XaaS
Assembly Line
Atlas Energy Solutions and Kodiak Announce Agreement For Autonomous Trucking Technology
Atlas Energy Solutions Inc. (NYSE: AESI) and Kodiak Robotics, Inc. announced that the two companies have entered into an agreement whereby Kodiak will outfit new Atlas high-capacity trucks with Kodiak’s autonomous driving technology.
The two companies have already completed their first driverless delivery of frac sand in West Texas’s Permian Basin. The 21-mile delivery transported Atlas’s high-quality frac sand from an Atlas depot to a wellsite with no one inside the cab.
The companies also announced that Atlas has placed an order for Kodiak-equipped driverless trucks that will deliver frac sand across the Permian Basin’s existing infrastructure of private lease roads. Early next year, Atlas plans to launch commercial operations using its first two trucks equipped with the Kodiak Driver, Kodiak’s industry-leading autonomous system.
Under the agreement, Kodiak will provide its technology to Atlas via a driver-as-a-service licensing agreement. Atlas will own the trucks, and Kodiak will provide the Kodiak Driver’s fully-redundant, platform-agnostic, hardware and software stack designed for scalable driverless deployment. Kodiak will also provide operational support services, including remote monitoring from its operations center in Lancaster, Texas.
Here’s what it could cost to hire a Digit humanoid
Many folks within the robotics industry were left wanting more information, however, particularly around the cost. And that’s where Johnson’s comments help shed some light. She said Agility Robotics is currently charging a “fully loaded $30 per hour” for its Digit humanoid. She said the return on investment (ROI) for customers is under two years.
That cost-per-hour figure for the humanoid, all accessories, and maintenance seems reasonable. Now, we don’t know how many Digits Spanx is using or how long the robots work each day. It’s unlikely Digit is working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But if it was, that’s $262,800 per robot per year. Those figures would be different with a 40-hour work week, of course. At that capacity, a robot would cost about $62,400 to run for the year.
Robot-packed meals are coming to the frozen-food aisle
Chef Robotics, a San Francisco–based startup, has launched a system of AI-powered robotic arms that can be quickly programmed with a recipe to dole out accurate portions of everything from tikka masala to pesto tortellini. After experiments with leading brands, including Amy’s Kitchen, the company says its robots have proved their worth and are being rolled out at scale to more production facilities. They are also being offered to new customers in the US and Canada.
Rather than selling the machines outright, Chef uses a service model, where customers pay a yearly fee that covers maintenance and training. Amy’s currently uses eight systems (each with two robotic arms) spread across two of its plants. One of these systems can now do the work of two to four workers depending on which ingredients are being packed, Griego says. The robots also reduce waste, since they can pack more consistent portions than their human counterparts. One-arm systems typically cost less than $135,000 per year, according to Chef CEO Rajat Bhageria.
GXO signs industry-first multi-year agreement with Agility Robotics
GXO Logistics, Inc., the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider, and Agility Robotics, creator of the leading bipedal Mobile Manipulation Robot (MMR) Digit®, announced that they have signed a multi-year agreement to begin deploying Digit in GXO’s logistics operations. This agreement, which follows a proof-of-concept pilot in late 2023, is both the industry’s first formal commercial deployment of humanoid robots and first Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) deployment of humanoid robots.
As part of the RaaS agreement, GXO is deploying Digit robots and Agility Arc™, Agility’s cloud automation platform for deploying and managing Digit fleets. Digit is a multi-purpose, human-centric robot made for logistics work, and designed to work safely in human spaces and help with a variety of repetitive tasks. Agility Arc is designed to simplify the deployment lifecycle, from facility mapping and workflow definition to operational management and troubleshooting.
In the SPANX facility, Agility’s solutions integrate with existing automation, including Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs). Expanding on last year’s pilot, Digit robots are assisting with repetitive tasks such as moving totes from cobots and placing them onto conveyors, all orchestrated through Agility Arc. Under the RaaS agreement, the companies will continue to explore additional use cases and scale Digit usage to meet demand throughout the deployment.
Edge as a service for factory modernization
Shein to Market Its Unique Supply-Chain Technology to Global Brands
Shein’s executive chairman, Donald Tang, announced the plan in a letter to investors viewed by The Wall Street Journal, calling the new initiative “supply chain as a service.” Under the plan, Shein would make its supply-chain infrastructure and technology available to outside brands and designers, allowing them to leverage Shein’s system for testing out new fashion items in small batches and track how popular they are with consumers.
