Automating & Roboticizing Stodgy Industries
Optimizing service-heavy processes
Last updated
Optimizing service-heavy processes
Last updated
Software-powered retrofits, shifting costs from hardware to software, are easy solutions to retain and expand by avoiding the CapEx and time of a ground-up solution.
is a prime example – a hydraulics retrofit makes heavy earth-moving equipment both autonomous and affordable.
Interoperability between devices that use a multitude of protocols makes connectivity a challenge – software powered retrofitting is the inevitable answer.
Companies like , , and retrofit prevalent operator-run devices to become intelligent and avoid human procedural errors.
The enterprise benefits from instant feedback & support via interfaces that harmonize human computer interaction. The result is an improvement of working conditions alongside output.
produces a BIM-driven robotic layout that is as precise in the physical world as it is digitally, and offers visual QA in manual assembly lines leading to quality, productivity, and training improvements.
The generalization of hardware to a range of tasks is a hard problem to solve, while low-hanging fruit exists in the majority of repetitive tasks requiring only a crab-claw level of accuracy.
Companies focused on: welding (), recycling conveyor systems (), and supply delivery in hospitals () have proven ROI by focusing on tasks that weave into larger systems, ultimately unlocking massive markets (see here).
To create step-change efficiencies, sometimes founders must go beyond a single task and focus on bold process design improvements across an entire ecosystem.
Examples include modular prefabricated housing ( is optimizing the entire housing supply chain), modular loading and unloading of trucks ( is creating 25x more efficient load times), software-powered cross-docking (a la Bee portfolio company ), and dynamic optimization to manage truck load delivery time ( is cutting trucking "detention" wait times by 50%).
