it's exploding again. It's e commerce, whatever. It's driving all that kind of stuff, you know, labor gaps, all that. I mean, yeah, automation is not going anywhere. Automation is here to stay. And so we we are mainly concentrating on that kind of stuff. Now we're also getting into outdoor automation, but we call it off road. So it would be anything like construction vehicles or farming agriculture service bots, like the ones that roll through the Pittsburgh International Airport, sanitizing everything, right? Or or the folks that are that are delivering your your prescriptions at a hospital, things like that. So we are getting into that industry as well. It's as robot manufacturers go into those industries, they're pulling us through for human protection, for localization, LIDAR, navigation, that kind of thing. We're really trying to stay away from the from the car industry. We don't we're not really wanting to to put our stuff on cars for a couple of reasons. Number one, with SIC being a privately held company, we just don't want the liability of any kind of accidents. But also, quite frankly, any time you deal with automotive, it's a race to the bottom as far as far as pricing goes. Exactly. And quite frankly, we're not interested in that. So we'll we'll let other people handle that, that that market. And again, there's plenty to do here in the factory automation and logistics automation markets where we really don't have to play with that.

Winn Hardin:
That's fantastic.

Bryan Sellars:
So but yeah, with vision, you know, we're seeing a lot with quality control, we're seeing a lot with track and trace, we're seeing a lot with RFID. Rfid seems to be taking off now.

Winn Hardin:
Where are we in the adoption curve? You mentioned service robotics earlier. Yes. It's something we've been thinking about, talking about for a decade more. You know, are we finally seeing traction here?

Bryan Sellars:
It's happening. Yeah. I mean, you've got people like Starship Technologies that are doing delivery bots for college campuses, for office campuses, you know, things like that. You can see FedEx Box rolling down the street, that last mile delivery type of thing. Right. You're seeing, again, the the disinfecting robots for hospitals, for for airports, public areas. There's folks like nightscope that's making robots for parking lot security. So, I mean, it's it's all over. Yeah. The adoption is coming and it will continue to.

Winn Hardin:
Go and I'm so much of an ease perception.

Bryan Sellars:
It is yeah it's all of these things need perception. They need to know where they're going. They need to know not to hit you as they're rolling down the road. They need to know that cars aren't coming as they're crossing the street. And now you're starting to get into smart infrastructure and things like that. And so it's and there's a lot of schools like Texas A&M has a has an entire group that's just dedicated to smart cities and smart infrastructure. University of Michigan has a great, smart city research campus, if you will. And so they're learning these things. How can how can autonomy, how can the infrastructure help the the adoption of autonomy for these kind of folks that you can be used on the street and not just in a warehouse?

Winn Hardin:
Brian, I can't thank you enough for taking a few minutes. You know, as we talked about, unfortunately, the labor gap that you mentioned earlier is really across all industries, I mean, even in ours. Yes, sure. So and in manufacturing, I mean, the most recent numbers came out, I believe 22% of the jobs that were filled in the last report from the government in the US were all manufacturing based, were still throttled there. Right. You know, taking time to get with these podcasts, spread the word about manufacturing, the benefits of automation, technology, and that it's just a little bit sexier than most people think it is.

Bryan Sellars:
It's worth talking to these shows and you'll see I mean, you know, these we're not working in dark environments trying to, you know, have have big, you know, big smelters of of metal just flowing everywhere. And it's just dirty. It's it's sexy, it's cool, it's innovative, it's technology, and it's not going anywhere.

Winn Hardin:
No. And pretty bad to bone culture, too.

Bryan Sellars:
Oh, it's awesome. Yeah, it really is.

Winn Hardin:
Brian from SICK, thank you so much for giving us. You're very welcome, guys. You've got any questions for Mr. Sellers? I hope you'll give us give us a shout over tech B2B click like Share this podcast so that we can continue to spread the word about why manufacturing matters and until we see you next time shop.

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