Shein has revolutionized fashion manufacturing. It contracts with thousands of factories in China that churn out tens of thousands of new styles daily. It places orders to suppliers to be delivered in days, relies on real-time data to quickly analyze demand and replenishes orders as needed. That cuts down on the cost for storage and limits inventory waste, a primary reason for its ultralow prices.
OEM servitization strategies: Why Equipment as a Service hasn’t taken off yet
In 2020, IoT Analytics questioned whether we were witnessing the start of the machine-outcome decade (the 2020s), where assets are not purchased as capital expenditures (CapEx) but, instead, are paid for on an outcome basis as operational expenses (OpEx). Moving from CapEx to OpEx helps companies with limited access to capital access equipment without a large upfront investment, and assets with unpredictable usage could be more cost-effective since the companies would only pay for what they use.
According to our latest research on the topic—the 147-page Equipment as a Service Market Report 2024–2028—the concepts of “equipment as a service” and “pay-per-use” have not taken off as much as expected, even though the greater subscription economy has. IoT Analytics’ estimates the adoption of “as-a-service” models is less than 1%—meaning that less than 1% of equipment sales in 2023 (machines, electronics, electrical equipment, etc.) was achieved with EaaS contracts.
🇩🇪 RobCo raises €39.1M from Lightspeed, Sequoia, others
RobCo, a provider of affordable and connected robotics automation solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has secured $42.5M (approximately €39.17M) in a Series B round of funding. The investment came from global VC firm Lightspeed Venture Partners along with existing investor Sequoia Capital. Kindred Capital and Promus Ventures also participated in this round.
RobCo facilitates SMEs’ entry into automation and addresses challenges such as skilled labour shortages, production scalability, and the transition to Industry 4.0. The company’s platform allows remote configuration, implementation, and management of robots via a digital twin, using a low-code approach that eliminates the need for complex programming or specialised personnel. In addition, RobCo combines its proprietary patented platform approach with a novel business model – Robot-as-a-Service (in short: RaaS).
RaaS allows small and midsize manufacturers to pay for robotic services on a monthly basis instead of buying hardware. Manufacturers see an immediate return of automation, while avoiding large upfront investments, and they’re able to transform robotics budgets from CapEx to OpEx.
ANYbotics uses AWS to deploy a global robot workforce for industrial inspections
ANYbotics, a pioneering company at the forefront of autonomous mobile robots, is using AWS to deploy their global robot workforce. They revolutionize the operation of large industrial facilities by providing intelligent inspection solutions that improve safety, efficiency, and sustainability. Connecting the physical and digital assets, ANYbotics helps companies with cutting-edge robotics technology to create an environment where robots and humans can work seamlessly together to achieve better results.
Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) is a business model that offers robots and robotic services to customers on a subscription or pay-as-you-go basis, rather than selling robots as a one-time product. RaaS is ANYbotics’ preferred model to scale the ANYmal fleet with a fully serviced offering for hardware and software. It’s a flexible business model without the need for upfront investments for their customers.
By using AWS services, ANYbotics can scale their applications up and down, depending on the current workload. They can add compute resources on demand within minutes and use the pay-as-you-go pricing model to operate cost efficiently. This is crucial for ANYbotics since they can easily adapt to fluctuation in the number of robots or the complexity of tasks without investing in on-premises hardware that might be underutilized during periods of lower demand. Scaling up is essential to ensure the future readiness of operating a growing fleet of ANYmal robots and meet the demand for more complex task solving applications.
Rivelin Robotics CEO hails Hardware as a Service as ‘transformative concept’
With the increasing use of automated hardware and connected manufacturing solutions, together with the software that enables it, the potential impact on productivity, and adopting a flexible revenue approach makes HaaS a significant paradigm shift. A flexible revenue approach is a defining feature of HaaS, offering organisations a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model instead of the traditional CapEx hardware purchasing model. This offers manufacturing organisations, regardless of their size, several advantages.
As technology continues to evolve, HaaS business models can support organisations striving to remain competitive and agile in an ever-changing world. Think of the Rivelin solution as an OpEx. Think of it as your new 12-month labour contract.
