This podcast episode features Saman Farid, the CEO and Co-Founder of Formic, who is pioneering fast-deploying Robots-as-a-service.
Prior to founding Formic, Saman ran the global investment fund for Baidu Ventures, specializing in the firm’s AI and Machine Learning investments outside of China. Before investing, Saman built and sold two tech companies and worked on technology infrastructure projects in alternative energy. He also held positions at global tech giants Verizon, Microsoft, and Honeywell.
In this podcast episode, Saman provides insights into the adoption of robotics technology in the manufacturing industry and its significant impact. He emphasizes how robotics technology is transforming the manufacturing industry by increasing productivity, reducing costs, and improving the quality of goods produced.
“A lot of manufacturers have been stuck in this productivity rut for the last five to ten years. Thus, the real goal here is to boost the productivity of these manufacturers. Once they put in robots, what happens is that they get a lot more utilization. They produce more, and so their top line goes up, but their bottom line goes up way more.”
Discussed in this episode:
✔️ Transforming the future of US manufacturing: inside the origins and impact of Formic’s robotics technology on customers today
✔️ Mitigating risk and maximizing ROI in the adoption of robotics technology
✔️ Revolutionizing labor: building an efficient service network for hourly deployment of robot workers across regions
✔️ How a disruptive business model is changing the robot industry: insights from a company working with a wide range of robotic suppliers
✔️ Benchmarking deployment speed: how does Formic compare to traditional competitors?
✔️ Challenges and strategies for building the world’s largest robot workforce
✔️ Enhancing manufacturing operations with automation: overcoming financing challenges and streamlining growth
✔️ Adaptability of robot workers: a key factor for lending in the manufacturing industry
✔️ Scaling new robot applications: mitigating venture risk and expanding markets
✔️ Exploring the organizational structure of the robotics company: software and implementation teams coordination
✔️ The future of manufacturing: in-demand skills for robotic automation
“Last year in America, about 40,000 robots were deployed. But, right now, in America, there are more than 1.3 million unfilled manufacturing jobs. The rate of robot deployment today is not even a drop in the bucket… [When Formic rolls out robots,] all of these are highly repetitive tasks. A lot of them are pretty back-breaking labor and they’re tasks that workers don’t want to do. And in a lot of cases, manufacturers can’t find people who are willing to do those jobs. When we put in robots, worker satisfaction goes up, worker’s injuries goes down, and utilization goes up and all of a sudden they get a lot more production.”