Optimizing Multi-Robot Workcell Performance
What distinguishes the many possible designs? In a good design, every robot spends approximately the same amount of time per cycle; we want to avoid having some robots idle while others are still working. Similarly, in a good design, every robot is able to move without spending much time either waiting for other robots to move out of its way or taking a non-optimal path so as to avoid other robots. The goal of a design is to enable high-performance choreography of the robots.
Our team has developed Optimization-as-a-Service (OaaS), which uses a proprietary algorithm to find high-performing design options that would otherwise take months to be discovered by a team of engineers. We have obtained speedups of 5-20 percent using our OaaS (discussed later), compared to designs that were laboriously developed by experienced engineers. This result highlights that design is both very difficult and very important
🦾 Boosting machinery sector profitability via cloud-aided digitalization
Cloud capabilities open up an important potential source of revenue in the machine and equipment sector: the equipment-as-a-service (EaaS) model. This business model gives OEMs a way to satisfy customers’ increasing preference to operationalize their equipment expenses and reduce their capital expenditures. The EaaS model benefits customers by supplying them with rented equipment as part of a service that includes software updates, spare-part replacements, and predictive maintenance. And OEMs and manufacturers benefit from increased access to machine data and customers, which can lead to additional revenue.
Cloud computing also offers businesses scalability and enhanced system interoperability—for example, with supplier systems. And by taking advantage of cloud service providers’ existing networks and technology resources, machine and equipment manufacturers can more easily integrate new supply chain–enhancing capabilities such as data lakes or pretrained machine-learning models.
Cloud-based platforms allow OEMs to establish permanent connections to the digital components of the products they sell. Offering services such as predictive maintenance, steering via a product app, and remote problem solving directly to their customers can help OEMs create additional revenue streams.
🦾 Kicking RaaS with Robotics as a Service
One major difference between robotics as a service and more traditional models of automation is financing. Typically, users purchase automation equipment, such as robots or cobots, and pay integrators to set them up if necessary. The idea of leasing or renting equipment can be a big adjustment for manufacturers who are used to buying equipment and amortizing it. And while she says that Rapid isn’t necessarily opposed to eventually selling the system to its customers, she also points out that it might not make sense. “If you’re running the system for three shifts for five years, it’s kind of coming to the end of its guaranteed life at that point. Do you really want to own it, or do you just want it to be our problem if it breaks, or something happens to it or it needs to be replaced?”
Behrens also appreciates the service aspect of Rapid’s business model, particularly the 24/7 monitoring. “When we have a problem, sometimes Rapid is calling us to say, hey, we see one of your robots is down. We’re going to do this to fix it,” Bellingham says. A lot of service can be done remotely, which helps maintain uptime. And when remote service isn’t an option, Rapid can diagnose the problem remotely, set up a replacement system in its office and bring it to the shop to swap out. Rapid takes the faulty system back to its office to fix, minimizing downtime for manufacturers.
🖨️ Nagami, on printing the sustainable future of interior architecture
Nagami was founded in Manuel’s mind during a research cluster, focussed on searching for a more sustainable way of building, at The Bartlett, UCL’s Faculty of the Built Environment. While “rethinking architecture from the very core”, the team started to explore the use of automation within the industry, something that was already very much relied-upon in other industries such as car manufacturing. Naturally, the use of robots was a worthwhile direction of exploration.
Nagami’s team is currently working on a ‘furnishing and architecture as a subscription’ model. For example, a retail store that updates its physical space every six months or so can do so through a ‘Nagami membership’. At the end of the season, this offering will enable these companies to return the 3D printed panels to Nagami, where they will be recycled, and reprinted in the design of the new shopfit, at a discounted rate.
🦾 Protolabs presents 2023 Robotics Manufacturing Status Report
Industrial robots are also perceived as one of the most powerful ways to automate and build flexible production lines that enable customised production models like made-to-order and engineering-to-order. The latter model leads to mass customization i.e., the ability to produce highly customised products with only marginal increase in production cost.Industrial robots can automatically reconfigure production lines to produce alternative product variants with limited, or even zero, human intervention. Nevertheless, this flexible manufacturing approach is gradually reaching its limits, as radically differentiated products require changes, not only in the configuration of the production line, but also on the machinery used, especially when there is a need to manufacture a new product. Designing the production system of a new product requires efforts that are orders of magnitude higher than producing a variant of an existing product.
A key enabler of the advancement of robotics innovation is the leveraging of digital models to enable the manufacturing as a service (MaaS) paradigm. MaaS or digital manufacturing platforms offer access to various manufacturing processes, such as 3D printing, CNC machining, and injection moulding, and provide an easy transactional experience by allowing customers to upload their part designs to quickly get quotes for manufacturing costs and lead times.
Sustainable Business Models for Manufacturing
Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace keeps its Engines Running on Databricks Lakehouse
SKF uses cloud to offer new business models
In production environments, there’s an alternative to owning resources and outsourcing: performance-based contracts. At SKF, for example, customers pay to use assets and benefit from guaranteed uptime. Effective delivery of Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) business models depends on data collection and processing. On top of that, MindSphere, the leading industrial IoT as a service solution, as part of the Xcelerator portfolio brings quite a few more advantages.
The advantage of so-called Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) business models is that companies pay for only what they use. Increasingly, XaaS is being extended to production assets. An example can be found with SKF, a manufacturer of, among others, rotating equipment like bearings. The idea is simple; Instead of buying industrial bearings – whether for conveyor belts, pumps, crushers, paper machines, steel or pulp mills and railway bogies – SKF’s customers pay for uninterrupted rotation services. Under SKF’s Rotating Equipment Performance service, customers pay a fixed fee, which covers the provision of bearings, seals, lubrication and condition monitoring.
Ultrasound Inspection Optimizes EV Battery Manufacturing
Battery cell inspection technology has been neglected in favor of other innovation categories. According to a recent MIT study, inspection has not been a factor in previous price declines and therefore increased use of cell interrogation should not come as a surprise. Seemingly this would not require an engineering leap. After all, ‘borrowed technology’ from previous chemistries and other industries has worked well enough in the past.
However, large-format cells have proven to be far more difficult to manufacture at scale, compared to their small-format counterparts that have dominated the market until recently. This difficulty is in part manifested by industry-wide low manufacturing yields. Based on reports and interviews with industry insiders, it can be estimated that large-format battery yield is somewhere between 70–90% with a ramp period of five years to reach steady state yield for a new production run.
Titan Advanced Energy Solutions (‘Titan’) is one of the companies working to meet a growing demand for better inspection technology. Their ultrasound sensing technology combined with a system-based approach to manufacturing provides early and actionable feedback to the manufacturing floor, positively impacting yield and scrap rates as well as overall cell production economics. Moreover, their scan-as-a-service business model does not burden customers with additional capital expense.
Formic: Automating Abundance
Formic doesn’t make robots. It makes it easy for manufacturers to adopt robots. Given the huge gap between their potential impact and actual deployment, I think it’s the most important part of the stack. If Formic succeeds, we’ll manufacture more, better things, more cheaply, in the US.
Formic is delivering Robots by the Hour to customers who don’t care who makes the robot or how, just that the job gets done well. Their customers don’t even want robots, really, they want reliable labor. That’s what Formic gives them. The model, and the company, is the brainchild of Saman Farid and Misa Ilkhechi. Misa’s LinkedIn model puts the societal value proposition clearly: Robots = Unlimited Labor.
Tackling Problems of Significance in Physical Industries
The Eclipse team has partnered with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and put out a report, The State of HaaS, detailing critical metrics specific to companies in the physical industries space. In aggregate, we reported data from over 400+ surveyed startups that are active commercially, mapping out the steps necessary to create a strong foundation upon which physical industry companies can build successful businesses.
The foundation for building a successful business in physical world industries begins with an end-to-end evaluation of your systems, operations, contracts, lead time efficiency, sales cadence, and overall reliability. Keeping these metrics in mind early when building an industrial tech company will help you lay a strong foundation from which the business can scale efficiently. For example, does the system you’ve built have reasonable ROI? Does your operating margin improve as you deploy in greater volume, or do deployment costs scale linearly with revenue? How efficient are your procurement processes and vendor lead times? Have you built the infrastructure that enables efficient remote diagnostics and customer support? These are just some questions to ask when building a compelling, agile business that can bring value to the physical industry space.
Semiconductor growth through as-a-service models
This report examines As-a-Service (AaS) as an increasingly relevant competitive growth model for the semiconductor industry. Originally successful in the software realm, AaS business models are poised to help semiconductor companies fuel growth, boost revenue, innovate faster, and deepen relationships with customers. When planned and implemented correctly, AaS can substantially increase shareholder value and improve predictability of revenue. However, if executed poorly, it can negatively impact a company’s bottom line.